What do you think of iTunes now? For the first time in ages I've heard sensible people voicing disappointment with the latest version of Apple's iPod management application.
This version is so tipped towards buying from iTunes Music Store, particularly downloading movies, it's hard to remember this is really about managing your music library. Well, at least that's what I thought. If you think iTunes is fast becoming "bloatware", how about this - Doubletwist.
Not surprisingly you can download it from doubletwist.com.
Visually it's a stripped down version of iTunes. Rather than ITMS this one is oriented to Amazon's music service (MP3 downloads). Interestingly this version of iTunes supports many non-Apple devices including Blackberry and Android phones.
Oh yes, it's also free. Give it a try.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
Friday, October 02, 2009
Playing Flash with RapidWeaver
My daughter looks after the websites for the organisation she works for. She's off on holiday in Australia. Hold that thought.
Her sites, along with www.podserve.co.uk and www.1scan.co.uk along with our in development service at www.freephotoscanning.com are all developed using the Mac html development platform RapidWeaver. We both love the product and have been impressed with how easy it is to build our sites. A couple of weeks ago, before she went on holiday, she was asked to add a Shockwave Flash movie to one of the sites.
Neither of us had ever done this before. The SWF movie had been made by a professional development house, and very swish it is too. They sent her the movie - an swf movie file - plus four little sub-movies in the form of four .flv files, nicely zipped up into folders along with some HTML code. RapidWeaver has a facility to make an HTML page, which is what was done, and the relevant HTML code was inserted. It didn't work.
So we hunted around and found a suggestion for code which was said to work, along with some suggestions to make it work. This is the code we found and used, with some mods:-
By changing the suggested HTML into the above (changing the url to point to the exact location of the swf file) we got the movie to start to play. But the whole movie simply wouldn't play. That Friday afternoon was a mix of pre-holiday rush plus frustration, we were out of our depth.
"Can you look at it while I'm away? she said. And I said, "OK".
I have spent two weeks, most evenings, getting nowhere. But today I cracked it. here's how it was solved in the hope that our experience will save you time.
First problem, RapidWeaver didn't do a great job locating the files we needed in the right directory on our ISP's servers. To overcome this I used Filezilla to FTP the swf file where it needed to be.
The movie developer had supplied us with a folder containing the flv files. the folder had to be located in the same directory as the main SWF file. Pay attention now, the folder was called movies. Using Filezilla I uploaded that folder to the same folder.
I misread the instructions and changed the value 'mymovie' to the name of our SWF file. Much fiddling later, that's wrong. leave it as 'mymovie'.
Then just ran into a wall, tried everything I could think of, wasted hours, got into a very bad mood. Finally thought to check with tech support at Supanames (they host our sites) just to make sure SWF is supported in our hosting plans. They confirmed that it is supported - and kindly pointed out where I was going wrong. Here it is.
SWF is sensitive to case in folder names. So the folder we were supplied with - remember it was videos - should have been Videos. Yes, that's it, best part of two weeks of frustration because 'v' should have been 'V'.
If you're having trouble getting shockwave flash to play in RapidWeaver, check the case of your Videos folder. Save yourself a lot of bother.
Her sites, along with www.podserve.co.uk and www.1scan.co.uk along with our in development service at www.freephotoscanning.com are all developed using the Mac html development platform RapidWeaver. We both love the product and have been impressed with how easy it is to build our sites. A couple of weeks ago, before she went on holiday, she was asked to add a Shockwave Flash movie to one of the sites.
Neither of us had ever done this before. The SWF movie had been made by a professional development house, and very swish it is too. They sent her the movie - an swf movie file - plus four little sub-movies in the form of four .flv files, nicely zipped up into folders along with some HTML code. RapidWeaver has a facility to make an HTML page, which is what was done, and the relevant HTML code was inserted. It didn't work.
So we hunted around and found a suggestion for code which was said to work, along with some suggestions to make it work. This is the code we found and used, with some mods:-
By changing the suggested HTML into the above (changing the url to point to the exact location of the swf file) we got the movie to start to play. But the whole movie simply wouldn't play. That Friday afternoon was a mix of pre-holiday rush plus frustration, we were out of our depth.
"Can you look at it while I'm away? she said. And I said, "OK".
I have spent two weeks, most evenings, getting nowhere. But today I cracked it. here's how it was solved in the hope that our experience will save you time.
First problem, RapidWeaver didn't do a great job locating the files we needed in the right directory on our ISP's servers. To overcome this I used Filezilla to FTP the swf file where it needed to be.
The movie developer had supplied us with a folder containing the flv files. the folder had to be located in the same directory as the main SWF file. Pay attention now, the folder was called movies. Using Filezilla I uploaded that folder to the same folder.
I misread the instructions and changed the value 'mymovie' to the name of our SWF file. Much fiddling later, that's wrong. leave it as 'mymovie'.
