Last week I had a few tech support calls, you know the type "How can I fix iTunes?", or "My iPod won't ..." plus a couple of very techie questions. One call came to my mobile while I was at a clients home setting up his music library and linking it to Apple TV. After the call my client asked if I'd thought of recording the instructions?
Total conceit overwhelmed me, client is an agent for artists and actors, was he thinking he'd found the next Sean Connery? Mr Bean? No, he politely pointed out that I'd delivered the instructions far too fast for person on the other end of the line to understand or make notes as we spoke. Client says this is complex, I need to take it more slowly, run through it a few times. Above all - get onto the clients screen and show him exactly what to do. Make it personal, make it interactive, bring it into the 21st century. At which point we digress into conversation about how a famous actor has just been paid a huge sum to do a voice over for some kind of instructional film.
As I chugged home on the underground I gave the idea some thought and by the time I got to Liverpool Street I made up my mind to do it. How hard can it be to record the sort of thing I say over the phone ten times a week? I'll tell you. Easy bit first.
Select some software. I wanted it to run on my Macs, a much nicer platform. So I checked a few offerings. Now I know what it's like to be truly confused. After much head scratching I homed in on ScreenFlow from Telestream. I'd like to say its the best but to be honest it was the only one I could understand and from the trial I can safely say it works pretty much out of the box. That I thought was the hard part.
It being snowing so I sat down to make my first video. Good? Am I good? No, I'm hopeless - I think I've made ten shots (could have been twenty) at getting anything. The phone rings, the central heating kicks in and the boiler fires up, I start to spout gibberish, I click the wrong bit of iTunes - we even had a pidgeon fly into the door out to the garden. Eventually, after well over an hour, I have produced my first iTunes video. It's just over two minutes, I can't believe how long its taken me to generate such a short video.
I have managed to upload it to YouTube and if you're in the mood for a giggle search for podServeVid01 and you can cringe through it. Well done Telestream, your ScreenFlow is great and I'm very glad I made the investment. All I need to do now is work out why YouTube has destroyed the quality of my first full length, feature packed, all star, low budget movie.
And if you hear of an actor being paid a fortune "just" to do a voice over, he's worth every penny.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Ripfactory
Ever since the earliest days of podServe I've been in contact with Patrick McGrath, formerly of Ripfactory. If you're casting a film and looking for 'lovable Irish rogue' I don't think you could find a better match. He was always helpful and amusing. Our conversations were mainly about copyright issues and Patrick was a great help.
At some point Patrick raised the question of their robotic ripping system and datagrooming software. Somehow ripping in quantity had never struck me as anything other than a task suited to a parallel rather than a serial approach so I said no to the robot, but yes to their software. The investment was modest, less than £500, but I did expect it to work in accordance with their own leaflets.
It soon became clear that the code was horrendously defective. Despite the best efforts of their technicians none of the programs I bought ever worked as described. Then in the autumn of 2007 I was contacted by a very irate Ripfactory robot owner. He felt he'd been treated very badly by Patrick, sold a robot, paid for it, no unit supplied. This was followed by other contacts from people with the same or similar stories - orders not fulfilled, poorly performing products. They were not happy bunnies. As I've said to many people now, not buying a robot was one of the best decisions I have made in CD ripping. In fact it was such a good decision I think I'm going to make it again today.
I was prompted to put a post here on the matter, and I called it "Ripfactory RIP?" That prompted a call from a less than happy Patrick McGrath. Early in 2008 Patrick contacted me again and said that the issues my post had highlighted had been resolved to the purchasers satisfaction, that the US company MF Digital had taken over supply of the hardware / software bundle, so would I remove my less than flattering entry. Which I did. Despite one or two more rumblings and grumblings things went very quiet on the Ripfactory front.
Yesterday I got a message from a contact in America suggesting I visit Ripfactory's site. Well, it seems poor Patrick's company has hit the buffers and has passed over to MF Digital. This strikes me as better news for Ripfactory's existing clients as I've been impressed by the people I've spoken to at MF Digital. If I had a mobile phone number for Patrick I'd ring him and ask what happened to the investors behind Ripfactory whose pockets were so deep they'd never let the company go but I'll let that one pass.
