iPod Issues

Daniel

As most of you know, I purchased an iPod about four months ago. It comes with iTunes, which is free, and iTunes is the application you use to transfer songs to (but not from) your iPod. Under Apple’s EULA (and as physically restricted by iTunes), you can only use each iPod on one computer.

So that’s two strikes against Apple’s way of doing things.

For the past year, I’ve been spending most of my nights in scenic Coudersport, Pennsylvania because of work. My Dell is at home in Chipmonk. I have my work laptop with me in Coudersport. My iPod is associated with my Dell per Apple’s restrictions. I insist on using my iPod with whatever computer is nearby. To facilitate this, I downloaded a program called EphPod. I was happy with it. It allowed me to move songs from my work laptop to my iPod. But it wasn’t great. I felt that the user interface was confusing, and didn’t allow me to see what was going on or really take much control over the process. I was aware of another iPod utility that I had read about in the same place I read about EphPod — sites like iPodLounge.

So I downloaded the trial version of Anapod Explorer. It uses the Explorer interface, which assuages my gripes with EphPod. The full version, which costs $25, allows you to transfer songs from the iPod to your computer. And Red Chair Software encourages you to use your paid license on more than one computer. This solves my whole main-computer-there-work-computer-here issue.

So the only feature missing from Anapod Explorer is a ripper. Its support pages recommend Audiograbber, which is freeware. At this point, that’s a requirement. When you install it “out of the box,” it will only encode up to 56 Kbps. This is unacceptable. But Audiograbber’s download page contains links to some MP3 encoder .dlls which allow you to encode MP3s up to 320 Kbps.

I haven’t used Audiograbber to rip any CDs as I write this, but it looks robust enough, and if it’s got Red Chair Software’s endorsement, I’ll commit some time to it.

Interestingly, I went home this last weekend and had some trouble with iTunes. I connected the iPod to my Dell. I have the “start iTunes when iPod is connected” option turned off, but I opened iTunes to rip a CD. As soon as iTunes was up, it started to autosync the iPod. I stopped this as quickly as possible.

So I did the whole “safely remove hardware” to the i Pod and unplugged it, and sure enough songs that I copied to it with third party software were missing. I assumed that the files still existed on the iPod’s hard drive, and that iTunes had simply deleted their entries from the iPod’s database. So I used Anapod Explorer to “rebuild the database.” In other words, I told it to scan the iPod’s hard drive for songs that were not in the database, and then re-add them. It told me it found like 35 songs and I thought everything was great … but it found songs I don’t even recall changing.

This little episode inspired me to drop iTunes altogether, uncluding as a ripper. It’s why I got Audiograbber.

In conclusion, while iTunes is convenient because it includes a ripper, burning software, a utility to download music (for 99 cents a song), and software to update the iPod, it isn’t quite feature-rich enough, it’s too restrictive, and it breaks cahnges you make with other software. So iTunes can F off.

iPod Issues

Multiple Topics

Daniel

So I just looked at some real old Historical Context entries that are sitting at the really old site. I can’t get over how … good … they are. They’re short and there are multiple entries per day. I talk about drinking coffee, waking up early, and studying for exams.

Nowadays my entries seem more like articles. Well, they are more like articles. I plan them at least a few minutes in advance, sometimes a few days in advance. They’re longer. They’re … less personal? Is that possible?

The Olympics are on. I’d say the best web site to read about the Olympics is NBC’s page. It’s so strange … the Internet allows us to take in information as it occurs; Yet I personally avoid pages like ESPN.com and CNN.com because I don’t want to read the results of Olympic events before I see them on TV. During the next Olympics or even the 2012 games, Americans may be allowed to view on-demand clips of event finals before they are shown on NBC. But when you’re at work, you might not want to spend two hours or even five minutes streaming that race to your computer.

This really brings up several interesting conflagrations: Sports as both news and entertainment, and the damned frustration that no matter where on earth the Olympics are held, the time of day is inconvenient for somebody.

First, sports. When it’s news, we want to find out about it immediately. Whether it’s a political election or a major event in a war or the latest on a hurricane, we don’t want to wait to see it on TV; we want the results right now, even if it means that we have to read them.

On the other hand, when it’s entertainment, we want to see it with our own eyes. If your friend tells you how The Village ends, you’ll poke their eyes out. You’ll record tonight’s episode of 24, but again, you don’t want to know the surprise ending in advance. The same applies to books, whatever.

And then you’ve got sports, which are mostly entertainment, but are covered more or less as news. Some people will record their alma mater’s bowl game and refuse to read or hear anything about it until they sit down and watch the tape themselves. But then some people will get on the Internet and watch the box score numbers update live. Here there is a distinction based on the importance of that day’s match. But I think a lot ties into personal preference. Personally, I would rather watch a gamecast of the numbers of the Yankees in the playoffs than record the game and watch it later.

The importance of the event relates directly to the Olympics. Also, the Olympics serve as the ultimate example of why you might want to watch an event later than read about it live. If it’s a baseball game, you might miss the broadcast of the game that is played while you’re at work, but hey — you can catch a game this weekend or next weekend or even Wednesday night. You might not see another World Series game until next year. Or another bowl game. And the Olympics … you won’t see them for another four years.

So Olympics seem to be more like entertainment than other sports, but in a kind of backwards way. Just like you wouldn’t want to read ahead of time that Rachel and Ross got back together, you might not want to read ahead that Paul Hamm won the individual all-around gymnastics gold medal. One is weekly fiction, the other is quadrennial nonfiction. Well, sports, anyway.