Then just ran into a wall, tried everything I could think of, wasted hours, got into a very bad mood. Finally thought to check with tech support at Supanames (they host our sites) just to make sure SWF is supported in our hosting plans. They confirmed that it is supported - and kindly pointed out where I was going wrong. Here it is.
SWF is sensitive to case in folder names. So the folder we were supplied with - remember it was videos - should have been Videos. Yes, that's it, best part of two weeks of frustration because 'v' should have been 'V'.
If you're having trouble getting shockwave flash to play in RapidWeaver, check the case of your Videos folder. Save yourself a lot of bother.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
iTunes - Corrected - Freezing - Gone
We just love Apple, particularly their iPod and iTunes. Generally each new product marks a step forward. Generally, but not always.
At podServe, our CD ripping service, we rely heavily on iTunes. So a major new version, iTunes 9, seemed a big step forward. On closer inspection we've found a range of small changes that make the whole system much less intuitive. But the big problem we had is that it just keeps freezing, needing us to stop then start the program.
Thankfully we've just received the 9.01 iTunes update and I'm pleased to say (on the basis of the last 24 machine hours) the freeze problem has been solved.
At podServe, our CD ripping service, we rely heavily on iTunes. So a major new version, iTunes 9, seemed a big step forward. On closer inspection we've found a range of small changes that make the whole system much less intuitive. But the big problem we had is that it just keeps freezing, needing us to stop then start the program.
Thankfully we've just received the 9.01 iTunes update and I'm pleased to say (on the basis of the last 24 machine hours) the freeze problem has been solved.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Audiobooks - More Agony
You may recall the excitement a few months ago when a new version of iTunes gave us hope that the nightmare of audiobooks in iTunes was finally over. Sadly our hopes were premature. And I've got the searing email from an audiobook loving client to prove it.
I'll try to summarise where we are, and the problem we have. As far as Apple is concerned a book is a single entity, one that you start to listen to and continue with until the last page. In support of that iTunes now seems to work pretty well. You can make books bookmarkable, and they pop up in the Audiobooks zone. But ...
Most of the audiobboks clients send us are split into chapters. Clients want to access books by chapter just as you can dive into an album at any given track. If you buy downloads you'll find they're split up too. Take it from me, when you open an iPod with 50 or 60 audiobooks all split into chunks it's not a pretty sight. I'd go so far as to say it makes audiobooks on an iPod unworkable. Fine in iTunes, but for portable books you need to do something radical.
My thinking is that you take one of two courses. First, you join all the tracks together and force iTunes to make you 100 sections become a single chunk. That makes iPod navigation easy but if you just want to enjoy a favourite chapter that's going to be almost impossible. Second, you can leave the book in its various sections then just load that one book onto the iPod. This, I think, is less than ideal and still has problems but at least if you know what the best bits are called you can find them.
Overall Apple, sorry - still 2 out of 10 for audiobooks on iPods.
I'll try to summarise where we are, and the problem we have. As far as Apple is concerned a book is a single entity, one that you start to listen to and continue with until the last page. In support of that iTunes now seems to work pretty well. You can make books bookmarkable, and they pop up in the Audiobooks zone. But ...
Most of the audiobboks clients send us are split into chapters. Clients want to access books by chapter just as you can dive into an album at any given track. If you buy downloads you'll find they're split up too. Take it from me, when you open an iPod with 50 or 60 audiobooks all split into chunks it's not a pretty sight. I'd go so far as to say it makes audiobooks on an iPod unworkable. Fine in iTunes, but for portable books you need to do something radical.
My thinking is that you take one of two courses. First, you join all the tracks together and force iTunes to make you 100 sections become a single chunk. That makes iPod navigation easy but if you just want to enjoy a favourite chapter that's going to be almost impossible. Second, you can leave the book in its various sections then just load that one book onto the iPod. This, I think, is less than ideal and still has problems but at least if you know what the best bits are called you can find them.
Overall Apple, sorry - still 2 out of 10 for audiobooks on iPods.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
iAlbum Art - Suddenly No Cover Art
For many years we've used a great piece of software called iAlbum Art you can get it here - http://ialbumart.ipod-sync.com/index.htm. One of the aspects of the product that has impressed me is the quality of their support, and of course the ease of adding and embedding art in our music tracks.
Then on Monday - it didn't add art at all. Nothing, not a single image. Even the easy ones - The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Carpenters, even Oasis. So I tried a few things, eventually running it across Vista and XP, all with the same result. So I emailed support and very quickly got a reply. It seems Amazon has changed the way it handles album art enquiries so a new version of the program is needed. Looking at their site now it might even be that the new variant is there to be downloaded. Panic over.
But ....
It has just crossed my mind that there may be moves afoot to protect the copyright the labels guess they have in cover images. Could it be that Amazon are positioning themselves to make it impossible to download those little pictures in bulk? No, of course they're not. Or are they?
