Frequently Asked Questions

There are a huge variety of players out there, but iPods are far and away the most popular, so we targeted them first.

We expect most of our users to be using Playtripper from internet cafes as they travel. The vast majority of internet cafes run PCs, so that is what we support.

Browsers are specifically designed to stop websites from writing files to your computer. This is to stop malicious websites from copying viruses, spyware etc without you knowing about it. They do let you download single files (with "Save As"), but we want to copy multiple files in one go (download podcasts, import music etc). That means we have to use a separate program, Sherpa, to do that.

We picked "Sherpa" because it just seemed to fit - it does all the hard work and heavy lifting for you, so you can just enjoy the trip. Which is exactly what those amazing, real-life Sherpas do.

Podcasts can be big, and can take a while to download, especially in more remote locations. If you had a lot of new episodes available, you could be waiting around for a long time for all of them to download. By letting YOU decide which ones to download and when, you can stay for as long or as short a time as you want to.

We do intend to add support for other formats such as video. But the vast majority of podcasts are in either MP3 or AAC/M4A format, and we wanted to get that capability out there first.

We want to keep Sherpa as light as possible so it fits comfortably onto your player. If you have some pre-ripped MP3 files, you can drag them onto your player using Sherpa, but there is no built-in CD->MP3 ripper. But there are a number of free ripper programs out there already. We have had good experience with CDex (http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/), or click the "read more" link for others. Alternatively, our partners as 7digital and eMusic) both sell the latest music in DRM-free MP3 format.

Artwork is cool, but we see it as a "nice to have", rather than a "must-have". For now we are concentrating on getting you the widest range of music and podcasts.

Sherpa relies on your iPod just looking to the PC like any normal USB key when you plug it in. Because you are plugging it into a PC, the iPod has to be in PC-format. Despite the fact that Macs can easily read both PC- and Mac-format USB devices, for some reason, if you initially install your iPod on a Mac, it Mac-formatted...which no PC can read. Because the PC itself can't read your iPod, Sherpa has no chance :-(

We take every care to ensure that Sherpa never goes wrong. But we know that nobody is perfect, and more importantly, we also know how much you rely on your MP3 player. So Sherpa backs up any of the "special" files that it changes, and you can easily restore them using the "Backup" menu in Sherpa.
You can also take "snapshot" backups whenever you are happy that everything works okay, so if anything ever went wrong, you can restore to a more recent backup rather than how it was when you first ran Sherpa (the original is always backed-up as well just in case!)
Unfortunately, the only thing we can't restore is any music files that you chose to delete - when they are gone, they are gone!

For example, if we know you are travelling to London, Paris and Rome, we know what to look up for you.

If we know things such as where you live, or what gender you are, we can try to match you to podcasts that we know similar people also like.

Playtripper is serious about protecting your privacy. And we loathe spammers. We do use your information grouped with that of other similar users, to compile statistics, or to refine our recommendations. But we would never sell any information that would identify you personally, such as your name, address or email address.

That means that you can still listen to your favourite radio shows from home, plus you get access to the best that the rest of the world has to offer. And you can store them up and listen at the time that suits you.

Instructions of how to do this are on the "Add Podcasts" link on the main menu.

Podcast are regularly updated with new episodes. If you "subscribe" to the series, Sherpa automatically tells you when there is a new episode avaiable. However, you may find a podcast with a couple of interesting episodes, but you don't care about new episodes. If you "Tag Episode" on the site, those ones will appear in your download list on Sherpa, and in "Your Podcasts". They stay there until you either download them or "Untag Episode".

If you are searching for, say "Madrid", and we find a whole series about Madrid, we assume that is very relevant to you and put it in the "Podcast Series" section of our results.

There are also lots of podcasts who produce episodes about different locations or subjects each week, so we also search for relevant episodes. We then show them in a different section of the results so that you can easily see whether the search found a single episode or a whole series.

iTunes is a great tool, it is simply not designed for travellers. iTunes works by synchronising your iPod with your iTunes. If you connect your iPod to someone else's iTunes (e.g. in an internet cafe), it only offers you two options: quit; or completely wipe your iPod and sync to the songs in that iTunes. Sherpa lets you manage your iPod directly, so you can just add new stuff without having to delete what you already have.

When you plug your iPod in at home, iTunes starts automatically. When you are away, Sherpa starts automatically. If they both start automatically, they will conflict with each other. So before running Sherpa, run Scout first to check that the coast is clear.

Many companies who sell music protect their songs from file-sharing using DRM technology. Unfortunately, there are many different "DRM" formats, and not all players support all of them. For example, the iPod supports files protected with Apple's "Fair-Play" protection, but not Microsoft's "WMA". More recently, several stores (including 7digital and eMusic) have started selling music in unprotected formats such as MP3 and AAC.

There are many competing file formats, and to make it more confusing, different players support different formats. The most popular formats are MP3 (the most universal); AAC/M4A (the default when you rip a CD in iTunes); and WMA (Windows Media Audio produced by Microsoft). There are also other less popular formats such as OGG, and FLAC.

Sherpa only supports files in the unprotected MP3 and AAC/M4A formats.