Here’s the scenario. Bear with me, it’s kind of tedious:
My local copy of my music files are stored on a Windows desktop. We’ll call that PC1. For the record, I also store a synched backup at MP3Tunes.
Julie and I both have iPods. We listen to podcasts. I use iTunes on PC1, but she subscribes to her own set of podcasts on her Mac. We’ll call that Mac1.
As far as I can figure, you can’t load stuff (songs and podcasts) on the same iPod from multiple computers, particularly when those computers use different operating systems. When I plug my Windows-formatted iPod into Mac1, it wants to reformat it and wipe the thing clean. The same happens in reverse with Julie’s Apple-formatted iPod.
In short, I want to load music from PC1 and then podcasts from Mac1 onto the same iPod. I think this is impossible, at least if I want to use iTunes. What do you think?
This problem would go away if iTunes offered support for user profiles. I guess I’d better submit a feature request.
I think the least painful solution is to remove my Windows PC from the scenario by copying all of the music to an external hard drive. Then we can just attach that to either of our Macs, and access the music library that way. Alternately we could try to set up a home network amongst all our computers. Both of those solutions feel like way too much solution for such a simple problem. Such is consumer computing in 2008, I guess.
Microsoft named this developer platform “PlaysForSureâ€Â, and they (and their partners) ran many, many ads decrying the fact that music purchased from Apple’s iTunes Music Store would “only†play in iTunes and on iPods. This was, technically speaking, true  and indeed it is still true, and it is why I have cautioned Dora and you and anyone else who would listen that you should never “purchase†anything from the iTunes Music Store that you might want to “own†longer than Apple was willing to allow.
I can’t get very excited about digital rights these days, but this is a well-written explanation of why this stuff might matter to the average Normal Human.
They toured with this husband-and-wife duo of an indie band called Mates of State. I liked what I heard, so I figured I’d purchase some MP3s and give them a more extended audition in my music collection. But which songs to buy?
First stop: Wikipedia, which indicates that they have five albums, dating from 2000 to a May, 2008 release.
Next stop, eMusic, where I’m a subscriber. eMusic only offers their first three albums. eMusic says their most popular songs are, in order, “Ha Ha”, “The Kissaway” and “Fluke”.
To Amazon. Amazon claims to stock four albums, but one is, in fact, just an EP. Plus, they say that the 2004 album is Mates of State’s “latest release”. Clearly this is not the case. Top songs on Amazon: “Goods”, “Along for the Ride” and “Jellyman Kelly”.
Next, the iTunes store. I don’t usually buy from them, but I figured I’d have a look. iTunes lists six albums (including the EP). Confusingly, one album is listed twice. Assuming the 2008 album isn’t out yet (though why isn’t it available for pre-order?), iTunes has the most exhaustive catalog. Most popular songs: “Goods”, “Along for the Ride” and “Fluke”.
On YouTube, the top videos are for the songs “Fraud in the 80s”, “Get Better” and “Fluke”.
Finally, there’s Last.fm. The most popular songs there are “Ha Ha”, “Think Long” and “Like U Crazy”.
Finally, I visited the band’s website. Why did I go here last? Because band websites are often lousy, and rarely help me to answer the question “which songs should I buy?”. I see that their forthcoming album isn’t out to May 20th, 2008. Their first single is out, though, and the video features a scooter rider in rabbit mask:
There’s clearly little consensus out there on the best three Mates of States songs. Is there a market out there for a website that just answers that question? It could be FirstThreeSongs.com. It could grab data from the above (and other) sources, and produce a reasonably definitive three song starter list for every band on the planet.
Speaking of podcasts, does this ever happen to you? I don’t auto-synchronize my download podcasts in iTunes to my iPod. Instead, I choose which ones to move over and listen to.
As a result, iTunes periodically stops downloading new episodes of each podcast. It doesn’t matter how recently I’ve listened to an episode–every couple of weeks it just freezes the downloads. I looked for a setting to turn off this, uh, moderation, but couldn’t find one.
A couple of years ago, I downloaded The Waifs’ great cover of Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right” from the iTunes store. I’ve bought less than five songs from iTunes, so I suspect this was one of their free weekly downloads.
When I acquire a song from iTunes, I usually convert it to MP3 format, and delete the iTunes file. I did convert this song, but didn’t delete the original.
This song came around in the big, randomized playlist on my newish MacBook, and I got the dreaded digital rights management-powered message. This is the first one of these I’ve seen from iTunes (click for a readable version):
Let’s see…those five machines would be my Windows desktop, an iMac at the office, our two old laptops and Julie’s MacBook.
It’s no skin off my nose, because I already converted the file to MP3. Interestingly, I only have access to one of those five machines anymore. I could only de-authorize one, therefore extending this file’s life by only one machine.
From the error message, it looks like the authorization is account-wide, not song-by-song. Does anybody know if that’s the case?
