MP3 Tags
Tuesday, January 20, 2009 ~ 6 comments so far
MP3 Tags
“You spin me right round baby, right round, like a record baby” … Cue several of my younger readers to ask “what’s a record?”
When I first started ripping CDs to MP3 I was very careful when tagging the information. I used Tag & Rename to make sure they all (ALL) had complete fields. I didn’t bother, back then, with album art as my MP3 player didn’t support it. A few years on Apple release iTunes for Windows and, after a few false starts, I decide to forego my compulsion and let iTunes do what it does best. Take care of my MP3s.
Except it didn’t. Whilst I’m happy that iTunes manages where the files live (within a directory chosen by me) it isn’t really up to the re-tagging of MP3s.
And yes, for those of a nervous disposition, I am talking about illegally downloaded MP3s, and yes, if I like an album I will buy it at a later date. In fact this post is entirely due to the fact that I’m going through my library deleting albums I don’t want and checking what I have purchased.
Where was I? Oh yes.
The problem is one of album art. My older MP3s (mainly those ripped from CD) vary when it comes to the quality of the MP3 tagging. Some have embedded album art, some don’t. Some have track numbering, some don’t. I’m guessing that my switch over iTunes, many years ago now, is to blame but that doesn’t help me at the moment.
Whilst it’s not a big hassle to add album art, one thing that does seem to have gotten out of kilter is the fact that not only does an MP3 tag have an Artist field, it also has an Album Artist field. It seems that, for one or two tracks across most albums, this field is filled in whereas, for the rest of the tracks, it’s blank. So, when playing an album in iTunes (I’m still very album-centric) the track appear out of order as iTunes thinks they are DIFFERENT ALBUMS.
This is a royal pain in the ass and so I’ve been trying to fix it. I have a large library of music so I thought it would be a good idea to find some way of automating this, as much as possible. I’ve tried MediaMonkey on the suggestion of Lifehacker but that only does one album at a time and, I think, has actually introduced the same issue.
So it looks like I’ll be going through all of my music by hand, tagging it properly (although maybe therein lies the real problem, there is no standard to adhere to, just an open set of fields that can be (and are) abused). That’s over 20,000 MP3 individual files.
I’m seriously thinking of hiring a student to do this in the summer.
Backup
Saturday, January 10, 2009 ~ 2 comments so far
Over the past few months I’ve become much better at backing up the important stuff on my PC. Largely this is photos, music, any ripped DVDs and important House documents, license files and so on.
So, if my PC dies a death then at least I’ve got the important stuff backed up. The rest, the downloaded freebies, fonts, software and so on can be downloaded again and, in a way, it’s a chance to re-evaluate things.
Not that my PC is dying a death but it does, this very moment, have a virus. Not quite sure where it came from, as I’m very careful (having worked for an anti-virus company I remain somewhat paranoid about these things). All I know is that I was downloading an update to DirectX so I could have a go at Football Manager 2009 (a guilty pleasure if ever there was one), and as Microsoft downloads can be a bit flaky under Firefox, I fired up Internet Explorer (7) and kicked off the download.
Somewhere, somehow, I now have a virus. It’s proving a bugger to fix so I’m doing a little research to make sure I’ve got the right tools at my disposal. Such is the advantage of having a laptop. I can research the issue, download the right tools and fixes, dump them on a USB drive and I’m ready to tackle the virus.
It’s THIS kind of thing that just pisses me off. I don’t download illegal software, I virus check everything that I do download, even if it’s from a ‘safe’ source, and I have a good clean system which is checked for spyware, malware and viruses every 6-8 weeks. Then something like this happens and I just know I’ll spend a couple of hours fighting it.
That’s not why I have a computer. It’s not supposed to be a battle, it’s supposed to be a tool. Just like those arseholes who keep creating and releasing viruses. They’re a bunch of tools too.
A new shiny browser
Thursday, September 4, 2008 ~ 2 comments so far
Boy, am I ever glad I held back from posting about the new browser from Google.
It’s been an interesting couple of days though, starting with the comic book style introduction which I kinda like. This raised several flags in my professional circle, both amongst the geeks (ohh we re-use the Javascript engine..) and the technical writers (a comic? but there is no navigation or structure!), but was interesting enough to hold my attention so, hey, it worked for me.
Then the download was made available and, gosh, isn’t it BLUE. And looky at the clever things it does, and all the new shiny stuff. Wow, it’s .. a browser. OK OK, it is fast, and there are some really smart ideas in the background but, for most people, it’s just another browser. Seriously, my Mum (who is now officially another year wiser! Happy Birthday Mum!) doesn’t care that all the processes and objects are held on a per tab basis, she just wants to read her email and forward me crap jokes.
It’s also hard to criticise something that isn’t even at version 1.0.