In these parlous times, and with other robot offerings now available, it strikes me that more suppliers will be fighting over a shrinking market. It will be tough to stay in the game, although thankfully for MF Digital they have other revenue streams so hopefully they'll be able to stay the course. But I still don't think CD ripping is a robot-solved problem, or maybe I'm just a parallel man to the core.
Anyway, even if Ripfactory is no more I hope Patrick resurfaces. Robots are a dime a dozen; lovable Irish rogues are in short supply.
At some point Patrick raised the question of their robotic ripping system and datagrooming software. Somehow ripping in quantity had never struck me as anything other than a task suited to a parallel rather than a serial approach so I said no to the robot, but yes to their software. The investment was modest, less than £500, but I did expect it to work in accordance with their own leaflets.
It soon became clear that the code was horrendously defective. Despite the best efforts of their technicians none of the programs I bought ever worked as described. Then in the autumn of 2007 I was contacted by a very irate Ripfactory robot owner. He felt he'd been treated very badly by Patrick, sold a robot, paid for it, no unit supplied. This was followed by other contacts from people with the same or similar stories - orders not fulfilled, poorly performing products. They were not happy bunnies. As I've said to many people now, not buying a robot was one of the best decisions I have made in CD ripping. In fact it was such a good decision I think I'm going to make it again today.
I was prompted to put a post here on the matter, and I called it "Ripfactory RIP?" That prompted a call from a less than happy Patrick McGrath. Early in 2008 Patrick contacted me again and said that the issues my post had highlighted had been resolved to the purchasers satisfaction, that the US company MF Digital had taken over supply of the hardware / software bundle, so would I remove my less than flattering entry. Which I did. Despite one or two more rumblings and grumblings things went very quiet on the Ripfactory front.
Yesterday I got a message from a contact in America suggesting I visit Ripfactory's site. Well, it seems poor Patrick's company has hit the buffers and has passed over to MF Digital. This strikes me as better news for Ripfactory's existing clients as I've been impressed by the people I've spoken to at MF Digital. If I had a mobile phone number for Patrick I'd ring him and ask what happened to the investors behind Ripfactory whose pockets were so deep they'd never let the company go but I'll let that one pass.
In these parlous times, and with other robot offerings now available, it strikes me that more suppliers will be fighting over a shrinking market. It will be tough to stay in the game, although thankfully for MF Digital they have other revenue streams so hopefully they'll be able to stay the course. But I still don't think CD ripping is a robot-solved problem, or maybe I'm just a parallel man to the core.
Anyway, even if Ripfactory is no more I hope Patrick resurfaces. Robots are a dime a dozen; lovable Irish rogues are in short supply.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
iTunes Playlists - How To Backup & Restore
You may be diligent in backing up your music, but what about your playlists?
Perhaps you think that backing up your music library automatically copies your playlists. Well, it doesn't so if you do have to restore your music library or reinstall iTunes, all those hard crafted playlists will be lost.
You can quickly and simply backup (and restore) all your playlists. If you'd like to know how we've created a simple guide. We'll happily send you a copy. Just email playlist@podserve.co.uk.
Perhaps you think that backing up your music library automatically copies your playlists. Well, it doesn't so if you do have to restore your music library or reinstall iTunes, all those hard crafted playlists will be lost.
You can quickly and simply backup (and restore) all your playlists. If you'd like to know how we've created a simple guide. We'll happily send you a copy. Just email playlist@podserve.co.uk.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Senuti - I Used It
Panic phone call from a client - he has a Mac with his music on an external hard drive. With impending dinner party the hard disk failed and he's concerned that he won't be able to pump music around the house using Airport Express. Mrs Client not happy about silence and looming dinner disaster. We talk about plugging his iPod directly into one of the Airport Express units as an emergency fix, that's a possibility but he wants me to make a house call to get music off iPod onto a new drive.
