VersatileMonkey.com Forums

I'm new to PodTrapper, love it, and have "a few" questions:

1) When I connect my BB to my PC via USB, it seems like it completely confuses both PodTrapper and the entire BB, as well. It cannot find the media card at all afterwards. This never happened before I installed PodTrapper. I used to regularly access the files on my media card via USB - but now I basically need to restart my phone each time after unplugging it from the PC.

2) I would like to occasionally be able to copy podcasts that I downloaded with PodTrapper onto my PC for more long-term retention. Is there an easy way to figure out which files are which podcasts when looking at them via a PC? I do see the filenames from within PodTrapper - but it's all unintelligible ("PE_1.mp3.dat" or something like that) when I'm looking at it on my PC. (Having PodTrapper name them with obvious names and the file properties would certainly help this.)

3) Is it possible to have PodTrapper save all my "60 Minutes" podcasts to a folder called "60 Minutes" and all my "This American Life" podcasts be saved to a folder called "This American Life"?

4) Why are the files saved as ".mp3.dat"? If I remove the ".dat" after I copy it onto my PC - is it just a regular MP3 file?

5) If I were to switch my phone from a BB to an Android and wanted to use PodTrapper on the Android, would backing-up my settings on the BB and restoring them onto the Android work if I follow your instructions? Where are the settings backed-up to, anyway?

6) When I first loaded PodTrapper, I didn't understand the settings, so I set some podcasts to download 100episodes. I'd like to listen to them at some point, but I'd also like to change the settings for all my subscribed podcasts to 5. If do that now, I believe it will delete the oldest 95 of them and I'll never hear them. What's the easiest way to change the setting now to 5 and have it download the other 95 as I listen to them, e.g. 5 at a time?

Thanks so very much!
Eliezer

Hi Eliezer,

EliezerB wrote:1) When I connect my BB to my PC via USB, it seems like it completely confuses both PodTrapper and the entire BB, as well. It cannot find the media card at all afterwards. This never happened before I installed PodTrapper. I used to regularly access the files on my media card via USB - but now I basically need to restart my phone each time after unplugging it from the PC.

Hmm, can you describe what you see after unplugging? Does PT constantly show 'Mass Storage Mode'?

EliezerB wrote:2) I would like to occasionally be able to copy podcasts that I downloaded with PodTrapper onto my PC for more long-term retention. Is there an easy way to figure out which files are which podcasts when looking at them via a PC? I do see the filenames from within PodTrapper - but it's all unintelligible ("PE_1.mp3.dat" or something like that) when I'm looking at it on my PC. (Having PodTrapper name them with obvious names and the file properties would certainly help this.

If you grab the latest beta (http://ota.versatilemonkey.com/beta/) it actually uses human readable names, so that should solve that one for you.

EliezerB wrote:3) Is it possible to have PodTrapper save all my "60 Minutes" podcasts to a folder called "60 Minutes" and all my "This American Life" podcasts be saved to a folder called "This American Life"?

Not in folders, unfortunately. But the human readable names should help with that a lot. (They start with the podcast title, then the episode title).

EliezerB wrote:4) Why are the files saved as ".mp3.dat"? If I remove the ".dat" after I copy it onto my PC - is it just a regular MP3 file?

This should also not be an issue in the latest beta. (No more .dat). This was used to hide them from the media player, but I found a better way.

EliezerB wrote:5) If I were to switch my phone from a BB to an Android and wanted to use PodTrapper on the Android, would backing-up my settings on the BB and restoring them onto the Android work if I follow your instructions? Where are the settings backed-up to, anyway?

Yep. The PT_B_* files (or PT_Backup_ on the latest beta) are the backup files on your SD card.

EliezerB wrote:6) When I first loaded PodTrapper, I didn't understand the settings, so I set some podcasts to download 100episodes. I'd like to listen to them at some point, but I'd also like to change the settings for all my subscribed podcasts to 5. If do that now, I believe it will delete the oldest 95 of them and I'll never hear them. What's the easiest way to change the setting now to 5 and have it download the other 95 as I listen to them, e.g. 5 at a time?

There are two settings that control this. The 'max to auto download', and the 'max to keep'. The to keep number is the one you want to set high, so that it doesn't delete old ones to make room for new ones. The auto download number is the one you want to keep low, to only download a few at a time. Does that make sense?

Let me know if I can help further.

-Marcus

Marcus, thank you so much for your swift response! I just purchased my registration today and am so thrilled with PodTrapper!
Sticking to the same question numbers...

1) I'm actually not seeing that problem any more. (Could it have only been in the trial version? Don't make sense, right?...) So is it "safe" to plug it in via USB without closing PT first?
2) Sounds great; I'm now at version 3.0.20 - is that the newest beta version?
3) Hooray!
6) My goal in this is to (eventually) listen to all available episodes (there are hundreds) of a particular podcast. I figure the best way to do so is by starting from the oldest episodes - 5 at a time. So I want PT to "forget" that it's ever downloaded the newer episodes that it has already - so it will eventually pull them all. Would I accomplish this if I'd set the max to download to 5, the max to keep to 5, "check" the "download after delete", and choose to download oldest episodes first - then it will basically get all existing episodes as I listen to them, just 5 at a time? Do I also need to unsubscribe from the podcast and/or delete all of the already downloaded episodes and have them all download again, and/or or reinstall the app altogether? Would PodTrapper Desktop Downloader help me here? (Sorry for the verbosity here; I'm having trouble articulating this one.)
7) What happens if I (manually) delete a file using my PC via USB off the media card? Will PodTrapper detect that and remove the episode from the Main Screen as well as from the playlist(s)?

Thank you so much for a great app and great support!
Eliezer

If you want it to 'forget' you'll have to unsubscribe and resubscribe to the podcast. Delete All would prevent them from being auto-managed, but no need to reinstall.

The desktop downloader doesn't have any built in functionality other than offering a way to not use wifi or the cell network (instead using your PC's connection).

If you delete a file PT won't take any action. It will simply mark the file as missing in the details.

Let me know if I can answer anything else.

-Marcus