Howdy.

I'm a crabby ass bitch today and I thought - hey, the blog might enjoy this. 

All foolishness to blame, really.  Plaguey doubts and irrational fears.  Too much celibacy, not enough hope.  I need a nap, some exercise and a bowl of edamame with sea salt and also, to not be ovulating.  Which is to say, give me a day or two.

I never think of myself as a PMS kind of person - in childhood, the mother's cycle was the undercurrent of our lives and I never saw myself that way.  But there is no denying I go optimism-shy on a couple of pretty specific dates and when I was out with mom for a few weeks the only days I had real trouble coping were the PMS days.   People talk about it like you should just pull up your socks and cope, but it is far more insidious than that. 
There may be a chance that I am a little bit like my mother after all, but if you tell her I said so, I'm afraid you'll have to be killed.  Nothing for it.

The big event of the weekend was that I accidentally deleted my iTunes library.  I'm new to the Mac thing and am constantly being hamstrung by the non-expectation of automation. The conversion has begun though - I used someone's Windows machine recently and found it EVER so clunky.  My brother just got a Vista laptop and his wife a Macbook and during the get to know you process he had this to say:

I find my experience with Dell a disappointing shadow of the customer service machine they were the last time I purchased a computer from them – I guess all the jobs have been shipped overseas.  Regardless, the computer is quite awesome and working great – despite a few glitches of the new operating system which I am told will work themselves out with a few hundred upgrades over the next few months......In an annoying parallel to my frustration with the Dell people, S. went out and bought a Mac after getting jealous of my new computer, and following a week of playing around with her parents Mac during her recent visit home. While I fight with marginally lingual tech support, the Mac people are all about “can I come to your house and help you set it up, …oh e-mail, sure we’ll help you set it up….oh, yeah we can transfer all your files for you and convert them to out much less complicated computer language.....can we have a group hug, Mac Users Unite….blah, blah, blah…….” Bunch of hippies!.

Which completely cracks me up.  And on balance I am happy to align myself with the hippies.  Though the Macbook does not feel near as sturdy as the old Vaio* and I don't generally care for the sleek Mac aesthetic (I got a Kandinsky for the top so I don't have to look at it.)  And he reminds me that I should maybe call Mac about the remaining file transfers I have to do, rather than wander in the wilderness as Microsoft has conditioned me.   

I imported my music files in January and have been deleting extraneous .wma files as I found them. I prefer MP3 (spare me all input on the subject of file quality and compression, etc.  I do not care and I can't hear the difference.) for its universality but turned out to have a number of cds that had been imported in the Windows specific format.  This is the thing that kept me from Mac & iTunes for so long - it is beautifully integrated as long as you stay in what David Pogue at the NYTimes calls the "walled garden" that is the Apple experience.  I didn't want to.  Keep your damn Kool-aid.  Also, I hate that backspace and delete are the same thing.  Drives me crazy.
But I've given up.  My Windows based tech knowledge was all seat of the pants and has been made obsolete in the last few versions of Windows and really, I am middle aged now.  I hate to admit it, but I just want it to work and be simple and the Mac integration is so satisfying I don't care any more.

I'm going to be able to wirelessly and automatically do back ups AND play iTunes on my stereo.  Because I will be able to play iTunes on my stereo I am not sure at this point I even need to replace my MP3 player, which is full to the point of crashing.  I have the bitty iPod for the gym and the playlists are so easy to swap out it takes five seconds.  (These people are marketing geniuses and I feel a little bit like I've sold my soul, but you know, do I really need one?)  Also, I'm in love with Adium for chat (iChat didn't quite make the cut, not cross platform enough).  Photobooth is enormous fun.  I even love Apple mail, though my heart's desire is for a GMail style email software.

That's if I had playlists left at this point, of course, because I believe I did mention that I DELETED my library.
It took me a long time to clue in to the fact that iTunes was organizing the iTunes Music data files using the info tags.  Because really, the computer doing the work for me is outside my experience.  So I kept sorting files the way I liked them and then finding them switched back, which lead to some bad links and double listings.   And then there were these data files left from the .wma deletions which lead to some more double listings in iTunes, one dead song, one live.  Untidy.  Inelegant.

I spent the weekend going through my cds, adding in anything that was missing or a bad file type and about 2/3 of the way through all the clutter started to annoy me.  No sweat.  I will delete and re-add the library. 

So I did delete and then I went to add to library from iTunes Music and dudes, there was nothing there.  6500 song files.  Gone.

Huh.