Normally the way we'd handle this is for the iPod to come back here where I'd connect it to one of the PCs and use XPlay to recover the music. I've spoken about XPlay many times before and think its a great product for this type of work. However time is against us so the music has to be recovered at clients home and since my PCs are all desktops that means either using my MacBook or his Mac. Either way I can't use XPlay as that's Windows only.
After a bit of Googling I saw Senuti (groaned to learn thats iTunes backwards) which is Apple OS X based software intended to let you recover music from an iPod back to your Mac. And its free, always a bonus. So when I arrived amidst the stricken music scene I set up Senuti, opened iTunes and crossed my fingers. As you connect the iPod you have to hold down the two keys next to the space bar (cmd,option) which intercepts the normal iPod sync process and lets you select disk mode. Once this is done the iPod is accessible from Senuti.
I was impressed. Senuti checks the contents of the iPod against iTunes and highlights what's on the iPod and not on the hard drive. In our case that was the entire iTunes library, so I selected all the tracks and hit the green arrow in the top left of the Senuti screen and waited. About 30 minutes later the tracks had been copied off the iPod onto the new hard drive. While this was being done I'd read that I could have set Senuti to add the tracks directly back into the iTunes library but I hadn't done that so I had to spend a few minutes reloading the library into iTunes, no great hardship.
Best of all one happy client and very happy Mrs Client. History doesn't recall if the meal was a triumph, I'm sure it was, but I was certainly cooking with Senuti.
Normally the way we'd handle this is for the iPod to come back here where I'd connect it to one of the PCs and use XPlay to recover the music. I've spoken about XPlay many times before and think its a great product for this type of work. However time is against us so the music has to be recovered at clients home and since my PCs are all desktops that means either using my MacBook or his Mac. Either way I can't use XPlay as that's Windows only.
After a bit of Googling I saw Senuti (groaned to learn thats iTunes backwards) which is Apple OS X based software intended to let you recover music from an iPod back to your Mac. And its free, always a bonus. So when I arrived amidst the stricken music scene I set up Senuti, opened iTunes and crossed my fingers. As you connect the iPod you have to hold down the two keys next to the space bar (cmd,option) which intercepts the normal iPod sync process and lets you select disk mode. Once this is done the iPod is accessible from Senuti.
I was impressed. Senuti checks the contents of the iPod against iTunes and highlights what's on the iPod and not on the hard drive. In our case that was the entire iTunes library, so I selected all the tracks and hit the green arrow in the top left of the Senuti screen and waited. About 30 minutes later the tracks had been copied off the iPod onto the new hard drive. While this was being done I'd read that I could have set Senuti to add the tracks directly back into the iTunes library but I hadn't done that so I had to spend a few minutes reloading the library into iTunes, no great hardship.
Best of all one happy client and very happy Mrs Client. History doesn't recall if the meal was a triumph, I'm sure it was, but I was certainly cooking with Senuti.
Friday, November 21, 2008
LaCie Ethernet Mini Failure
Just over a year ago one of my clients moved into a new house, complete with a swish new home entertainment system that includes a Sonos home audio system. The Sonos installer was adamant that the music library had to be on an external hard drive, and they supplied a LaCie Ethernet drive for the purpose.
I was asked to provide a data network with wireless capability. This was delivered by an Apple Airport Extreme sexy white box linked to a utilitarian Netgear modem / router hidden away in a cupboard. I connected it all up and away we went. A few days later the Sonos installer rang to say they were having trouble connecting the Ethernet drive, would I sort it out for them. After hours and hours of fiddling we eventually got it working by hanging the ZonePlayer off the Netgear router along with the Airport.
The Sonos system just sprung into life so not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth me and the Sonos technician left it at that. I did smell a rat because we could only connect the clients iMac via wireless, not via an ethernet cable. But the house was wired for sound, the client was happy (and dancing in the kitchen with Mrs Client) so we left it there.
Last week I got a call, the system had gone wrong, client couldn't sync his iPod. Yesterday I sat for nearly seven hours trying to get the system back working. Having tried all sorts of things to establish a link with the LaCie drive I gave up. Hang on here, I'm getting to the point, there was a ticking noise from the drive. Like death watch beetle. I suspected a hardware failure and contacted a disk recovery company. They suggested I send them the drive and prepare my client for a bill of £200 to £700 for their services.
