New Apple Lust Objects

I have a ridiculously organized iTunes library with everything except genre. It is impossible to get "correct", unlike artist name or whatever, and even if it weren't, it is useless to me for browsing and listening. I think a lot of people are like this.

What this thread needs is a discussion of genre.

My favourite genre is Alternative, followed by Rock.

mine is alt-rock

once more, with feeling

The genre selection is correct if it serves your purpose. I'm not putting an exact consensus on the genre in there, but a broad category that I can pull up when I want a specific mood or style of music.

I use genre as a handy metadata field. Eg I have one genre for "Full Album" so that I can exclude "albums" where I only have one or two tracks from the browser. Am surprised iTunes doesn't do this natively yet -- there's lots of UI, like Coverflow, that really only works with complete albums, yet the pollute it with singles and crap.

The compilations setting helped a bit with this, but a "compilation" genre still works better.

I browse that way. I have all of my genres set up in broad categories and frequently will just put on a specific genre. So the genius mix doesn't add much for me since I could just put a genre on shuffle anyway. Unless I don't want to see what song is coming up next.

I realize that a lot of people don't do this, but my iTunes library is well tended to. I make sure all artist names are correct, case is correct on song titles, album artist is used properly, year, genre, track number format, album art, all of that has to be correct.

My name is also Jeff and we very well might be the same person. Though I am a huge fan of Genius, particularly when I'm out walking or taking the bus or something where I have a half hour and want to hear random stuff that's at least sort of connected.

i think genius has a bad rap as well. it's great for the car when you want to have a somewhat cohesive random playlist, instead of just shuffling.

did they mention any uses for spotlight on iphone yesterday?

goddamnit upgrading iphone software killed tethering for me. don't upgrade if this is important to you because it's all but impossible to rollback to 3.0.

Okay Apple friendly folks, here's one to throw at you:

* New MacMini purchased, runs Snow Leopard, set up just fine and good to go.

* Old MacMini still running fine, runs Leopard without a care

* Migration Assistant 3.0 on the new MacMini, 1.2.3 on the old one

* I don't have a FireWire 400/800 connection to hand, temporarily using an Ethernet connection (will buy said FireWire tomorrow if I need to)

* Running the respective Migration Assistants on each computer gets the two of them into the 'searching for other computers' mode and then nothing happens. At all. Restarts, etc. produce nothing.

* Figuring that installing Snow Leopard on the old MacMini can't hurt with this whole thing, I attempt to do so -- old one runs on Intel chips, 8 GB free on the drive, there's a gig of RAM, everything should be fine.

* Every time I launch the Snow Leopard installation it tells me after a few seconds that it can't be installed on the old computer, without any explanation.

Any guesses? It's more frustrating knowing that the computers are both working and right THERE but refusing to acknowledge each other in the slightest.

old Mac Mini has an intel processor?

oh duh you mentioned that. I would try firewire...

It's pretty much the only thing I can think of. I'm half guessing that there's something in the old MacMini's Migration utility that *only* recognizes FireWire, since nothing else makes sense. Anyway, we'll see what tomorrow brings after I snag either an adaptor or a new cable.

I have never actually used migration assistant, but in the old days, to connect to computers _directly_ using their network sockets you needed to use a cross-over network cable rather than the regular one you might connect to a router or wall socket. This is are cheap, but not something most people have lying around.

I would just get a FW cable though, that will work. Like I say, never used migration assistant, but you you might have to boot the old one in Target Disk Mode (hold down T while switching on).

Dunno why SL won't install on the old mini : (

The Mini can autodetect if a crossover cable's being used (or not used) and adjust accordingly.

But yes Firewire is the way to go here.

Magical!

Astounding indeed. And yeah, thanks all -- I'd need a new cable/adaptor anyway given the 800 connection on the new one, so hey, a necessary step! (Already had to spend time yesterday scrounging up a mini DVI-VGA connection...)

Firewire is they way to go, I just did this and it was a breeze.

I am still wondering why Snow Leopard won't take on the old machine, I admit -- academic since I'm switching to the new one, but if I wasn't and I wanted to upgrade, I'd be really annoyed!

I bet it's because the Mini is on the wrong kind of partition.

Start Disk Utility and get Info on your old Mini's boot volume. It must be set up as a GUID partition in order to install a new system onto it. If it's not, you'll have to back it up, format the drive as one partition, make sure it's set to GUID (under "Advanced" or something), install Snow Leopard, then migrate your backup.

Basically, Intel Macs can boot from either GUID partitions or APM ("Apple") partitions BUT you can only install a new OS onto an Intel Mac that's been formatted as a GUID partition. Guh. All of them come from the factory with a GUID partition but if you've ever wiped the drive for any reason the default is actually APM rather than GUID, which makes NO SENSE.