In any case, this is pretty complicated stuff for Nomal Human computer users, and it’s a cautionary tale for iTunes song owners. If you forget to de-authorize your old machines, I think you’re limiting your music library’s lifespan. Do I have that right?
I happened to hear on the CBC today that Diana Krall has a new compilation album out called The Very Best of Diana Krall. I’m not a fan, but it got me thinking about ‘best of’ albums, why they’re made and how they’re marketed.
I didn’t think for very long, because I decided that I know almost nothing about the subject. Presumably these albums aren’t targeted at dedicated fans, because they already own almost all the tracks from their original releases.
Just Some Demos I Recorded in My Basement
I say ‘almost’ because the compilation album usually includes one or two token ‘previously unreleased’ songs, which are obviously there entice the loyal fan who wants to own everything by their favourite artists (I’m reminded of an old Barenaked Ladies song). iTunes, PureTracks et al have changed this practice, enabling fans to only purchase the 10% of the music that they don’t already own. That said, I’m guessing that most Diana Krall fans will still be buying CDs as opposed to downloading music.
One way to get fans to buy compilation CDs is to pair them with another whole CD of previously unreleased material. I remember that the 10,000 Maniacs did this, and I bought in. Did I get real value for my money? Probably not, but I was pleased to hear 14 new songs (or versions of songs) that I hadn’t heard before.
Assuming it isn’t existing fans, who buys compilations? I’m so out of tune with the music buying patterns of the average adult that I have very little idea. How do people over thirty buy music these days? Do they go to HMV or Walmart with particular CDs in mind? Do they decide ‘I’m going to buy a CD today’, and then peruse the store aisles for something that strikes their fancy? Do they usually visit the artist’s website first?
How do you shop for music? Do you buy compilations? I’m less interested to hear from the iTunes and Music users of the world, and more keen to hear from people who walk into bricks and mortar stores and walk out with shiny plastic discs.
On a vaguely related note, while watching season one of “Heroes”, I was reminded once again of how Ms. Krall and Ali Larter were separated at birth.
There’s a cool program, for Mac and PC, that lets you see my iTunes library and listen to songs from it. It’s called Simplify Media.
With it, you can share your music with up to 30 friends. So far, I have about five friends (not in life, I mean with this iTunes sharing). And as long as my computer’s on and SM is running, you can browse and play my music, and I can do the same with yours.
I’m currently listening to Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” courtesy of Travis’s crapload of music. I have no right to judge anybody’s taste in music, but All Saints? The whole album? Really?
Anyhow, I thought it’d be fun to connect with other users who are Simplify users, or want to try it. We could all ‘invite’ each other, and form an ad hoc network of our iTunes libraries. I’ve only got a subset of my library on my laptop (Simplify Media, how about an API that MP3Tunes can talk to?), but I’m glad to let others listen.
My user name is ‘dbarefoot’, and Travis’s is ‘nep’.
Hmm…I’m having some network buffering issues. Don’t know if that’s Malta Cable’s fault, or Simplify Media’s?
Last month I was at my friend’s place in France, doing some laundry. Her washing machine lit up like a cheap stereo, which struck me as awesomely French.
There was a dial on her washing machine with big numbers like 3000, 6000 and 1200. I believe these were measures of ‘tr/min’ (as per this photo of a washing machine brand called ‘Malice’). Is that ‘tour’, the French word for ‘turn’? It doesn’t really matter–I assumed it referred to revolutions per minute.
I was baffled as to what to set the machine for, and craved some less specific settings like “linen”, “wool” or “super-wash”. I’ve been doing laundry for over 20 years, and have no idea what speed the average washer barrel revolves at.
Is Five Right for Chicken?
Fast-forward to our villa here in Gozo. We’ve got a great gas range. Here are the controls for the oven:
That’s a timer on the left, and the temperature setting on the right. As you can see, you set the oven to a temperature between 1 and 8.
Here I have the reverse problem. I want less abstraction–I just want to set the damn thing to 375° to bake some chicken.
Set It to Totally Awesome, Please
The lesson is that my (and possible other’s) preferences change from device to device. I want more abstraction in my washing machine than my stove.
This is also true of software. iTunes has this hilarious setting called ‘Sound Enhancer’. It’s on a slider, and the online help says I can use this setting to “add depth and enliven the quality of your music”.
Why would anybody set this to ‘Low’? Why even bother with something called a ‘sound enhancer’? Why not just set it to ‘Totally Awesome’ under the hood and get rid of the user setting altogether?
On the other hand, I want really granular control when converting WAV to MP3–probably more control than iTunes offers out of the box.
The right approach, I think, is to organize the settings in noob-journeyman-expert groups, enabling users to remove layers of abstraction if they want. That’s easy enough in software, but far trickier in the kitchen and laundry room.