I thought I'd try to get some advice from elsewhere so I posted a message on a technical website, and I also emailed another client who had bought a similar LaCie drive some months ago. I'm getting to the point now, I learnt a surprising few facts about LaCie drives.
Contributors to the technical site suggested the problem might not be the drive, it could be the power supply. They sent in stories of how drives had appeared to fail, then came back online when the power supply had been changed. This included instances where there was some power but obviously not enough power for proper operation. I was amazed, I had never thought that a power supply (that odd black transformer thing) could partially work making the drive light up but not actually run correctly. Surely that would be the first thing LaCie would suggest you check?
Then I got an email from the other client, he had exactly the same experience with his drive just short of its first birthday. Being a lawyer by profession he'd badgered LaCie sales in Tabernacle Street and had been given various suggestions - including that he check the power cable. Understandably I think he just thought they meant the bit of cable from the mains plug into the transformer. So he tried another and of course it made no difference. He sent the drive to LaCie and eventually he got a new drive, minus his data.
I'm left with the thought that LaCie have a problem with power to these drives. Are they letting us down by not making this clear? I don't know, but I do know people aren't going to carry around spare LaCie power units just on the offchance that this is the cause of drive failure.
Here's the punchline - if your drive fails, maybe its the power supply not the drive that is at fault.
I was asked to provide a data network with wireless capability. This was delivered by an Apple Airport Extreme sexy white box linked to a utilitarian Netgear modem / router hidden away in a cupboard. I connected it all up and away we went. A few days later the Sonos installer rang to say they were having trouble connecting the Ethernet drive, would I sort it out for them. After hours and hours of fiddling we eventually got it working by hanging the ZonePlayer off the Netgear router along with the Airport.
The Sonos system just sprung into life so not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth me and the Sonos technician left it at that. I did smell a rat because we could only connect the clients iMac via wireless, not via an ethernet cable. But the house was wired for sound, the client was happy (and dancing in the kitchen with Mrs Client) so we left it there.
Last week I got a call, the system had gone wrong, client couldn't sync his iPod. Yesterday I sat for nearly seven hours trying to get the system back working. Having tried all sorts of things to establish a link with the LaCie drive I gave up. Hang on here, I'm getting to the point, there was a ticking noise from the drive. Like death watch beetle. I suspected a hardware failure and contacted a disk recovery company. They suggested I send them the drive and prepare my client for a bill of £200 to £700 for their services.
I thought I'd try to get some advice from elsewhere so I posted a message on a technical website, and I also emailed another client who had bought a similar LaCie drive some months ago. I'm getting to the point now, I learnt a surprising few facts about LaCie drives.
Contributors to the technical site suggested the problem might not be the drive, it could be the power supply. They sent in stories of how drives had appeared to fail, then came back online when the power supply had been changed. This included instances where there was some power but obviously not enough power for proper operation. I was amazed, I had never thought that a power supply (that odd black transformer thing) could partially work making the drive light up but not actually run correctly. Surely that would be the first thing LaCie would suggest you check?
Then I got an email from the other client, he had exactly the same experience with his drive just short of its first birthday. Being a lawyer by profession he'd badgered LaCie sales in Tabernacle Street and had been given various suggestions - including that he check the power cable. Understandably I think he just thought they meant the bit of cable from the mains plug into the transformer. So he tried another and of course it made no difference. He sent the drive to LaCie and eventually he got a new drive, minus his data.
I'm left with the thought that LaCie have a problem with power to these drives. Are they letting us down by not making this clear? I don't know, but I do know people aren't going to carry around spare LaCie power units just on the offchance that this is the cause of drive failure.
Here's the punchline - if your drive fails, maybe its the power supply not the drive that is at fault.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
iPod Service Module Error - Continued
A short while ago I published several snippets on the ill fated iPod Service Module Error. Initially my own stumblings at trying to overcome the problem, then what I thought was the definitive solution which was posted in a reply from reader CBGRI.
