‘On The Go’ iPod playlists, have, until yesterday passed me by. I usually create these playlists as a shortcut way of creating a set of albums I want to listen to so that I don’t have to fiddle around with my iPod between albums. With an On The Go playlist I can listen to one album straight after another.

But yesterday whilst I was visiting my dad, and watching the rain fall at The Oval I decided to create an On The Go playlist. A quick few minutes scroll up and down to bash in 28 songs, then onto shuffle mode. Bingo! A playlist of where my head was at yesterday.

Which brings me onto Musical Snapshots: a collection of dated playlists reflecting my mood on that day, or what I fancy listening to. They are half random; half intentional. And with folders in iTunes 5 I can hide them away as a musical archive.

Furthermore, with AppleScript I can grab an On The Go playlist from an iPod and put it back into my iTunes library.

So what about the iPod nano? Well, like the iPod shuffle, it’s great for mix albums since there’s no skipping and no extra battery drain. But I now have a list of three types of content:

• DJ Mixes – I have a iTunes genre specifically for these things
• Notable albums – mainly ones I’ve just bought that I want to listen to
• Musical snapshots

..leaving my larger iPod more as a general music library.