Why I Loathe iTunes

I’ve just moved my media off an internal drive on the desktop onto a nice big NAS, and added all of Penny stuff that used to be separate. So naturally, that means rebuilding the libraries on the various media software, including three separate iTunes installations.

It’s all organised in a music folder: music/artist/album. Except, of course, you can’t just add or drag the music folder into iTunes. The prospect of adding 6000 tracks makes it go wobbly and fall over. I guess creating 60,000 line XML and library database files is just too much.

So, you have to select a couple of dozen folders to drag in at a time. This takes a couple of hours – yes HOURS! – per drag. It clicks through, ‘processing’ each track for a few seconds. Then, and only then, it starts ‘processing’ album art. Why? It’s right there in the folder and in the ID3 tag! So a few seconds more per album (274 in the last drag) before you can drag in another lot.

It took most of the afternoon to do this on my PC, slightly longer on Penny’s laptop and about four times as long on my new MacBook!

Appletards would say “let iTunes organise your music, just trust it”. But they are dickheads. It’s my machine, I’ll do what I damn well like with my files. One program that I only need for the iPhone should not be dictating how I run my machine. Not only that, but it would only help on one machine, not the other two.

I should point out that I directed WinAmp, MediaMonkey and Songbird at the new drive and all three had indexed the lot, ready for use and with album art in place, within 5 minutes.

iTunes slows itself with it’s bloody stupid library databases. They add nothing, except locking iTunes to your library, your library to one machine and your iPod to iTunes. Every other media player offers the same, and better, functionality without them. But no, Apple want complete control.

All other media players will keep watch on your drive. If you add some files from elsewhere, they’ll index them straight away.

iTunes won’t. You have to add them manually – rubbish for a shared media drive.

Other programs don’t care if you delete
something – after all, if you put it back they’ll quietly re-index it anyway.

iTunes goes mental. It gives a little ! for each missing track. But can you just say “remove all missing tracks”? Can you buggery. Yup, you have to select and delete them individually. You can’t even list all the missing tracks, you have to go looking for them.

I only use iTunes for my iPhone. That and there are no real alternatives for straight media playing on Mac because everything Jobs does is wonderful. Songbird is nearly there but not quite yet.

I wish I didn’t have to use it. And when Jobs’s shrivelled liver finally passes through his urethra, I will line up to piss on his grave for the days I’ve lost doing iTunes job for it and adding my own bloody files.

Almost Busy Weekend

Both the Loop festival and Brighton Carnival took place this weekend, bringing the city nowhere near to a standstill.

Did anyone notice these things were happening?!

Royal Mail Are Shit

I needed to send some important documents through the post, which I also needed safely returning to me.

So, I pre-paid a Recorded Delivery and put the envelope inside with my documents. When I asked for the tracking number of the return delivery, the lady looked at me blankly.

She can’t put it on the system now, she told me. They’ll have to bring the package in to be registered when they post it.

That’s no good to me. I’m sending it pre-paid so they won’t have the inconvenience of going to the post office. I want them to be able to pop it in the box, and I’ll have the tracking number ready. The system will know the postcode and tracking number already, and it can be scanned in at the sorting office as normal. The person returning my documents cannot and will not go to the post office for me.

But that’s not possible. Apparently.

So, I’ll have to trust first class post to deliver irreplacable documents to me. I have no other choice.

What does it matter if the package only enters the chain a day or two after the number was registered? The process is surely only triggered when the bar code is scanned anyway? It’s not like I was paying for a time-critical “by 1pm tomorrow” delivery that might bugger up their targets with a delay.

Any of the courier companies will issue a tracking number for a package being picked up in a few days time.

I used to believe wholeheartedly in a nationalised, public run postal service. But they’re shit.

Twitter Without The Witter

While the rest of us use Twitter to tell the world about a particularly excellent snack or impending toilet trip, some people are using it on another level entirely.

Follow @Change_for_Iran, @IranRiggedElect, @NextRevolution and @persiankiwi for real people in Tehran, risking their lives to post news and information.

Powerful, scary, moving. I hope they find the freedom they deserve.

Bad Lighting Design Part 2

It appears the cheap lighting under the Trafalgar Street underpass wasn’t finished when I blogged about it. The latest developments are:

1. A white spotlight pointing downwards above each archway on the north side. Not bad, but should’ve been in the struts pointing at an angle for a better effect.

2. Sequenced LEDs in the attractive niches on the south side. These just add to the overall lurid effect of the colour-changers. Again, these niches should’ve been picked out by gentle spots in the struts.

