tech

I love my iPod. I #$%@ HATE iTunes!

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I love my 30gb iPod Video … I really do. The interface is simple and elegant; the hardware is a marvel; its changed how I listen to music, and what I listen to: I don’t listen to radio at all anymore, I listen to podcasts (or when the podcasts run out, music!).

So why, why, WHY does Apple ruin such a perfect device with the millstone-around-the-neck that is iTunes? Where do I start?

  • iTunes is slow: my main desktop that I use for iTunes is a 3.0GHz P4 with 2gb of RAM running Vista Home Premium. Ok, yes, it’s a few years old and doesn’t have dual cores, but it’s not exactly slow. And yet iTunes runs like molasses: switching between views in the library is slow, typing into the search box is slow, right-clicking on my iPod under Devices to get to the context menu is slow. The entire thing is just sloooooow.
  • iTunes is bloated: why do I have a Apple TV tab in my iTunes preferences when I don’t have an Apple TV? Why does it install the Apple Mobile Device Support service and the Syncing tab under Preferences when I don’t have an iPhone?
  • iTunes is broken: this drives me nuts … I update the tags on my MP3s, add album art, etc. Then I’ll notice, while a track is playing on my iPod, that the cover art is gone. I check iTunes, and sure enough, the art has been removed. Sometimes it even seems to update the Album Artist tag for me. I’ve spent a lot of time tagging everything the way I want it … don’t mess with my tags! (And before you ask, yes, I have “automatically download missing album artwork” turned off).
  • iTunes is sneaky: remember a few months ago when Apple tried to slip in their Safari browser through their Windows updater? Well, if you’ve upgraded to iTunes 7.7 recently, you’ll find a new MobileMe icon in your control panel! Yep, they did it again. I’m not going to use MobileMe, don’t mess around and put icons for stuff I don’t want on my PC (for steps on how to remove it, see here).

There are a few things I like about iTunes: the podcatcher functionality, Smart Playlists, the ability to organize my music library hierarchy on my PC, etc. I only use it, though, because I have to. I stopped buying tracks from the iTunes Music Store once Amazon launched their DRM-free music store so I don’t need it for that. If you know of a good iTunes replacement that will work with my iPod, please let me know!

WarGames 25th Anniversary

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To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the movie “WarGames” it’s showing in select theaters tonight at 7:30pm! You can use the event locator to see if it’s playing near you.

Unfortunately I just found out about this today and have prior plans so I can’t go … but I totally would if I could. As I mentioned two weeks ago when I was reunited with my old Atari 800XL, “WarGames” was the movie that really piqued my interest in computers and got me started down the technology path.

This is also a promotional event since the new sequel, “WarGames: The Dead Code” is being released on DVD next week.

Blast from the (computing) past

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When I was up in Ohio on vacation last week, my mom presented me with a cardboard box she found while cleaning out the basement. Score!

The Atari 800XL was my first computer, given to me by my parents as a Christmas present in the early 80s. That, combined with seeing the movie “WarGames“, is what steered me into computers and eventually, my career. This particular 800XL isn’t my original unit. I sold that one and “upgraded” to this one, which had the RAMBO XL memory upgrade to a whopping 256k (from the original 64k). So technically it’s my second computer. 😉

The cardboard box also contained my two 1050 floppy drives, a KoalaPad (no stylus), and an ICD P:R: Connection. I also had a 256k ICD MIO but sadly that was missing. I used to run a BBS on all of this hardware and with the 256k internally on the computer and the 256k external RAMDisk I was able to load the entire thing into memory to minimize floppy disk access. The 1050s were not the quietest drives and since the whole setup was in my bedroom, I could get woken up in the middle of the night when someone on the BBS saved a message board post and the disk drive would grind to life.

I managed to get the Atari hooked up to a Sony LCD HDTV in my home office:

Seeing and using the Atari again, compared to my Eee, really drives home how far computing has come in the past 25 years. Wow.

Now if my mom could only find the other box filled with game cartridges and disks …

Vista SP1 “reliability” update

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Microsoft has released “a reliability and performance update for Windows Vista SP1-based computers.” According to the KB article, the update specifically addresses a problem with e-mail clients and ZoneAlarm, so maybe it will fix my Vista woes (no mention of a VPN fix, though).

I’ve downloaded and applied the patch, but I’m in no rush to attempt running ZoneAlarm again just yet.

Road Trip 2008: Day 1

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We spent today mostly around International Drive near the Orange County Convention Center. After breakfast at the hotel and a little time spent over at Downtown Disney, we headed over to the Peabody Hotel to watch the famous Peabody Ducks parade out of the elevator, down the red carpet into the fountain in the center of the lobby.

I love spotting technology breakthroughs (when the behind-the-scenes technology “breaks through” and is visible to the public). I found this Windows XP breakthrough on a plasma screen in the Renaissance Resort’s lobby:

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We went to evening mass at the National Shrine of Mary, Queen of the Universe. The 2,000 seat building is not a local parish church but a shrine that exists solely to minister to the millions of tourists that come to the area every year.

Tomorrow is a driving day … we head north.