Itunes Idiocy

Microsoft finally "upgraded" (an Orwellian term) Windows Media Player so many times that it finally became useless. So a few years ago I switched to Itunes since Mac controls music now (as I painfully found out when I got an Ipod years back, before that hunk of junk broke in a few months). I'm very serious about my music collection and I was sad to see that Itunes isn't very good. Observe this list:

Things Itunes doesn't do that I really liked from WMP:
A. Enable deleting missing files en masse
B. Very easy to change song data en masse
C. Background process to consolidate and organize the music library.

I've been searching for a long time for simple fixes. Sure, the simplest would be for Apple - for an ironic twist - to copy what Microsoft does well, instead of the vice versa. I could buy third party software, but hell hasn't frozen yet. Recently I got fed up enough that I renewed my efforts to solve 'em with online advice. Here's what I found:

A. Finding and Deleting Files En Masse

I found online advice and it actually worked! How To Remove Broken Songs From iTunes Library It also clued me into the glory of "smart playlists" - which makes up for the very irritating itunes interface. Thanks intertube stranger!

B. Change Multiple Names at Once

You can change song titles, artists etc, but NOT THE SONG NAME. Why can't it be done? Hatred?

So here's my homemade solution which WORKS! Alert!

My solution is to use the powerful search function of Windows 7. I discovered that you can change song data in Windows via "Properties."

For example, I have a lot of bootleg albums of Led Zeppelin (which I've been assured is completely legal). And I want to change the song name from "Moby Dick" to "Moby Dick (Live)"

It helps if you have one Music folder (I did this even though itunes refuses to sort them easily, see below) but I guess it can be done if music is scattered all about.

1. In the search box (F3) of your folder, I entered: "album:live artists:zeppelin"
   
2. sort by song title
   
3. higlight the songs you want to change
   
4. right click for 'properties'
   
5. click on the 'details' tab
   
6. go to the field you want to change, in my case it's 'title'
   
7. insert new title
   
8. click OK or Apply
   
9. enjoy a milk bone in a commie free world

Addendum: Actually there's a slight glitch in that Itunes did not recognize the new file names until I played the song (or some other such modification). So my trick was to find all the files whose names I changed and then adjust their rating to 1 star (or whatever) and that updated the names.

C. Consolidate the Library There's an option in Itunes already to do this but it retains the original locations as well, which means you need to have space memory in the computer to have 2 sets of files. I'm not a fan of that, so I'll keep searching. UpdateHere's another version of the milkbone cartoon.

Mircosoft and Norton

I switched from a Macintosh to a PC four years ago. I was forced to do it - against my very fibre of warps and woofs - for two reasons: (1) my mac up and died, (2) all the decent Torah software (e.g. the Bar-Ilan CD-ROM, Dagesh) were written exclusively for the PC. So I switched. And I have hated my (computer) life ever since.

Macintosh has largely been free from the evil influence of Bill the Gates and all of the ancillary problems; in fact, while I think Microsoft makes and markets barely disguised trash, it's the fact that it's the most popular platform that attracts the greatest threats: spam and viruses. Your run-of-the-mill mamzer anarchist writes viruses and spyware for Microsoft software first and then decides to zombie up Macs later. As such, to use a PC, I need to use powerful virus and spyware protectors. Which leads to my second horrific purchase: Norton Anti-Virus.

It's taken a few years of abuse till I finally realized that most of my problems with Microsoft - and the main program I use, Internet Explorer - have been caused (probably) by Norton Anti-Virus. I have purchased a new AV program - Kaspersky Lab Security - and we'll see if I can un-install Norton and if my maddening problems cease.

What problems you ask? (Note, I've seen people complain about the same things, so I assume my irritations are from Norton):

1. EVERYthing runs slow - opening programs, documents, sending/receiving mail; I compare it to our post-9/11 immigration inanities (which my wife just went though, needing a frick-frackin passport to go to CANADA!);
   
2. my system freezes and crashes from having "ccApp" balloon in size, taking all my RAM, restricting use for other programs
   
3. Internet Explorer becomes impossible to use - and this is what prompted me to finally dump Norton - I was at first restricted from seeing videos from Youtube (and I can no longer download them - at all - using my favorite devices). Originally I thought this was a IE cruelty and so I tried to (finally) switch to Mozilla... but I was prevented from downloading it! I thought this was a vicious MephistoBillgatesian trick to preserve IE's monopoly. But the more I investigated, I realized it was instead a Norton cruelty.
   
4. The Youtube/Mozilla indignity was the last straw. While Gates would be mean enough to prevent a download of another web browser, Norton was just being a shoddy project... and I should have realized that this fit the pattern of over a year whereupon Norton has "protected" my homepage from being hijacked (a decent idea) by making Norton's homepage my permanent - never can switch it - homepage. Yes, they hijacked me in the name of my security. And they have eliminated cookies so I need to sign into every website each time and I can't use scripted windows in blogger, blah blah blah

Note, all these problems could still be caused by Gates and IE, but I'll know which way is up soon.

Another Microsoft Evil

One problem I've had with my computer in writing Hebrew is that for some reason Microsoft Word insists on ignoring my commands when I try to change fonts. I have discovered it's because the brainiacs in Seattle have made an "automatic language detection" function.

Ya see, when you cut and paste, MSWord may trick you and re-translate your stuff into "English (UK)" or even sometimes "French." And in Hebrew, instead of keeping it the same language, MSWord will furrow it's microprocessor and think 'aw, he doesn't mean Hebrew, he means Arabaic" No joke. Instead of Hebrew, MSWord has been redefining my language as "Arabic (Saudi Arabia)" I get a freaky chill just thinking about what kind of partnership created *that* outcome.

{2009 Update: pic from here.}

PCs Stink

Ever since I have been using a PC at home, I have been bombarded with viruses. Thank the good sweet Lord for this website which has a free online virus search: Panda ActiveScan - Free online scanner