Monthly Archives: September 2008

iTunes. Trying again

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The main directory is 80gig. There are files perfectly tagged through to files with no tags but either way it’s 80gb. Cleared the music from iT and re-added. Then checked for Dupes. I have just one ZZTop CD called Eliminator but again iTunes tells me I have 2. Other examples continue to abound. I known some apparent dupes exist – Finished Symphony by Hybrid I have 3 versions of but iT tells me I have 3 of each version which I absolutely do not. It tells me I have more music than I have.

Go to the Apple forums and look at the iTunes forums – it illustrates just how much of a black box this software is. Unless you bought everything from them probably.

I genuinely have no idea how to make iT behave in such a way that it adds just one version of a track when there is actually just one version of that track. And it seems that the collected “knowledge” in the Apple forums hasn’t a clue either.

What I think I should do is use some Windows programs to better tag and organise the music – because those programs do not exist on a mac – and then not let iTunes play or organise a single track. Just use it to drag tracks to the iTouch.

If iTunes was exactly the same program but was released by Microsoft then people would mock wildly. It really is not that good.

iTunes iTunes iTunes

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Fed up of dupes in playlists and actual files I read the Apple KB page. I then:
Remove all files in Users/mark/Music/iTunes
Allow iTunes to organise the music
Allow iTunes to copy the music
And I point it at a folder on the other drive and I Add to Library.

If you google ‘remove duplicates’ you find results going back to 2006. You find various scripts, you find forum posts – you are finding an actual problem that has not been addressed at all by Apple.

When the folder completes I look at the list of files. I have 2 of some, 3 of another – of everything. I check the iTunes folder into which the music was copied. I own a Bond CD called Explosive. I have 3 copies in the music folder. iTunes has made 2 copies of the original file. WHY? Can’t Apple figure out a problem that has existed for over 2 years? Can’t they be bothered? I could make a cheap shot about ‘genius’ here but the simple fact is that behaviour like this is idiotic. It’s atrocious. I don’t care that I have the space. I want ONE copy of a track. Not 2, not 3. ONE. There are threads in the Apple forums which ask this and none are addressed fully, none have a solution. Nothing. Why?

And that Genius crap? Try a Beatles track – it’ll find nothing suitable. That’s not genius, it’s petty.

Because Tim says so.

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Back in the mists of time I was a nurse at the Leicester Frith Hospital in Leicester. Unfortunately my manager at that time was Elaine Moore. Because she was a manager she was the person who would be asked for more resources, different resources, why something happened and why something did not when it clearly should have done. And she would take no discussion about these things when she disagreed. Her favourite phrase was “You are not in possession of all the facts”. The direct implication was that she knew everything and the correct decision had been made. The thing was that she didn’t tell you the facts in a way that you could check – you had to take her at her word. There are only so many times a trite phrase will work and this one was well worn out. She also lied.

I’m sure the US Govt have all the facts (or will say they have) about who shot JFK, how Marilyn Monroe died, Area 51, Diebold, the Florida elections and others. I’m sure the UK and French Govt’s will claim all is revealed about Diana’s crash. And I’m totally sure that whatever the Soviet Govt told it’s people about the West was true. And wikipedia is the sum of all human knowledge so that really must be the truth. Just because you say you have the facts means nothing.

So it’s pretty amazing that the father of the internet is saying that websites should be vetted for their content. Can’t he see that this is impossible? That it will fuel even more conspiracy theories? The “I know this is a fact and it is a fact because I say so” just doesn’t work. It becomes a Big Brother situation. And as soon as you start to say FACT you not only set people directly against that you may also stifle thought. If a site says that something is a fact but they don’t know about some element of what they cover then how can you trust them with the fact? And the person who is checking will agree with their version, their viewpoint.
And once this happens with so-called ‘fact based’ sites how long before politics and commerce really do move in and because they have this apparently good platform which is trusted by some it has a good start.

The Foundation will also look at concerns that the web has become less democratic, and its use influenced too much by large corporations and vested interests.

What are they going to do? Ban Google? And look at ‘less democratic’ – by branding sites they will actually be making it even more less democratic. They will be concentrating what they see as expertise to stifle the alternative view.

They can’t put the cat back in the bag – why do they keep trying?

The last..

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And so begins a week of lasts. Nothing morbid, nothing bad, all very normal in fact, but the list of lasts has started.

And in matters unrelated J could be in for some bad health news this week so we are hoping that the results we get are unremarkable.

iTunes8 and Windows

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If you run Windows you really should not update to iTunes8. It could be an extremely bad thing to do and Apple are certainly playing in the filthy end of the pool by installing stuff you didn’t agree to. http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=536.
It’s like they are trying to make people hate Windows for being unstable so they move to Apple machines. What’s the one app I have open at all times? Activity Monitor – because every single day apps “stop responding”. Just 2 days ago Safari – an Apple app – crashed and took the whole machine with it. Had to reboot. (And why is the ipod touch backed up verey single time you connect it? Because it crashes, And when yours does crash what should you not do? Restore from a backup. Spot the sense in there.).

