I thought I would throw this one out to the hive mind:
I have an audio book purchased through iTunes on a laptop of mine. This version was synched to an iPod Nano that is now lost. Now I want to transfer the book to another computer (it is the only content on the laptop iTunes library). I want to do this without resetting all the content on my Nano (the wife lost hers!).
Is there an easy way to do this?
Thanks in advance!
You could put the files on a thumb drive, by dragging the files from iTunes. Then you could take it to the other computer and grant it "permission" to the files after dragging them into iTunes on the new computer. The newest iTunes (9), now grants users the ability to share files across multiple computers (I'm pretty sure it works for both Mac and PC) by logging in to your account on other machines. Check out the movie that plays at the start of the new iTunes. It will explain how to do that.
Like Jen said, you can certainly "authorize" another machine for the audiobook content. iTunes has actually allowed you to do this for up to five computers for years. But, I'm not quite sure that is all you are asking. If you "sync" your Nano, the content will change to whatever is on your iTunes library on the machine you sync it on. There are workarounds to this, but it's a little tricky.
Yeah, either a thumb drive or a blank CD.
There is a crude method but it is 100% effective. I don't have iTunes by the way. Some sites have podcast that don't allow downloads. I play them into my PMA400 which records then as MP3s. I usually speed them up by 33% with audacity so I can listen faster and don't have to be tied to my computer while listening.
All of this can be done in the background so even though it might take hours of computer real-time it takes very little people-time.