Bizarre! Thanks for the tip, will try that tonight as needed.

I had the same trouble moving from the old G5 to the new iMac (just purchased!), but I think it ended up fixing itself after basic putzing around & a couple of restarts on each end. But yes, for awhile neither computer would admit to seeing the other.
Annoying also that when bringing over my old user profile & contents from the previous machine I couldn't simply overwrite the profile with the same name on the new one, having to call the old one something like profilename_old and then manually transfering files bewteen the two once they were both on the iMac.

All of them come from the factory with a GUID partition but if you've ever wiped the drive for any reason the default is actually APM rather than GUID, which makes NO SENSE.

Totally. And the error messages you get when you forget this are completely helpful and I always worry my drive is damaged in some way for a good five minutes before remember this retardé behaviour.

UNhelpful

Did you buy a retail copy of Snow Leopard?

If it's a system restore disk you're trying to install Snow Leopard from, it might not install on an older computer.
The last couple Macs I've owned won't let you install the systems software that ships with them on other flavors of mac, AFAIK.

I'd been half wondering about that myself (and yes, it's a restore disc not a retail copy).

Argh Ned I think that's actually it. Otherwise you would have gotten an error message about the GUID thing.

Can't say I'm surprised!

Really nice touch in the new iTunes that I'd wanted; ability to sync entire artists / genres onto an iPod / iPhone rather than just playlists.

Anyway, FireWire did the trick, everything fixed and good to go. The one thing that's puzzling me now is why my external CD/DVD drive and iTunes now can't seem to deal with each other (and the computer does recognize that the drive is there and all, even more frustrating...)

is it possible to upgrade from panther to snow leopard straight off the sl disc? i've only found mention of people successfully doing so from tiger. also just to double check if you can do multiple upgrades off the one disc, and not needing the family pack.

(soz if these questions are inane, i'm not a mac dude!)

you can definitely do multiple upgrades with the normal installer. the family pack appears to be an "idiot tax" type system.

re upgrading from panther.. i dunno, give it a shot? if it doesn't work you can use disk utility to clone your hard drive, do an install from scratch, and then use the migration assistant to copy all your info back over.

And drive problem fixed, everything grand, yay life.

A nice bonus was that I've already got someone lined up to take the old MacMini off my hands for a good price.

Do you (the typical Mac user) download all of the software updates that Apple pushes out? (I used a Mac about 20 years ago (not in my toddler years, although the computer I had seems like a toy now) and a lot has changed since then.) Is there a way to change the short name of the admin account once you've configured your computer? Do I really need the Garage Band update? Why are there a million icons on the bottom of the screen? Are all these applications started when you turn on your computer? Thanks.

1) yes, it kind of makes you

2) probably

3) no

4) that is the dock

5) no

no, probably, depends, for quick access, no

xpost

you drag any of those icons off the dock at your pleasure. it's won't delete or move them from the applications folder. and it doesn't load anything automatically unless set in system preferences -> accounts -> login items

re: my "no" answer for #1, I always uncheck the updates for stuff I don't use like Remote Desktop Client and Front Row, and don't install iTunes updates for at least a week or two, in case there are problems that show up quickly.

I'm fairly certain that Software Update has something like an 'ignore this update' option for stuff you never want/need.

I am now about 3/4 of the way through downloading 13 updates, but I will not go for the Garage Band update next time.

On a slightly different topic, I have to conduct an interview on Thursday and I was thinking of bringing my MacBook to take notes, but now I'm wondering if it's possible to record audio. I didn't purchase any extra software. I think I read somewhere that there is a microphone. Thanks.

I realize that some of these posts may be off topic. Please file under lust gratified, what to do in case.

If your Mac is running 10.6 then you have Quicktime X, which has audio recording built in (run Quicktime X, File > New Audio Recording)

youn - you can, but the quality will be poor for extended recording, as it will pick up the sounds of the hard drive spinning. it should be adequate if you just want to record enough to get a transcript from, I'd test beforehand to get all the levels/settings adjusted first.

If you do enough interviews, it'd be worth it to get a digital voice recorder. Setting up a laptop to do a voice recording seems like it would be intrusive/distracting.

this audio recording program is easy, simple and free -

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/17392

you also might want to check your phone - many phones will make audio recordings.

in either case yes the quality will be iffy but fine for transcription purposes.

what I want is something that transcribes shit for me

i don't know how good this is, but - http://jott.com/

even if it does work it probably doesn't work for stuff longer than a voicemail, tho :(