Months ago I needed to copy some music into iTunes as part of a clients job, something I've done thousands of times before, and it went wrong. I hunted around to find out why and came across a folder I hadn't seen before - Automatically Add to iTunes. What was it for?
Apparently it acts as a holding area for tracks you might want to add to iTunes. Drop your music there and the next time you fire up iTunes those tracks will, er, be added to iTunes - automatically. However I've noticed that having that folder side-by-side with the rest of my music files can cause issues. So if I have to do a bulk import into iTunes I've got into the habit of deleting that folder, and no harm has come to me. Of course the folder pops up again thanks to the magic of iTunes.
But all this got me thinking ... what on earth is the point of this? Having scratched my head I can't really see what this delivers. Any suggestions?
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Playlists - Act Now, Before it's Too Late
PC had crashed, but he'd backed up all his data so quickly installed a new machine and copied iTunes across. It was a big job, we'd ripped his CDs a couple of years ago and it was a big library then. One sigh of relief, but wait ---- where are all the playlists?
Sorry, but they're lost.
If you back up the location that stores your music tracks that is all you have secured. Sure that's the main thing you need to keep hold of but it's the music, only the music and nothing but the music. Your playlists live elsewhere so unless you can fire up iTunes on the old PC, sorry, those playlists are lost.
That's why we created a quick guide for clients of our CD ripping service explaining how they can backup playlists before the worst happens. The guide is free and you can get it from www.podserve.co.uk - backup now, before it's too late.
Sorry, but they're lost.
If you back up the location that stores your music tracks that is all you have secured. Sure that's the main thing you need to keep hold of but it's the music, only the music and nothing but the music. Your playlists live elsewhere so unless you can fire up iTunes on the old PC, sorry, those playlists are lost.
That's why we created a quick guide for clients of our CD ripping service explaining how they can backup playlists before the worst happens. The guide is free and you can get it from www.podserve.co.uk - backup now, before it's too late.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
iTunes + Cloud? CloudTunes?
The rumour mill is grinding away in advance of the Apple media event coming up in the next few days. Most it's concentrated on the Apple tablet (iSlate? iSlice? iSlab?) but some brave souls have been speculating on an implementation of iTunes which draws on the latest IT hot topic - cloud computing. What would this mean to most users?
The answer has to be peace of mind and convenience. Let me explain why.
About the only thing you can be sure of with computer hard drives is that sooner or later, they will fail. Today users have massive amounts of data, unbelievable only a couple of years ago. When we began ripping CDs we stored clients work on an 80 Gb drive and it tooks weeks before it was filled. Just a few years later this laptop has the same amount of storage, small by many of today's machines. Can it be backed up? Technically yes but very few of us have the discipline to backup our discs, and what do we backup to? Yes, another hard drive with all the risks of that failing. Our moves into photo scanning have shown how people are adding to their storage demands.
CloudTunes would allow you to migrate your precious music from your local PC or laptop away to a centralised data warehouse professionally managed. A location where systems and hardware are in place to keep your music safe.
Convenience? Suppose you're working late in your office and you'd like to listen to your music. Simply point your PC to your iTunes part of the cloud and play away. Kids at uni? Draw on the cloud. Pump music around the house? Just point each PC to the cloud. Tired of waiting for music to download? It will appear instantly if your library links into the cloud.
If it's not this week it is surely time for clouds to gather over iTunes.
The answer has to be peace of mind and convenience. Let me explain why.
About the only thing you can be sure of with computer hard drives is that sooner or later, they will fail. Today users have massive amounts of data, unbelievable only a couple of years ago. When we began ripping CDs we stored clients work on an 80 Gb drive and it tooks weeks before it was filled. Just a few years later this laptop has the same amount of storage, small by many of today's machines. Can it be backed up? Technically yes but very few of us have the discipline to backup our discs, and what do we backup to? Yes, another hard drive with all the risks of that failing. Our moves into photo scanning have shown how people are adding to their storage demands.
CloudTunes would allow you to migrate your precious music from your local PC or laptop away to a centralised data warehouse professionally managed. A location where systems and hardware are in place to keep your music safe.