So one of Apple’s EULA’s – this one – does not mention that they will hide stuff on your machine and potentially crash it using code they know will crash it. Another Apple EULA – the Safari 3 – does not mention it also installs other programs. No updates inform you that they are actually severe and critical security updates (because they want to pretend that OS X is totally secure unlike that crashing Windows stuff). But another EULA – that for Leopard – says “Please only use me once in one machine”. They lie and screw the user but they don’t want the user to screw them. Fair? No. Bet that’s locked down to a single machine in the next version.

Oh yes, Genius does not recognise AC/DC in my music to make a playlist. Because what Apple actually mean is this: “It creates a playlist not from your music, but from the music that can be bought from us.” So it is not your playlist. It’s theirs.

iTunes8

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Ignoring the severe and critical security updates that Apple slides into it’s “Hey look! Nice new features” updates iTunes8 is, well, crap. I have all the AC/DC albums up to and including Highway to Hell. But because AC/DC have not yet drank the Apple poison then their music and all alike it does not exist.
It continues to be annoying that if I have something like Trance Anthems it will put the cover art on the first cd only. So the grid view will show one cover then 5 blanks. Can’t they join the dots and just show me the one? I don’t have the level of recall to think “Yeah, 3rd CD, 7th track”, I just know which album it is on.
It’s also annoying that it will not give me the cover art for a CD I bought, I ripped and it’s in their damn store.
I bet it’s not fixed the duplicates issue.
I just clicked ‘Sloop John B’ by the Beach Boys. Apparently that will segue nicely into ‘One of these days’ by Pink Floyd, ‘Breaking the Law’ by Judas Priest and also ‘Tubular Bells’.

It’s all about their greasy marketing.

A quiet congress

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Alistair Darling spoke at the TUC today. What a complete non-event and he – and Labour – must be glad that Thatcher emasculated the unions. I still recall the ‘fire and brimstone’ speeches, the loud clamour for action, the fog of smoke, the use of ‘comrades’ when it was meant in the left-wing sense as opposed to the ‘mates down the pub’ way it seems now. It was that limp Wolfie Smith would have seemed an extremist there from what was on the news. Inspiring it was not and if anything it showed how poor the Unions are today. That’s poor in (1) membership (2) belief and (3) profusely thanking someone who just came and didn’t deliver.

A late post

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The house is stressful in a hidden sort of way, has been for a while now. It’ll be around for another couple of weeks too. Jacq isn’t so good but isn’t so bad either, just a bit worse than normal. Though what she says is a bit could well be more. It’s hard to tell and she rarely does say just how much. And I saw the doc today and it looks like I’m rundown though quite how that happened is beyond me. Life is normal unless it’s that stress thing. 14 days of that to go.

The ipod touch hasn’t crashed since. That said I’ve put no more apps on, just the ones J plays, I use and Frotz and Metasquares. Got some Sennheiser CX300′s today which should enhance the listening pleasure while tramping around fields with the dog.

And Miro. Need to find some good viewing there.

Replacing the music machine

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The ipod touch crashed again earlier. I thought I’d take a few minutes away from the monitor to try and beat my daughter’s score of 100 on the Dactyl game. Press Home, touch the screen and that was that. It froze and nothing I did could budge it from the Apple logo. This was just after 6pm and the genius bar in the store in town had a slot at 7pm. The guy there reset it, plugged it into his MB and because it did zip he agreed it was time for a new one. Oddly after several minutes it did connect and behave but he said it was odd. I didn’t ask for a new one (I knew I’d get a refurb) and I didn’t ask to buy an upgrade (because he’d have declined). But I did get what looks like a new touch under the same guarantee which works for me. Did lose the screen protector though…

Update: Restored, added music, added some apps. Tapped ‘Settings’ – and that killed it. So it’s yet another restore. Why are they not doing some elementary QA on the apps they are pushing? Whatever is happening cannot in any way be my fault. It’s software all the way and Apple are 100% in control of everything in their store.

Be Googlebot

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This has been posted many times by many people and I think I’ve done it before but this time I did it better. The experts-exchange site – you have a question, a web search shows the probable answer and you have to sign up to see it. Got an ipod touch problem and want to read the forums at http://www.ipodtouchfans.com and you need to register to see the answer.

No registration required

Not needed.
Go to this page at Tech patterns. Install the User Agent Switcher plugin, restart Firefox then go back to that page and import the nice big UA list. Switch to googlebot 2.1 (New Version) and then go to that ipod touch forum and read all you need. Useful extension, very useful list.