[insert joke about Google products that remain in BETA indefinitely]
And then the EULA police descended. Oh my god!, they said, Google want to own your content, they want to invade your country and, shit on a brick, they are gonna EAT YOUR BABIES!!!!!!!
Or something like that.
Now I do understand that the terms in their EULA were, frankly, ludicrous, and the outcry was fairly justifiable. But here’s the thing.
Most of the people (all?) that downloaded, install and ran the Chrome browser are geeks. This is simply because we are the type of people that do such things. We are also the type of people who routinely click through an installation wizard as fast as possible, ignoring such things as EULA statements (not even apparently, but still the majority I’d warrant).
Furthermore I’d suggest that a fair number of the people who downloaded and installed Chrome also work in the software industry, and when it comes to the ‘legal’ stuff? Yeah we just take whatever file we are told to use and bung it in where it should go, right?
Is it possible that the EULA that was released with Google Chrome was just a file that was lying around? Or do people really think that Google would try such a thing? Remember, Google do know how the internet works, probably better than you or I, they know that such things get found out, and found out quickly.
So, all in all, it’s good that they’ve changed their EULA.
Now, if they could just give me a way to make the Chrome windows look like the rest of my deskop windows, that’d be great!
Lazynet iPhone request
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 ~ 2 comments so far
Dear iPhone Developers,
This may exist already, but if it does I haven’t seen it. I’d really like an application that turns off all system sounds except the alarm clock between preset hours. If it could be activated when the iPhone is docked that would be even better, and finally if it could somehow keep the display turned on then that would be excellent!
You see I’d quite like to use my iPhone as an alarm clock.
Now, I can do that right now by setting an alarm but that means that I’ll still have email notifications playing. Of course I could turn them off every night, and back on in the morning again but that’s a little bit more hassle than is needed.
I also like having a clock next to the bed so that I know the time when I wake up, so keeping the display turned on would be great (especially if I can use the Digital Clock app).
Hmmmm, ok I think that’s it.
Ohh and yeah, I’d pay a couple of quid for this. Get to it!
Sincerely,
Gordon “Probably could build it himself but can’t be arsed” McLean
This and that
Tuesday, August 5, 2008 ~ 8 comments so far
Summer holidays make it easy to keep on top of RSS feeds, and easier to spot some ace new blogs. Check out this one, I think it could be quite good.
My father-in-law is back in Scotland for the month, so we’re off to see him tonight and I’m really REALLY hoping he wants us to bring in a fish supper for dinner. I’ve not had fish and chips for ages and currently have a real craving for them.
XNeat Windows Manager is yet another application capable of doing some nice UI effects in Windows. Best of all, and the reason it wins out over many other similar applications for me, is that with it installed you can MIDDLE-CLICK TO CLOSE APPLICATIONS STRAIGHT FROM THE TASKBAR. Sounds simple I know but it’s a habit I use all the time in Firefox to close a tab, and it’s been bugging me for YEARS that I couldn’t do this in Windows until I stumble across XNeat.
A quick thanks to Daisy for nominating me for a Post of the Week award, I didn’t win but was quite surprised to see my name in the shortlist. Who knows, it might inspire me to indulge my creative side a little more often (there was a similar post later on last week too).
Since I bought my iPhone I’ve changed the way I think about how I work when I’m at home, and find myself leaning towards my MacBook more often than my PC, it’s just so much nicer to use. The only downside is the small screen and limited hard drive (my music collection is larger than my MacBook’s hard drive). So I’m looking to the Belkin Flip (DVI version) as a solution.
Physio tomorrow, we’ll see if the eccentric loading exercises I’ve been doing (and for a change I’ve been pretty good at remembering to do them!) have had an impact. They FEEL like they have, fingers crossed.
Firefox 3
Wednesday, July 2, 2008 ~ 4 comments so far
Got Firefox 3? Try the Fast Dial extension, it’s quite nifty.
Anyway, I finally installed the latest greatest version of the ‘fox and most of the extensions I use have been updated (the others I can do without). It’s all nicely streamlined and tweaked already, and I’ll need to replicate this setup on my home PC and MacBook but so far so good.
It’s been a while since I did a techie post but later in the week I’ll post up the extensions I’m using, with some fabby new ones alongside some old favourites. Until then I’d love to hear if you’ve got any recommendations.
Explorer showing multiple desktops?
Friday, March 28, 2008 ~ 5 comments so far
Windows XP has a bug in it, one that has bugged me for ages but is under the “can be tolerated” category. I’ve looked for a fix before but couldn’t find anything, mainly because it’s hard to describe within search terms (note to Google: how about searches based on uploaded screenshots??).
The problem occurs when you open Windows Explorer and start browsing folders. The tree on the left starts to show additional items named “Desktop” but, when you click on them they are actually items that are on your Desktop.. it’s a little weird and after a while you can end up with multiple “Desktops items at the top (and middle) of the tree on the left.
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