Convenience? Suppose you're working late in your office and you'd like to listen to your music. Simply point your PC to your iTunes part of the cloud and play away. Kids at uni? Draw on the cloud. Pump music around the house? Just point each PC to the cloud. Tired of waiting for music to download? It will appear instantly if your library links into the cloud.
If it's not this week it is surely time for clouds to gather over iTunes.
Friday, January 15, 2010
iTunes Error 2131
Contacted by a client who suddenly found he couldn't burn CDs from iTunes. When he tried he just got an error message - the code was error 2131. How can that be fixed?
Reasonably on getting Error Code 2131 as he ran iTunes he naturally assumed that the cause of the problem was something within iTunes. Of course any single software application relies completely on interaction with the operating system which in this case was Microsoft Windows. iTunes does some things, Windows handles thousands of other tasks. For an exercise to be completed correctly, such as burning a humble CD, both iTunes and Windows need to play their part.
It is difficult to quickly see where the source of any error might lie, but my immediate thought was that this stems from Microsoft who offer a wide range of Error Codes. When we've been ripping CDs I think we've seen most of them but this one was new to me.
First stop - Google the error code. Wow, aren't there a lot of people hit by Error Code 2131 was my first thought. Looking at their posts to forums and blogs this has been going on for years. One common complaint - why doesn't Apple fix this? In my experience Apple does so having seen the age of the issue my suspicious eye turned to Microsoft.
Reading through the posts I felt that the majority of users complaining were laptop users. Next, why doesn't Microsoft fix this? Reading deeper into the messages from those who had beaten error 2131 they had done so either through an edit in Windows Registry or by downloading firmware for their drives. If you're not familiar with the term firmware its a small program a device such as a DVD or CD writer needs to function. Logically it sits "under" the operating system and therefore out of Microsoft's remit; physically it is stored on a small microchip on the logic board driving the writer.
Dell, Fujitsu and Toshiba owners were all hit, odd in itself as these are better quality manufacturers. I can't prove it but my suspicion is that they have all sourced CD / DVD drives as components from the same manufacturer. At some point something has happened resulting in a clash between Windows and the drive. Indeed this is what the error code is trying to say.
If my analysis is correct this really is the responsibility of the manufacturer and indeed several Dell users have downloaded a new version of firmware for their writers which has put an end to 2131. Owners of other makes have said this has worked for them too.
What should you do if iTunes stalls with Error 2131? Try Googling 2131 with the name of your PC manufacturer and that might give you access to a firmware update. Try your suppliers support website too, and log this as a fault with them. If you purchased your machine recently from a decent supplier think about contacting them and maybe even rejecting the machine. In my opinion far too few people do this.
Beyond these comments and suggestions I'm sorry to have to say if you get both iTunes and Error 2131 I'm sorry, I don't have an instant solution.
Reasonably on getting Error Code 2131 as he ran iTunes he naturally assumed that the cause of the problem was something within iTunes. Of course any single software application relies completely on interaction with the operating system which in this case was Microsoft Windows. iTunes does some things, Windows handles thousands of other tasks. For an exercise to be completed correctly, such as burning a humble CD, both iTunes and Windows need to play their part.
It is difficult to quickly see where the source of any error might lie, but my immediate thought was that this stems from Microsoft who offer a wide range of Error Codes. When we've been ripping CDs I think we've seen most of them but this one was new to me.
First stop - Google the error code. Wow, aren't there a lot of people hit by Error Code 2131 was my first thought. Looking at their posts to forums and blogs this has been going on for years. One common complaint - why doesn't Apple fix this? In my experience Apple does so having seen the age of the issue my suspicious eye turned to Microsoft.
Reading through the posts I felt that the majority of users complaining were laptop users. Next, why doesn't Microsoft fix this? Reading deeper into the messages from those who had beaten error 2131 they had done so either through an edit in Windows Registry or by downloading firmware for their drives. If you're not familiar with the term firmware its a small program a device such as a DVD or CD writer needs to function. Logically it sits "under" the operating system and therefore out of Microsoft's remit; physically it is stored on a small microchip on the logic board driving the writer.
