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This little program is intended to solve an annoying problem that arises from the fact that our beloved iPod Shuffles do not contain an internal clock.

Whenever a song is played on the Shuffle, the song's last played date is not updated. This is not desireable when you have smart playlists that rely on the last played date.

Use this program as follows:

1. Make sure that in iTunes Preferences the option for 'Keep this iPod in the source list' is checked for your Shuffle. Do not have another playlist of the same name as your Shuffle's.

2. Run ShuffleUpToDate
3. Select your Shuffle's playlist from the popup menu
4. Click "Run before update" and wait while the program analyses the playlist
5. Connect your iPod Shuffle to your computer and wait until iTunes has finished updating
6. Click "Run after update" and wait.

Note: There is a problem with how AppleScript refers to a track and that the Shuffle's playlist is read-only. That means once the program has found a track that has been played it needs to find the track in the iTunes database. This is a rather time consuming process. The more songs you have listened to the longer you'll have to wait.

This program has been tested with iTunes 4.9 on Mac OS X 10.4.2. I have no idea if this works correctly with other versions of the OS and iTunes. Also I haven't tried giving my iPod strange names with special symbols. It shouldn't be a problem though.

This program is freeware. However, its development, maintenance and deployment costs money, and if you want to donate, go right away to paypal.com and donate whatever you want to zimmerleut@gmx.de. Suggested donation: equivalent of 1 beer (in Germany: 3 Euros). Thanks.

Version history:

v0.91 August 10 2005
- rewrite of update algorithm. Should be way faster now.

v0.9 August 05 2005
- first public release