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30 Most Recent RSS FeedDupin v2.0.4 Released
Just posted Dupin v2.0.4. This update fixes a problem with "Selection to iTunes Playlist" and a couple of other minor issues.
On another Dupin note: most likely this will be the last incarnation for Tiger/10.4 systems. The next revision, v2.1, and its descendants will be for Leopard and Snow Leopard only. However, v2.0.x will remain available and I will continue to upgrade v2.0.x for Tiger if future circumstances justify it.
Project Cocktail
The news about Apple working with the music labels to "stimulate digital sales of albums by bundling a new interactive booklet, sleeve notes and other interactive features with music downloads" is interesting, but these so-called "interactive" downloads are not new. As I recall, there have been several available from the iTunes Store, usually as part of larger "box" sets. They open in QuickTime and have virtual pages and hot links and they're pretty cool, depending on how they are designed.
Although I don't think it likely, wouldn't be surprised if DRM was part of the "talks".
Wal-Mart Computers for Wal-Mart People
"Having staked out a business that serves PC makers first, IT drones second, and consumers dead last, Microsoft is left only to advertise that its software arrives on cheap hardware that isn’t burdened with being cool or sexy like Apple’s. As a marketing strategy, that’s so blatantly moronic that it’s hard to imagine a Fortune 500 company could decide to do that."
Why Windows 7 is Microsoft’s next Zune — RoughlyDrafted Magazine (2009/05/09)
"Starting at 8 a.m. this Sunday, Wal-Mart gets a head start on back-to-school sales, offering a full-function Compaq Presario laptop computer for $298. This Compaq has a 15.6-inch LCD screen,an AMD processor, 160-gigabyte hard drive and 3 gigabytes of RAM, a hefty parcel of memory by most measures."
Let the Back-to-School Sales Begin - Gadgetwise Blog - NYTimes.com (2009/07/25)
Dupin v2.0.3 Released
Dupin v2.0.3 is now out and is essentially a maintenance release. I wanted to tie up some loose ends before continuing work on a version for Snow Leopard (due in September), so v2.0.3 is probably the last version before then. The issues fixed are rare, and most users never experienced them, but they've been nagging at me: fixed "disappearing" column bug; fixed problem with filenames of files imported from a non-Mac OS; fixed a harmless syntax problem with XML creation during Re-Playlist.
iTunes 8.2.1 Released
Apple has released iTunes 8.2.1 via Software Update and the iTunes download site. More info later...
DIY: Remote Management Assortment, Part 5
I've added a Part 5 to DIY: Remote Management Assortment that describes how to create and delete playlists on a remote user's iTunes with ssh and osascript. If you haven't been following along in this series of projects, you may want to start at the beginning; this newest addition builds on routines and concepts from earlier in the series.
DIY: iTunes Remote Management Assortment
DIY: Remote Management Assortment is a tutorial suggesting several methods of manipulating iTunes files among users on a network, with particular emphasis on using AppleScript to swing passwordless ssh, rsync, scp, osascript, and other utilities. Rather than develop a batch of scripts for you to download (and have to support), you can use the fundamentals described here as the basis for your own AppleScript projects.
It's a None/All Bug
The "none" bug I described yesterday turns out to be a bit more extensive: it's a "none/all" bug.
iTunes 8.2 introduces a bug whereby the the use of the none value with special kind and video kind, and the all value with song repeat in AppleScripts compiled in iTunes 8.1.1 and earlier will not work correctly in iTunes 8.2. I understand that Apple is aware of this situation and assume a fix will be forthcoming in a future version.
If you encounter an error caused by this bug, chances are you are running iTunes 8.2 and the script had been compiled and saved with an earlier version of iTunes.
The fix is to open the script in Script Editor, look for chevron-bound raw constants, and replace them with the appropriate bare-word value. For example, if you see «constant eSpKkSpN» change this to none. (I'm afraid I don't know what the raw constant for "all" is, but it would appear with a song repeat command; song repeat takes the values "off", "one", and "all"). Then re-save the script; it will compile referencing iTunes 8.2 aete and will work fine. Such recompiled scripts, however, will then not work with pre-iTunes 8.2.
Special Kind Playlist Property Weirdness, ctd
A little more about the "none" bug, mentioned earlier today. Any script compiled and saved before iTunes 8.2 which uses the "none" constant with playlist's special kind property will error. Thus, if you get an error concerning "«constant eSpKkSpN»" then it is most likely this bug.
The fix, as I also mentioned earlier, is to open the script with Script Editor, making a note of whether the script's format is compiled (.scpt or .scptd extension) or application (.app extension), and replacing any occurrence of «constant eSpKkSpN» with the bare word none. Then "Save as..." the script, making sure the File Format in the save dialog is set as you noted.
The script should run fine under iTunes 8.2, but, because it has been re-compiled, will not under iTunes 8.1.1 and earlier.
