Reader Debbie G. sucks up just enough that I answer her iPod syncing question in two sentences (and two parentheticals). She writes:
Since you’re the iPod guru, I thought you would know the answer to this….I just got an 80GB iPod Classic, very nice iPod! I know that this one will play podcasts one after the other instead of going back to the main screen after a podcast ends. I have put my podcasts in iTunes (latest version) from the earliest to the latest (top to bottom), anticipating that they would play down the list in the order they were recorded. However, when I sync the iPod, the list changes so that the top are the most recent and the bottom are the oldest, so I still have to mess with the iPod and click up to the next podcast while driving. I tried changing the iTunes order just to see what would happen and the iPod synced the same way. Is there a separate preference in the iPod itself that addresses this issue?
Navigate to the iPod’s Podcasts screen (the screen that lists all your podcasts rather than an individual podcast’s screen), select the podcast you’d like to listen to (again, something like the Macworld Podcast rather than an individual episode), and press the iPod’s Play button. The iPod will play the oldest episode first, then the next oldest, and on and on until it eventually plays the most recent episode.