Dell, Fujitsu and Toshiba owners were all hit, odd in itself as these are better quality manufacturers. I can't prove it but my suspicion is that they have all sourced CD / DVD drives as components from the same manufacturer. At some point something has happened resulting in a clash between Windows and the drive. Indeed this is what the error code is trying to say.
If my analysis is correct this really is the responsibility of the manufacturer and indeed several Dell users have downloaded a new version of firmware for their writers which has put an end to 2131. Owners of other makes have said this has worked for them too.
What should you do if iTunes stalls with Error 2131? Try Googling 2131 with the name of your PC manufacturer and that might give you access to a firmware update. Try your suppliers support website too, and log this as a fault with them. If you purchased your machine recently from a decent supplier think about contacting them and maybe even rejecting the machine. In my opinion far too few people do this.
Beyond these comments and suggestions I'm sorry to have to say if you get both iTunes and Error 2131 I'm sorry, I don't have an instant solution.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Lock Closes iPod
Panic phone call yesterday evening from a CD ripping client. She was moving her music from an old to a new laptop when for some reason her iPod became locked. She couldn't do anything with it, couldn't play music or synch with new library. Help.
First, why a lock? Well it beats me, it's the last thing I'd want on my iPod but maybe I'd think differently if I had younger children or jape oriented colleagues. It is an effective way of stopping access to anyone else. But once in place you need that four digit code to unlock it. As far as I can tell there isn't a master code as that would rather defeat the object of the lock, so once in place it turns your humble iPod into a small bank vault.
Here's how you overcome the problem. You have to connect the iPod to its original computer, the one it was connected to as its master library before the lock code was put in place. Once connected to that computer you have from the standard iPod menu in iTunes the option to reset to factory defaults. If you take that option the iPod is reset (minus the lock) and you have to download all your music back onto the iPod. For more information search for iPod lock in the Apple support pages.
First, why a lock? Well it beats me, it's the last thing I'd want on my iPod but maybe I'd think differently if I had younger children or jape oriented colleagues. It is an effective way of stopping access to anyone else. But once in place you need that four digit code to unlock it. As far as I can tell there isn't a master code as that would rather defeat the object of the lock, so once in place it turns your humble iPod into a small bank vault.
Here's how you overcome the problem. You have to connect the iPod to its original computer, the one it was connected to as its master library before the lock code was put in place. Once connected to that computer you have from the standard iPod menu in iTunes the option to reset to factory defaults. If you take that option the iPod is reset (minus the lock) and you have to download all your music back onto the iPod. For more information search for iPod lock in the Apple support pages.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Is It a Hiss?
One of our CD ripping clients emailed me. He's upgraded to some high quality head phones and now notices a short hiss on certain tracks just before the music starts. Is this usual?
Our client is much younger than me and its a fact your hearing gets less precise as you get older so I'm not surprised that try as I might I can'r hear it on my music, either through headphones or decent speakers. So the best I could do is suggest a way round this if the hiss is becoming intrusive.
If you highlight the offending track, then right click (Get Info) then you to the tab Options, part way down you'll see a box for Start Time. The blank box shows minutes and seconds. If you put an entry here iTunes will miss out that part of the music file. The setting can be changed or removed safely - but you can use it to edit out anything at the beginning of the track that you don't want to hear.
Our client is much younger than me and its a fact your hearing gets less precise as you get older so I'm not surprised that try as I might I can'r hear it on my music, either through headphones or decent speakers. So the best I could do is suggest a way round this if the hiss is becoming intrusive.
If you highlight the offending track, then right click (Get Info) then you to the tab Options, part way down you'll see a box for Start Time. The blank box shows minutes and seconds. If you put an entry here iTunes will miss out that part of the music file. The setting can be changed or removed safely - but you can use it to edit out anything at the beginning of the track that you don't want to hear.
Wednesday, October 07, 2009
An iTunes Alternative?
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.
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.
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.
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