I've now had this comment from Jackie:-
CBGRI...thank you!! You have saved me. I have looked everywhere, tried registry changes, reinstalling itunes 10000 times, uninstalling norton, etc etc and nothing worked but this has fixed the problem with ease.
This is the only place online that i've found the answer. Honestly, i am so grateful, thanks! x
So, thanks again to CBGRI, you can find his (or her) solution down this blog.
I've now had this comment from Jackie:-
CBGRI...thank you!! You have saved me. I have looked everywhere, tried registry changes, reinstalling itunes 10000 times, uninstalling norton, etc etc and nothing worked but this has fixed the problem with ease.
This is the only place online that i've found the answer. Honestly, i am so grateful, thanks! x
So, thanks again to CBGRI, you can find his (or her) solution down this blog.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
iTunes 8 - My Glitches
Downloaded the new version of iTunes, mainly to see what this genius is, but also tried a couple of tasks. I'm screaming.
First, who decided to take away the Consolidate Library command? I must use that two or three times a day. Yes I can use a standard Finder or Windows function to copy a file but this was better. It saved me time because it checks fist to see if I have enough disc space; it saved a lot of bother because I was confident the new directory would indeed contain all the album tracks I had copied across. New software should be a step forward, not back.
Worse was to come.
I burn a lot of DVDs. 100 plus a week. I use standard iTunes commands to burn music. Under iTunes 8 I got an error message which kept asking me to insert blank media. I have to say this has happened before and I had to do a fair bit of head scratching to recall the fix.
While the mental cogs were spinning I tested the drive, I swapped various DVDs, pretty sure they were all blank, even went out and bought a stack of blank Sony DVDs just so I could be absolutely sure each disc was factory fresh. Every time, it kept telling me that it thought the disc I'd inserted was not blank. Please insert blank media, please insert blank media. Some sort of screwed up mantra.
Tried it on three machines, same every time. Then I remembered what had happened before and how I'd got round it. Due to the way I rip clients CDs (across six machines) I have a selection of USB connected drives and one clients collection ends up spread across one or more drives. When the ripping is done I just unplug the drive from its computer then plug it into a single machine with which I compile the master CD music library.
For some reason a while back iTunes took exception to music stored on external drives when burning DVDs. The fix? Just move all the music off the hard drives onto a single internal hard drive. And that's where I once more cursed the loss of Consolidate Library, but at least I've said goodbye (for a while) to "Please insert blank media ....."
First, who decided to take away the Consolidate Library command? I must use that two or three times a day. Yes I can use a standard Finder or Windows function to copy a file but this was better. It saved me time because it checks fist to see if I have enough disc space; it saved a lot of bother because I was confident the new directory would indeed contain all the album tracks I had copied across. New software should be a step forward, not back.
Worse was to come.
I burn a lot of DVDs. 100 plus a week. I use standard iTunes commands to burn music. Under iTunes 8 I got an error message which kept asking me to insert blank media. I have to say this has happened before and I had to do a fair bit of head scratching to recall the fix.
While the mental cogs were spinning I tested the drive, I swapped various DVDs, pretty sure they were all blank, even went out and bought a stack of blank Sony DVDs just so I could be absolutely sure each disc was factory fresh. Every time, it kept telling me that it thought the disc I'd inserted was not blank. Please insert blank media, please insert blank media. Some sort of screwed up mantra.
Tried it on three machines, same every time. Then I remembered what had happened before and how I'd got round it. Due to the way I rip clients CDs (across six machines) I have a selection of USB connected drives and one clients collection ends up spread across one or more drives. When the ripping is done I just unplug the drive from its computer then plug it into a single machine with which I compile the master CD music library.
For some reason a while back iTunes took exception to music stored on external drives when burning DVDs. The fix? Just move all the music off the hard drives onto a single internal hard drive. And that's where I once more cursed the loss of Consolidate Library, but at least I've said goodbye (for a while) to "Please insert blank media ....."
Friday, June 27, 2008
iPod Service Module Close Error - Solved?