3. Another row of LEDs has been added at the top, where the road comes out. Because of the slope, these are much higher than the original two runs which were already at slightly different heights. So instead of a pleasing line, we have three strips of light at three different levels.

4. They’ve covered the LED casings and wiring with what appears to be half a drainpipe. However, it’s in two colours: brown on the bricks, and white at the top, adding to the disjointed look of them. Also a note to designers: when you put something on a wall, it doesn’t disappear if you cover it with a similar coloured plasting case. It would’ve been better to have a nice, contrasting casing that was at least consistent with itself. Perhaps painted to match the existing ironwork, making it look like part of the structure. Oh, and they could at least have made an effort to hide the screws that are at 6 inch intervals. Better still there shouldn’t be anything at all ruining a nice bit of Victorian brickwork.

There’s still a crane under there, so Brighton Council might not yet be done with their wacky design hell. I’ll report back if they suddenly install lasers or strobes (which wouldn’t be at all surprising).

The Death Of Politics

Politics in the UK has been dying for a decade. This week, it let out it’s death cry.

I’ve got two ideas to save it:
1. A benign dictatorship, with me at the helm. By far my favourite option, but I lack the private army to bring about the bloodless coup.
2. An Independent Alliance party – anyone with centre-left leanings can join in order to stand as an independent candidate. They’ll receive central help with funding, campaigning and media to raise awareness in their constituency. There is no party whip and no party manifesto: other than rules on extreme views, candidates can stand on their own promises and are free to vote how they wish in parliament. They cannot take more than the bare minimum expenses to do their jobs, they cannot have a second job, and they cannot accept trips, gifts, meals or donations from any third party. They cannot have been a candidate, prospective candidate or even a member of a mainstream political party in the five years previously. They will be contractually bound to serve only two terms, and banned from joining companies that had government connections after they step down. No more revolving door.

It’s time to get rid of career politicians and elect people standing for issues they believe in, in constituencies they have a connection to, and without corporate and big-business corruption.

At the moment there’s a massive obstacle to getting into power: money. An independent must put up a lot of cash, spend a lot of cash on their campaign and then won’t get in because no-one will have heard of them, unless they’re already high-profile. Only a wealthy person with time on their hands could even consider it, and would probably fail. An independent alliance party can deal with all that.

I’m sick of being governed by stupid, greedy idiots. On a local and a national level. It’s time to get real, public-spirited people into power.

I just need a million quid to sort it out.

Disappointing Limitations of iPhoto

I just got a junk mail from Apple with the following disclaimer:

iPhoto does not recognise the faces of animals.

I can only imagine the frustration of the poor user whose frantic calls to the helpdesk resulted in that important bit of small print…

Why I’ll Stop Using PayPal

I’ve been using PayPal fairly regularly, recently. The main reason was that I’m trying not to use my credit card so much, so I don’t build up a balance. But a debit card doesn’t offer much protection when shopping online.

PayPal also means I’m not continually giving out my card details to people – so I thought that I could use lesser-known sites for shopping, with no fear that they’re likely to abuse or lose my details.

However, recently I didn’t get something that I paid for with PayPal. The seller hasn’t acknowledged my emails, or responded when I raised a PayPal dispute. I’ve escalated the dispute to a ‘claim’ where PayPal will look into it and, I assumed, give me my money back.

However, I’ve just noticed this in PayPal’s terms:

If PayPal decides the claim in the buyer’s favour, the buyer will receive a refund only if there are funds in the seller’s account.

So, if the person I bought off has moved that money into their bank account, I get nothing!

Which means anyone can set up a PayPal account, fleece a few thousand people, withdraw the funds from their PayPal account, then disappear. If the bloke who mugged you is caught but has spent the cash, you don’t get it back.

In other words: outside of eBay, PayPal offers NO BUYER PROTECTION WHATSOEVER, for which they receive a hefty chunk of all funds transferred through them.

I’ll go back to my credit card.

Dream

One of the most succesful and impressive pieces of public art I’ve seen…

Dream St Helens

Animal Instincts

The hottest day of the year so far took us to Chester Zoo, where we experienced animal life in all it’s intricate and splended glory:

As the afternoon cooled we headed for Chester city centre to wander the perfecty preserved medieval streets. There, we came across the greatest pub in the world. The Brewery Tap is set in a renovated Jacobian hall, complete with original carved stone fireplace and tapestries. It’s the first pub for brewer Spitting Feathers and they’ve got it bang-on! No music, no screens, just 7 real ales. Best of all, the most expensive is £2.80! I only had time to try the light golden Thirstquencher, but it was more than enough to make me consider buying the house opposite.