So I really have been digging the Windows 7 beta.  However, Itunes does not sync podcasts correctly on the 64 bit version.  IF syncing works at all, it takes a while. I had used winamp to listen to my music a while ago, but had switched to amarok when I started single booting linux (yes, I hated Vista that much).  Now that I’m back to using windows a bit, I wanted my podcast experience to go flawlessly.

As much as I dislike iTunes, they have got podcast management down pat

• search for podcast
• subscribe to podcast
• download episodes
• sync with ipod
• after an episode has been listened to, delete from computer hard drive

That last point is the most important part, everything else can be done manually

All this can be done with winamp. You will need two things, winamp and the ml_iPod plugin.  While winamp does come with ipod support built in, ml_iPod has many more features.  The following steps should get you up to speed on podcasting with winamp

• install winamp
• install the ml_iPod plugin (it will tell you it has to remove the built in ipod plugin, this is ok)
• set a directory to save the episodes in
  
• plug in your ipod
• enable podcast support for the ipod
• point it to your episode folder
• set the query for when to delete old episodes
  
• Add your podcasts by searching for them in the directory, or adding them manually using their RSS feed
  

After this you should be good to go. podcasts!