Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: Need an iTunes expert

OK, I've been assimilated w/ a 20GB iPod. One of my Xmas presents to myself. The other is a new singlespeed cyclocross frame that I'm getting built up...

I'm a newbie, just got a 20GB 4gen. I have an extensive library of mp3's on my home computer and a subset on my work laptop. I've loaded itunes on my laptop and connected my desktop HDD as a network drive so that the files stay on the desktop but I can still use the laptop to sync. Everything syncs fine on the laptop when I'm at home. At work, that mp3 network drive is gone, so the files are inaccessible. I have iTunes set to only sync specific playlists which is fine.

Today I added a new audible playlist that's on my laptop. I didn't want to sync all the other playlists so I unclicked them. I resynced and my audible files are there but my 2GB of mp3 were erased!

Need some suggestions on how best to handle this scenario.

1) How do move my laptop iTunes environment to my desktop? I have to install iTunes on the desktop but want to mimic my laptop config.

2) What do I need to do to protect the files on the iPod when I sync from work where the network drive is gone? Do I have to do a manual sync or only sync the playlists I'm updating?

Any clever suggestions are welcome. Now I have resync 2GB of files...sigh

Thanks.