Oh … was I going to say something about how someone, somewhere is screwed because the Olympics are held just far enough away from their timezone? I don’t think any additional commentary is needed on that one.

Multiple Topics

Go Balloons

Daniel

Just watching the Democratic National Convention coverage on CNN. Immediately after John Kerry‘s speech, several thousand balloons were supposed to fall from the ceiling of the Fleet Center. CNN had a mic on the guy whose job it was to say “go balloons.” He was flipping out. He was so frustrated he actually dropped an f-bomb. (“Where the f— are the balloons?!”)

Also, I just read Lewis’s site. You know — I like to visit it once a month or so to keep his hitcount up. Lord knows the poor kid needs the boost. Anyway, Lewis ripped on the Morrison pics. In response, I will point out the fact that at the top of his site, Lewis points out a “Redesigned Look & Feel.” And I will point out that that’s pretty gay.

Go Balloons

Fun With VAX

Daniel

Brown called me on the phone yesterday, and we talked briefly about how I still have an RIT account and full user priveleges. A few minutes ago I Telnetted in to rit.edu for kicks. It told me that mail will no longer be emailed to my account because I’m over the storage quota. This happened (at least) once before, and I think the system deleted all my messages. Right now I have over 5,000 messages in my Inbox. I am fairly certain that every single message is spam. It’s not even worth the time to look for messages from real people. I mean, I used to have a story at the really old page about how if anyone were to email me at the old address, I would never respond and that person would think I’m a prick. I posted that story like eighteen months ago. And it’s still an issue.

So anyway, back to today. I was poking around VAX when I found:

Note: “SET FORWARD” at the “EMAIL>” prompt is now obsolete! For mail
preferences changes, including changing your mail forwarding, please
visit:

http://start.rit.edu

Of course, in VAX, the URL wasn’t a link itself, because it’s Telnet, not a web browser. Although you can use LYNX in VAX … hmm … Anyway, I checked it out. It’s really not bad. It’s got a lot of information and services, and it replaces and expands upon the old site (I’ll be damned if I can remember the URL) that you had to type in to register a computer on RIT’s network. It expands upon that site with some account management features. Seeing as how I’ve been stuck in this 23-months-and-counting grace period, and I’ve gotten probably 15,000 spams, I decided to check out the link to manage your mail preferences. It’s a neat page; There’s a box to change your forwarding address, a box to change your personalized address, a place to change your preferences for your listing in the campus directory.

Only problem is, it doesn’t work. I make changes to the fields, hit submit, and get an error message. After closer review I think it’s missing some radio buttons. Oh well. Not like I go there anymore.

Fun With VAX

New Font

Daniel

I don’t know if anyone noticed. Hell, maybe no one on Earth noticed.

But I changed the font on HC. It used to be Arial, now it’s Verdana. For a few days I didn’t know what to think, but today I think it is better, and I’ll be keeping it.

New Font

Cell Phone Wish List

Daniel

So how about a cell phone that starts my car? Or unlocks my front door. Not enough security? Make me type in a four-digit code. I’ll scroll through contacts … “Remote Start Car” … 4321. Why not? It already lets me surf the web, check my email, talk to everyone on Earth, and play video games.

Cell Phone Wish List

Domain Name

Daniel

Sup Hoss?

Finally. Historical Context at danpremo.com. No more pop-ups. No more ads at the top of the page. No more ads at the bottom of the page. No more ad frames. No more Tripod. I refuse to even link to tripod.com.

My new provider is 1&1. Lewis referred me. I asked Morash for the name of his provider, but 1&1 offerred the best deal with a domain registration included.

Of course, the honeymoon is already over. When I downloaded all my files from Tripod and then uploaded them to danpremo.com, the site didn’t work. Turns out my package does not offer support for Server Side Includes. No SSI? Are they serious? I mean … it’s SSI, not BackOffice.

Anyway, for now I’m basking. If I haven’t done it by now, I’ll be stripping the old site and turning it into a link to the new site. Then there’s the real old site … I have a soft spot in my heart for it. It’s really very much like an old stuffed animal that is faded and falling apart, but that I just can’t get rid of.

Domain Name

Brian Lewis

Daniel

You know what really scares me sometimes? Just how similar to Brian Lewis I really am. For the last year or so I’ve read pretty much nothing but classics and the occasional new Michael Crichton book. Brian Lewis’s favorite books? All classics. Son of a bitch. Now I’ll probably have to read Lewis’s favorites just so I can tell him that they’re not all that good.

Oh, and Lewis doesn’t like Bush, either. Gotta give him credit on that one, even if I’m not sure that W. will be the worst President ever.

When the hell is Donald Rumsfeld gonna resign?

Brian Lewis

Email Battles

Daniel

I signed into Yahoo! Mail today and discovered that it now offers 100 MB of space. That’s a pretty good upgrade from the 4 MB it offered up until now. I had to clean out my Inbox every three months or so. If I keep up that pace with, now, 25 times more space … I shouldn’t have to delete a message for the next six years!

It seems obvious that Yahoo! has made this free upgrade to its email service as a preemptive strike against Google’s Gmail, which will offer 1 GB of disk space. For free. Yahoo’s 100 MB isn’t as much, but it does make me think about MP3 players, where you probably don’t really need to carry every song you’ve ever heard.

But this is a big move on Yahoo’s part. I didn’t expect it. When Gmail goes final or into a public beta, I had planned on making it my primary email address for the disk space alone. Now, switching from Yahoo! Mail would mean telling everyone my new address, and that question pops up: Do I really need a gig for my email?

Email Battles