In an earlier post I mentioned how several www.podserve.co.uk clients had run up against this problem. Despite helpful suggestions we were unable to find a solution. The best I could offer was a workround using a product such as Xplay (now up to version 3 by the way).
Well, fingers crossed, iPod and iTunes users could have a solution thanks to an authorative reply which I think deserves prominence. Here it is in full:-
We had the exact same problem for months and found that it was an empty device driver. So check that before you read on ... Right click on your Computer, go to manage, then highlight Device Manager. If there is nothing listed, try the following options. The first possibilities are offered by MS but did not work in my circumstance as we had not recently updated to MS SP 3.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311504
and
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953791/en-us
Then I found an old posting printed below from JAZZ that was originally from Annoyances.com, AND IT WORKED! You may want to uninstall ALL iTunes related software, then reinstall.
Good Luck
CBGRI
From : http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum/windows-xp/15653-device-manager-blank.html
re: Empty Device Manager
"The issue is security permissions in the registry. I cannot tell how they are lost
but I can tell you how to fix it short of having to re-install Windows!
You must use regedt32.exe in Windows 2000/XP (as I have not seen this problem posted
for any other operating system). Be very carefull making changes in the regisrty!
You must be logged on as a local administrator to perform this task:
1. Go to "Start", "Run", and enter "regedt32"
2. Maximize the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" window.
3. Scroll down to "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum"
4. With "Enum" selected click the "Security", "Permissions" menu.
Note: At this point you will probably notice there are no permissions on this key.
5. Click "Add".
6. Add the group "Everyone" and the user "SYSTEM".
7. Select "Everyone" and check "Read" ONLY!
8. Select "SYSTEM" and check "Full Control".
9. Click the "Advanced" button at the bottom of the window.
10. On the Advanced window check "Reset permissions on all child objects..."
11. Click "OK"
12. On the warning window click "Yes"
13. Close REGEDT32
You should now be able to see everything in Device Manager, Network Places Properties,
and Printers."
My thanks to CGBRI, wish I knew more about you so I could credit you properly.
Well, fingers crossed, iPod and iTunes users could have a solution thanks to an authorative reply which I think deserves prominence. Here it is in full:-
We had the exact same problem for months and found that it was an empty device driver. So check that before you read on ... Right click on your Computer, go to manage, then highlight Device Manager. If there is nothing listed, try the following options. The first possibilities are offered by MS but did not work in my circumstance as we had not recently updated to MS SP 3.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/311504
and
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/953791/en-us
Then I found an old posting printed below from JAZZ that was originally from Annoyances.com, AND IT WORKED! You may want to uninstall ALL iTunes related software, then reinstall.
Good Luck
CBGRI
From : http://www.softwaretipsandtricks.com/forum/windows-xp/15653-device-manager-blank.html
re: Empty Device Manager
"The issue is security permissions in the registry. I cannot tell how they are lost
but I can tell you how to fix it short of having to re-install Windows!
You must use regedt32.exe in Windows 2000/XP (as I have not seen this problem posted
for any other operating system). Be very carefull making changes in the regisrty!
You must be logged on as a local administrator to perform this task:
1. Go to "Start", "Run", and enter "regedt32"
2. Maximize the "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE" window.
3. Scroll down to "SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Enum"
4. With "Enum" selected click the "Security", "Permissions" menu.
Note: At this point you will probably notice there are no permissions on this key.
5. Click "Add".
6. Add the group "Everyone" and the user "SYSTEM".
7. Select "Everyone" and check "Read" ONLY!
8. Select "SYSTEM" and check "Full Control".
9. Click the "Advanced" button at the bottom of the window.
10. On the Advanced window check "Reset permissions on all child objects..."
11. Click "OK"
12. On the warning window click "Yes"
13. Close REGEDT32
You should now be able to see everything in Device Manager, Network Places Properties,
and Printers."
My thanks to CGBRI, wish I knew more about you so I could credit you properly.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Compilations Pestilence in iTunes
For most of us how our music files are organised is of little interest, iTunes takes care of it. We just see the collated view of our music library. But for some users iTunes causes problems. First, iTunes creates an awful lot of folders; second, you get one massive folder called 'Compilations'.