Then on Monday - it didn't add art at all. Nothing, not a single image. Even the easy ones - The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Carpenters, even Oasis. So I tried a few things, eventually running it across Vista and XP, all with the same result. So I emailed support and very quickly got a reply. It seems Amazon has changed the way it handles album art enquiries so a new version of the program is needed. Looking at their site now it might even be that the new variant is there to be downloaded. Panic over.
But ....
It has just crossed my mind that there may be moves afoot to protect the copyright the labels guess they have in cover images. Could it be that Amazon are positioning themselves to make it impossible to download those little pictures in bulk? No, of course they're not. Or are they?
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Error 48 / Error -48
Suddenly, after a period of normal working, our client’s iPod refuses to sync and reports Error -48. What is it? Why does it happen? How can you fix it?
I’m not aware of any official list of what various odd iPod / iTunes error messages actually mean. In this instance I think what your little device is trying to tell you is that it has found some corruption on the iPod hard drive. Looking at suggested fixes for the problem the hard drive seems to be the culprit.
In cases such as this my first suggestion would be to reset your iPod to factory settings. If you’ve never done this before it sounds drastic but really it’s straightforward. Just connect your iPod, then when iTunes recognises the unit from the main iPod management screen in iTunes select the option to restore to factory settings. This will take a few minutes and a couple of do-yo-really-want-to boxes and then the iPod will be wiped and a new operating system installed. Some more waiting and the flash memory will be refreshed and away you go. The final step should be an automatic re-sync of music, photos, contacts etc. It may take an hour but when done you should be back to a functioning iPod, problem solved.
Looking at other iPod users experiences (and these are mainly Windows rather than Apple Mac OS X) you can go a long way by using My Computer to locate the iPod and right clicking, then running the standard disc check facility. Many people have reported that this works for them and may be quicker than a full restore as it leaves the music etc on the iPod.
Personally the restore route is more attractive to me as it stays within the iPod / iTunes family, and that is developed by the people responsible for your portable music package.
What happens if the fault repeats? If this were my iPod and it was still within warranty I’d be inclined to lob the unit back to Apple. They’ll send you a new unit as a replacement and it might just be that your original iPod was the one bad apple in that days barrel.
I’m not aware of any official list of what various odd iPod / iTunes error messages actually mean. In this instance I think what your little device is trying to tell you is that it has found some corruption on the iPod hard drive. Looking at suggested fixes for the problem the hard drive seems to be the culprit.
In cases such as this my first suggestion would be to reset your iPod to factory settings. If you’ve never done this before it sounds drastic but really it’s straightforward. Just connect your iPod, then when iTunes recognises the unit from the main iPod management screen in iTunes select the option to restore to factory settings. This will take a few minutes and a couple of do-yo-really-want-to boxes and then the iPod will be wiped and a new operating system installed. Some more waiting and the flash memory will be refreshed and away you go. The final step should be an automatic re-sync of music, photos, contacts etc. It may take an hour but when done you should be back to a functioning iPod, problem solved.
Looking at other iPod users experiences (and these are mainly Windows rather than Apple Mac OS X) you can go a long way by using My Computer to locate the iPod and right clicking, then running the standard disc check facility. Many people have reported that this works for them and may be quicker than a full restore as it leaves the music etc on the iPod.
Personally the restore route is more attractive to me as it stays within the iPod / iTunes family, and that is developed by the people responsible for your portable music package.
What happens if the fault repeats? If this were my iPod and it was still within warranty I’d be inclined to lob the unit back to Apple. They’ll send you a new unit as a replacement and it might just be that your original iPod was the one bad apple in that days barrel.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Audiobooks _ even more
Earlier I've mentioned our ongoing problems with audiobooks. You'll recall issues fall into two categories, one actually recognising a track as being a book rather than music, the other being the chaotic nature of listings within the audiobook category.
I was impressed with the ease that tracks can be tagged as audiobooks in iTunes 8 and beyond, but one small glitch has been noticed since then. When you class an item as an audiobook it seems that this is placed within the iTunes local database files rather than embedded in the tracks (as was the case when converting from .m4a to .m4b). In practice if you only use your books on a single PC this is no problem, but if you transfer your audiobooks from one machine to another you will have to recategorise them all as audiobooks.
A step forwards? A step backwards? Take your pick.
I was impressed with the ease that tracks can be tagged as audiobooks in iTunes 8 and beyond, but one small glitch has been noticed since then. When you class an item as an audiobook it seems that this is placed within the iTunes local database files rather than embedded in the tracks (as was the case when converting from .m4a to .m4b). In practice if you only use your books on a single PC this is no problem, but if you transfer your audiobooks from one machine to another you will have to recategorise them all as audiobooks.
A step forwards? A step backwards? Take your pick.
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