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30 Most Recent RSS FeedJanuary 2024
UPDATED: Remote Management Scripts v1.3
I've updated Remote Management Scripts, which is a collection of scripts that assist with managing/editing/copying shared tracks on a remote machine via the iTunes on a local machine. Nothing too major: I consolidated and streamlined some routines, changed the loginLib.scpt to allow the iTunes Music Library volumes for each machine to be listed (rather than in the individual scripts that require them), and provided an option to unmount volumes after scripts that mounted them have finished.
Featured at Lifehacker
Adam Pash wrote up a nice "Hack Attack" article at Lifehacker which features his 13 favorite AppleScripts for iTunes from Our Little Site. Much obliged, Adam!
Thinking About Remote Management Scripts
Remote Management Scripts have been up for awhile and enable you to manipulate tracks/files from a "Shared" music library--providing you have access to the "Shared" computer (username, password, Bonjour/Rendevous name, and the drive that the music files are located on). I was using them today to move stuff around our home network. Seems to me I can make these easier to configure and use.
How I Do It
I frequently get emails asking how I go about displaying the "Doug's Listening To..." thing, whereby I display the song, iTunes Store link, album art, and lyrics search for the song I'm currently playing. I wish it were easy, I wish I could make it available. But for reasons described here it just would be too much. Maybe you have some ideas?
Earl Is Available!
Yikes, have I been wanting this to happen. "My Name Is Earl" is finally available on iTunes. This is the best American TV ever.
NEW: Update Expired Podcasts
This Mac OS X Hints post proposes a solution to a problem I was having: iTunes will stop updating a podcast subscription if one of its episodes has not been played within five days (so that's what happened). The poster provided an AppleScript solution, which, although admirably on the right track, was somewhat convoluted. Why not just plain update the podcasts! Update Expired Podcasts will batch-update every podcast subscription in your Podcasts playlist by simply "telling" iTunes to updatePodcast for each podcast subscription. The trick is getting a discrete list of podcast subscription names for the updatePodcast command; put 'em in a repeat loop and yer done.
Microsoft R&D and Their 80's Transformers Mentality
I got a kick out of this MacNN Blog review of Microsoft's Transforming Media Device patent. I especially liked--as usual with MacNN's patent reviews--The Bottom Line analysis, including: "Microsoft?s detailed patents clearly go to demonstrate just how off-guard Microsoft was the day that Apple unveiled their iPhone's many innovations and just how off-target Microsoft really was in respect to understanding what device innovation even means." Transformers! More Than Meets The Eye!
My Feeings Exactly
From Mac News World: "According to Jobs, only 3 percent of music on the average iPod is purchased from iTunes and protected with DRM. The rest is unprotected, having come from CDs as well as both legal and illegal file sharing.
In other words, the music industry has already lost the battle, thanks largely to its own, wholly unprotected, format, the CD. It is a curiosity of the music majors that an industry born in the crucible of free love and intergenerational rebellion should have become so Luddite in its approach to new technologies."
Like CareerBuilder monkeys.
I Like PandoraBoy
As I've noted in a previous entry, I've been digging Pandora, the music discovery site. Normally, you have to run it from your web browser. I got tired of trying to remember to keep a Safari window to keep the stream going so I used a dedicated browser, Shiira, just to run it. Well, turns out there's a nice little app that uses Webkit to display Pandora called PandoraBoy from FrozenSilicon Labs. PLUS, it's AppleScriptable so you can assign hotkeys to control volume and skipping and thumbs ups/downs. It can also interface with Growl. And PandoraBoy is free. Can't beat that with a bat.
Wonder if they'd add an AppleScript feature so I could grab currently playing track info? Gotta drop 'em a line.
Update to iTunes Coming Soon
Probably not completely unexpected, but here are some clues. This recent AppleCare article on Windows Vista and iTunes compatibility: "iTunes 7.0.2 may work with Windows Vista on many typical PCs. Apple recommends, however, that customers wait to upgrade Windows until after the next release of iTunes which will be available in the next few weeks." This time frame jibes with the AppleTV specs page that had at one time listed iTunes 7.1 as a requirement (it now just lists "iTunes 7"), and AppleTV is due to start shipping this month.