I looked in the garbage can and they were all there, but no longer in their album and artist files.  Just 6500 songs in a pile.  If I had a brain I would have said "Undo Delete" but my sinking heart and rising gorge prevented this simple option from occurring to me.

Instead I highlighted them all to drag them back into a file, despite the horror at the idea that I would have to manually sort them.  It would be simpler, if depressing, to re-rip every disk. 
But then what of the downloads? 

Lost in my despair I did not drag, I clicked.

And Finder informed me that it could not open file XX song title 12.mp3 because it was in the garbage and I should remove it and try again and please click OK.

Which I did.  Only to be told that it could not open file XX song title 11.mp3 because it was in the garbage and I should remove it and try again and please click OK.

Which I did.  Only to be told that it could not open file XX song title 10.mp3 because it was in the garbage and I should remove it and try again and please click OK.

And so on. 

And so on.

And I realized that it would try each file individually.   There was no Yes-to-all option.  The was no Esc.  And I was too scared to do a hard reboot for fear of data loss.

Click OK. Wait for process. Minutely adjust cursor to sit on new button.  Lather Rinse Repeat.

Do you know how long it takes to do that 6500 times?  More than five hours, that's how long.  And I did it because it is still a damn sight less time than loading every cd in again and cheaper than re-buying the downloads.

Then I dragged them all into iTunes Music and added them to the Library again, and bless its little people-pleasing heart, it sorted them back into albums and artists.   And it is fine.  Works perfectly, all there, pretty as a picture.  It even re-found all the album artwork for me.  You know what I am now?  A Mac person.  If I had deleted the files in Windows it would almost certainly have bypassed the Trash because the data chunk was so big and you know what I would be doing?  Re-ripping my CD collection and swearing.   When the desktop goes I'm getting an iMac, and Parallels or some equivalent to run the knitting software I have that's Windows only.  And maybe Apple TV when it comes time to go High Def.  And, and, and.....

I'm getting one of these this week.   I think it is much safer that way.

* The tragic demise of which I still mourn.  That was a computer I loved, genuinely loved, the tiniest computer in all the land.  It was a sweet pretty thing, though limited in speed and memory by its size.  If I could put Leopard in the Vaio?  That would be PERFECT.  Can you do that?  And get the camera all integrated and stuff?  I bet not.

 

Comments

[Mome-rath]

Don't worry. You'll become more than just a Mac person; before you know it, you'll know that puppy inside and out—that's what's so nice about the Mac platform. Easy-peasy, and oh-so intuitive. I still think about the year I spent working a graphic design job where I had to use a PC, and I shudder.

Since I'm about to go freelance in a few months, I need new hard- and software. Prob'ly going to get the MacBook Pro, because I'm sick to death of G4s that weigh 60 pounds. When you get the Time Capsule, do report on it—I'm hoping to get one myself, and wondering if it's good!

[Rachel H]

How sad is it that seeing the Kandinsky option is pushing me closer to a Mac purchase when my Toshiba finally gives up the ghost?

[claudia]

You were right -- quite enjoyable.

[denny knows what a hippy is]

peace man

[Lisa]

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Macbook I bought in February! So intuitive to use and nurturing to my creativity. So much fun to play with. So unlike my Windows-based desktop PC that I only used when I had to. (And the PC I use at work.) Enjoy!

[Helen]

just maybe, when I need a new 'puter, I may just go over to the dark side. I'm starting to waver, I can feel it.....

[Amy]

...I think I want a Mac now. Because I accidentally did delete my entire collection one day in much the same manner. Except I have an HP, so now I listen to the radio.

[Anne]

I am very displeased with my Apple product at the moment--my iPod is sucking big time--though it might be my Dell screwing up the works.

I just wasn't really planning on dropping a couple grand on Apple this year...

[Katey]

I have a different external hard drive, and it works like a champ and didn't have the extra expense associated with Apple branded merchandise. (Or maybe I'm making lemons out of lemonade here since that cute time machine disk wasn't available when I bought my external drive.)

[Laurie]

Did you see this vid spoofing Apple stuff? www.youtube.com/watch?v=rw2nkoGLhrE

It's pretty funny.

[Sara]

You need to find yourself a guru. Oops, I mean a genius. You can find one at your local temple. Sorry, I meant to say Apple Store. If one is not near you, I heartily recommend cultivating a friendship with a geeky, hardcore Apple user. There is no problem they cannot fix. I love my guru. And yes, for years I resisted the "walled garden", but now. Now I don't even use Office. I use iWork and I love it.

[Dizzle]

Were you running Leopard with Time Machine? That has saved my bacon more times than I care to recount.

[lizbon]

I love both hippies and Kandinsky.