iPod sync issues

A while back I was having trouble syncing my older iPod to iTunes. iTunes would think that it saw my iPod, but it would never show up on the sidebar. I could see it as an external drive under My Computer, but again no luck with iTunes. I went through a bunch of recommendations from Apple until I found this blog entry and it solved the issue in a matter of minutes. Hopefully I'll never have to come back to this again, but just in case, I wanted it here. And also if you need it. Some of the most helpful tips come from users who have figured things out, and not the actual help FAQ pages.