So you have an iPod. Great, now that you’ve got it home and are ready to rock-out, what do you do? Put in the iPod CD and install all the software and iTunes? NO! For those of you who dislike iTunes as much as I do, here’s a different suite of tools to get your tunes in your pocket.

If you already have the misfortune of having iTunes installed, you’ll want to uninstall it before continuing.

Step 1: Get your iPod set up

The first thing you need to do is make sure your iPod is set up on your computer, and that it has the latest version of the iPod firmware. You can download the iPod Updater from Apple’s website. Install this, follow and follow the instructions to flash your iPod to the latest version of the firmware.

Step 2: Replace iTunes

The next step is to set up an alternative to iTunes itself. Though there are many different media players out there that can do the job to one degree or another, my recommendation is to use a classic bit of software from Nullsoft.

Yes, I’m talking about Winamp! Grab and install the latest version of Winamp (5.22 as of this writing) from the website. Out of the box, Winamp doesn’t support iPods.

Download the ml_iPod plugin from its Sourceforge page, and run the installer. It will prompt you to disable the built-in ml_pmp.dll file that comes with the newer versions of Winamp. This is the attempt at bundling iPod support with Winamp, but the two components don’t play nicely with each other.

Thats it! Once you’ve got that installed you’ll be able to sync to your iPod all you want from Winamp…. on ANY computer.

Note: If you had already sync’d your iPod with iTunes, you may need to format and re-sync with Winamp. Doesn’t happen every time, but DRM will get ya….