I subscribe to several podcasts where the filenames of the downloaded mp3 files have no particular pattern to them. When I copy the directory of accumulated mp3 files into my mp3 player, the files play in alphabetical order. What I really want is to play the files chronologically by release date.

I currently use iTunes on Windows XP to download the files. What I do now is manually rename the files, adding the date in YYYYMMDD format to the start of each filename so that an alphabetical listing of files will correspond to their chronological order when I listen to them later in PocketTunes on my Palm Centro.

Is there some way to get the release date into the filename automatically? If so, I could automate or possibly skip the file renaming step. I would switch from iTunes to something else if that would solve my problem.

The file creation time on my local disk isn't a reliable indicator because sometimes I download a few days worth of content at one time, and the files don't necessarily get downloaded in chronological order.