Compilations will contain a large number of albums lobbed there without any rhyme or reason by the random hand of fate that is the CDDB database. Also, you'll get a main folder per artist, within which you'll find all the tracks attributed to that person. This can be complex when you have a large number of artists with just one track. If, for example, the main artist is a rap star the chances are the rest of the tracks on the album will co-credit another artist using the term 'featuring' or 'feat.' or even 'ft'. Everytime two names are joined together you get yet another artist folder.
How can you overcome this?
First the curse of featuring. No quick way round this but you just have to edit out everything that appears after the main artists name. If you've ticked the box 'Keep iTunes library organized' in Advanced / Preferences then those stray tracks will be moved back to where they belong - in the main artist's folder.
Second let's tackle compilations. You need to isolate everything in the compilations folder. This is how you do it - go to Prefernces / General and tick the box 'Group compilations when browsing'. Then when you look at your library, in the Artist column, you'll see an entry for Compilations. Click on this and you'll see all the tracks which have been marked as part of a compilation.
Select all these tracks by highlighting one of them then hitting Control + A. Right click, and Get info. The box that pops up has a box in the bottom left corner marked Compilation. Just switch the setting from Yes to No, and as if by magic iTunes will slot all thos tracks out of the amorphous Compialtions folder into the artist folder.
Compilations will contain a large number of albums lobbed there without any rhyme or reason by the random hand of fate that is the CDDB database. Also, you'll get a main folder per artist, within which you'll find all the tracks attributed to that person. This can be complex when you have a large number of artists with just one track. If, for example, the main artist is a rap star the chances are the rest of the tracks on the album will co-credit another artist using the term 'featuring' or 'feat.' or even 'ft'. Everytime two names are joined together you get yet another artist folder.
How can you overcome this?
First the curse of featuring. No quick way round this but you just have to edit out everything that appears after the main artists name. If you've ticked the box 'Keep iTunes library organized' in Advanced / Preferences then those stray tracks will be moved back to where they belong - in the main artist's folder.
Second let's tackle compilations. You need to isolate everything in the compilations folder. This is how you do it - go to Prefernces / General and tick the box 'Group compilations when browsing'. Then when you look at your library, in the Artist column, you'll see an entry for Compilations. Click on this and you'll see all the tracks which have been marked as part of a compilation.
Select all these tracks by highlighting one of them then hitting Control + A. Right click, and Get info. The box that pops up has a box in the bottom left corner marked Compilation. Just switch the setting from Yes to No, and as if by magic iTunes will slot all thos tracks out of the amorphous Compialtions folder into the artist folder.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
iPod Service Module Close Error
I posted a while ago on the problem a client had experienced with iPod Service Module needing to Close, what now seems to be a common problem for iPod and iTunes users. If you read that you might have thought I'd found a cure.
Unfortunately I think I was wrong. Judging from the many people who have contacted me over this the full range of corrective measures (install, uninstall, close firewall & virus scanners) all have no effect. My thinking now is that this is a problem arising from iTunes (under Windows) and essentially there's nothing any of us can do. I don't think anything you did brought it on you, its just a random glitch.
If you get hit by the iPod Service module needs to close message I don't think you can fix this, its out of your control. However I have suggested to some people that until an iTunes fix comes along you can look at using XPlay 2 from Media Four (www.mediafour.com). This is a great piece of software and should allow you to move tunes on and off your iPod until a proper fix is found.
Unfortunately I think I was wrong. Judging from the many people who have contacted me over this the full range of corrective measures (install, uninstall, close firewall & virus scanners) all have no effect. My thinking now is that this is a problem arising from iTunes (under Windows) and essentially there's nothing any of us can do. I don't think anything you did brought it on you, its just a random glitch.
If you get hit by the iPod Service module needs to close message I don't think you can fix this, its out of your control. However I have suggested to some people that until an iTunes fix comes along you can look at using XPlay 2 from Media Four (www.mediafour.com). This is a great piece of software and should allow you to move tunes on and off your iPod until a proper fix is found.
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