frankhagan.com

I’m always amazed by the Apple Fan Boys, because any time I’m forced to deal with anything from Apple I end up wanting to tear my hair out. Great hardware, but their software is written by the devil.

In preparation for the new system that is coming, I’m trying to head off the pending disaster that is moving iTunes to a new computer. Horror stories abound about this process, and nearly every tutorial out there has been written by someone who has obviously not done it. But I wanted to start organizing now, and try to head off disaster.

I copied every music file to my MediaSmart Server’s “Music” network share. It is organized by Artist / Album in folders. After spending time doing that, I think a fresh install of iTunes will work fine.

But I read a tutorial, from an Apple fan of course, who said to just consolidate your library and then copy that folder over when the new system comes. Well, that sounds easy. But, as with all things Apple, not so much.

Consolidating your library in iTunes means that the program copies all your music files registered in the program from their original locations and puts them in the /My Music/Itunes/Itunes Music/ folder. That sounds nice! So clicking on “File * Library * Organize Library * Consolidate Files” started the process. Then it stopped. With the error message “Copying files failed. The filename was too long or invalid.” But without any indication which file it was, so you are completely in the dark.

Because you can’t rely on Apple to actually fix a problem, you search the various fan sites for a solution. You find this problem has been around since iTunes was introduced, so it must be a “feature” in Apple parlance. And the solutions are either extremely time consuming or ineffective. You could go through your library and select a few songs at a time, right click and select “Consolidate Tracks”. At least that way you know its in that selected group. So I tried that … but it only finds the first one as you narrow down to smaller and smaller groups of files. And iTunes’ non-standard way it treats highlighting and the arrow keys will drive you crazy. One enterprising programmer wrote a little javascript program to tell you that it can’t find the filenames that iTunes is choking on (a valiant effort, but to no good effect).

You can also wade through the XML file to try and find a path that isn’t to the iTunes folder, but that takes forever; every song has about a dozen lines of code in that XML file.

So for me, the solution will be to point a fresh installation of iTunes to my network share and “consolidate” from there, so it copies the files to the local drive. That is, if that will even work.

Tech iTunes, iTunes consolidate library

We have had an interesting Christmas season at the Hagan household. A refrigerator died just before Thanksgiving, then our old 36″ CRT TV died two weeks later. So our Christmas presents were replacement appliances.

We set out to get a 52″ Samsung LCD TV, but our local Fry’s Electronics had a great sale on their new 55″ “LED” model, the Samsung UN55B7000 (it actually is a LCD model with LED a backlight). What a great set, but it wouldn’t fit in the entertainment niche with the shelves I had constructed. So out they came, and new woodwork is being put in place.

From the department of “One Thing Leads to Another”, the TV has “connectivity”, so we are hoping to get the grandkid’s pictures and home videos streaming to the family room rather than crowding everyone into the office upstairs. So I ran Cat5e ethernet, coax and telephone lines down to the entertainment niche by dropping from the attic, under the bedroom floor, then down to the first floor family room. Quite a process, but the connection is now much faster than with wireless.

I found a factory recertified HP MediaSmart EX485 Windows Home Server for $329 (now it looks like it is $349). I had been looking at the Acer easyStore model, but it is rarely under $400 now. HP has done a great job with this machine; it is backing up our various computers, running as a print server (an undocumented feature), and is able to stream media to the Samsung TV. But the included utilities on the TV are not very robust. For instance, I’m not able to pause, rewind or fast forward on my copies of digital movies now stored on the server. While they stream beautifully, once you start its all or nothing!

Because of that I’m going to add a Western Digital WD TV Live Network-ready HD Media Player to enable things like fast forward, rewind, pause, etc. The UI looks pretty slick on this, and I understand the box can be controlled by my Logitech Harmony 880 Remote.

It has been fun getting techy again, but “real life” will be back soon enough.

Tech HP MediaSmart, Samsung UN55B7000, WDTV Live, WHS, Windows Home Server

Amazon.com’s Affiliate program offers an easy to use storefront called an “aStore”. The store builder includes plenty of options to configure the colors and choose the products to include, by category or by individual ASIN numbers. But the problem has been incorporating the aStore into a WordPress site while maintaining the same look and feel.

Typically, the webmaster puts the aStore on a separate page and the reader knows they have “left” the well-thought out design of the website. Navigation between the aStore and the rest of the site can suffer. There is a better way, and it takes just a little effort.

Wordpress includes the ability to have different templates within the same theme. The solution to the aStore integration problem is to simply create a new template that borrows the header and footer from your main Wordpress theme, but doesn’t add the sidebars (the aStore automatically includes its own sidebars). Embed the aStore “inline” code into the new template and publish an empty page using that template.

Here’s a pic of an example “aStore” template. Create this in a plain text or HTML editor. You need to get the code for displaying your store “inline” when you build your store and replace the dummy code shown in the code below.

Code for an aStore Template

Upload the file to your theme’s folder. Then reload the Admin section of Wordpress and click “Editor” under “Appearance”. You should see this “aStore Template” file listed among the theme files. If its not there, you may have uploaded it to the wrong folder.

Now create a page in Wordpress and call it “Store”. Don’t put anything in the editor box, but look at the right column under “Attributes”. You should see a notice that you can choose a template for the page to use. Select your new “aStore” template and publish the page.

Page attributes allow you to select the aStore template

The resulting store incorporates the header and footer of the theme. If you have configured the aStore to match the colors in your theme, it looks well integrated. An example created for my customer at AuroraWolf.com is here.

This is a relatively simple way to incorporate content that ordinarily won’t integrate very well. Once again, the power of Wordpress comes to the rescue.

Tech Amazon, aStore, Wordpress

The Obama Administration, like every administration before it, promised the American people a certain amount of transparency. And like every administration before it, the Obama Administration has fallen far short of their promise.

Now comes the word that the Administration wants to change the long-standing non-invasive policy of the Federal Government, which has long forbidden government sites from engaging in tracking of “web visitor’s habits”.

The change in policy is probably not nefarious; I don’t think the Administration wants to give “the Man” more power over the populace. What they have forgotten is that they are “the Man”.

From the Washington Post:

Some privacy groups say the proposal amounts to a “massive” and unexplained shift in government policy. In a statement Monday, American Civil Liberties Union spokesman Michael Macleod-Ball said the move could “allow the mass collection of personal information of every user of a federal government website.”

The Administration wants to incorporate the same kind of technology that social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace use, but they miss the point. Here’s the message for the Administration: In case you haven’t noticed, you are not Facebook. Even if you were the most transparent, most benevolent administration in the history of the republic, your decision to mine data from the citizens will live on into future administrations. It is dangerous, and it is wrong.

Politics, Tech

AutoBlog Green reports on a real world test for the Prius with an after-market modification to make it a plug-in hybrid:

The lab drove two groups of Prius test vehicles (one 40-car fleet and another 75-car fleet) from early 2008 until March 2009 for almost 500,000 miles and found that the average fuel economy tallied 46 and 49 mpg, respectively. As you might expect, driving style and the battery mode (charge sustaining vs. charge depeleting) had a big impact on the figures.

Hymotion’s retrofit of the Prius was evaluated by Consumer Reports as AutoBlog Green reported ealier.

As a reference, I get real-world mileage of 54.1 MPG over the last 10 tankfuls by driving the speed limit … most of the time … in my daily 90 mile round trip commute up the California coast. I do not “hypermile” or invoke other tricks; I drive the Prius just like I do my Ford Sporttrac truck.

Hymotion’s kit is reported to cost $11,000, a sum indicating the high cost of electric storage for cars. The added cost of extra batteries, as well as the extra weight the batteries impose, make it a poor choice for an alternative to fossil fuels.

In the meantime, existing hybrid technology for small cars, where weight of the battery pack can be kept in line, is the only reasonable interim solution to squeezing out every mile you can from a gallon of gas.

Climate, Science, Tech