Weblog of a “Switcher”

This is a continuation of my sad, sad story of the demise of the boot drive on my Mac Pro and the process of recovery. This chapter finds the rather stupid Mac Pro owner looking to recover all the purchased media from Apple and iTunes.

Monday morning at around 8am, I sent off a letter to Apple asking them if they would allow me to download all my purchased media and games from iTunes since I lost all the data on the drive the media was on. I told them that I normally backup my data, but my backup drive had recently crapped out and that I was waiting for my new drive to arrive when the drive holding the media died. Not entirely the truth, but pretty close.

I did have a Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo 1TB RAID drive which contained 2 500GB SATA drives and a very small RAID controller. The drive worked great for about a year, but then started acting strange. Turns out that the fan used to cool the box seized up due to dust and stopped spinning. I was unaware of this fact until the drive completely shot craps. From what I can tell, one of the 500GB drives is dead and the other may still work. I'm testing that fact now and was ultimately the reason why I accidentally wiped the boot drive. I want to use it for a Boot Camp drive for Windows.

My new 1TB My Book Studio Edition II drive is a single 1TB SATA drive. No weird built-in RAID controller, no need for a fan to help cool the unit down. Just 1TB's of pure backup storage for Time Machine to do it's thing with. In fact, it's finished the full system backup now so I am back to being safe once again.

Anyway, I got an email from Apple at 5:30pm the same day telling me that they have decided to allow me to download the tracks I lost. Now, from what I have heard from Leo Laporte and TWiT, Apple allows it's customers 1 of these "get out of jail free" cards (as it were) per year. I shouldn't need more than just this one since I will be not only backing up to the external drive, but also backing up my purchases to DVD later. I'm not going to allow myself to lose my media again, period!

So, now I'm downloaded the thousands of files that make up all the music, movies, and games I purchased over the years. There is quite a lot. It's interesting to see that iTunes is smart about this and is not downloading tracks that I recovered off my iPod earlier. This saves a little time and confusion when it comes to dealing with duplicate files.

So, once again, Apple support shines bright and true. It sure is nice to know you can count on them when you need them. Pity other computer manufacturers can't seem to get their acts together.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Apple, customer support, iTunes

Wow, I really never ever expected to see Apple kill Wal-Mart in Music sales to become #1. Wal-Mart is so frecking big and can afford to undercut anyone to make sure they held the lead that I just never ever thought it would happen.

This really makes me wonder if record labels are going to reconsider their position on DRM with Apple.

According to ars technica and the NPD Group, sales numbers for the month of January were: Apple 19%, Wal-Mart 15%, Best Buy 13%, Amazon 6%.

Way to go Apple! Now, I wonder how soon before you get brought to court for being a monopoly. You know it's inevitable.

Update (3pm): AppleInsider reports that the following month (February), they fell right back behind Wal-Mart. However, they also sight:

Given Apple's ongoing and rapid ascent in the retail rankings, it's likely only a matter of months before the company completely erodes whatever lead Wal-mart currently maintains to become the definitive No.1 overall.

So maybe in a couple of months this will be for longer than a single month.

Update (3:30pm): OK, now I just don't know who or what to believe.

Apple posted a press release sometime around 2pm stating that they were #1 in US Music Sales for both January and February. So, I'm stumped. Can anyone shed any light on this?

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Amazon, Apple Music, Ars Technica, Best Buy, Drm, Group Sales, Monopoly, Month Of January, Music Sales, Npd Group, Record Labels, record sales, Sales Numbers, Wal Mart, Wow

One thing I like to do with my iTunes playlists, smart or normal, is to adjust which items are to be played in what order. Most the time, I'm happy with the order that appears when the items are downloaded. However, sometimes, I want to listen to a specific podcast first, or I might want to put a podcast off till the end.

When I attempted to adjust the order by dragging an item in the playlist, I found that my Video Podcasts playlist wouldn't let me do this, my Audio Podcasts let me adjust the order just fine.

Now this baffled me. There was one other time I wasn't able to adjust the order of items in a smart playlist. At that time, I just assumed I wasn't able to adjust the item order in smart playlists back then so I forgot about it. Fast forward to now. I have been adjusting the order of my Audio Playlist without any problems, but I didn't think about the fact that it was a smart playlist.

As you can see, there is a little insert bar that appears when adjusting the order of items in a playlist works.

So I attempted to adjust the order in my Video Podcasts playlist and found it wasn't working.

Here, you can see that no insertion bar appears when dragging an item around in the list.

This made me scratch my head since both are smart playlists. Now, I know I can, in fact, adjust the order in a smart playlist since the Audio Podcasts playlist was working perfectly. I know that the Video Podcasts playlist should work, so what is the difference between the two playlists that made one work and the other not.

I checked the settings in both smart playlist and saw that other than what they are set to display, the rest of the setting are the same. I really couldn't think of anything else that could cause this so I wound up giving up for a few days.

Today, it started bugging me again, so I took a look again. This time I notices something that I hadn't before. The Video Podcasts playlist has a "Name" sort order and the Audio Podcast playlist is sorted by the number column. "Bing" (lightbulb turning on over head) It hits me that if the playlist is not sorted by the first number column, it must not allow that playlist to have it's order changed. I changed the sorting of the playlist to the first column and "presto", I am now able to adjust the playlist order.

So it seems that the only way you can adjust the playlist order of a smart playlist is if it's sorted by the first column (what ever that column is called).

I figured that if I had problems figuring this out, there are probably others out there that are having similar problems and would want to know what the solution is.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: custom order, Few Days, Insertion, iTunes, Playlist, Playlists, smart playlist, Smart Tag, Smart Tags, sort order, Video Podcasts

Seems that now iLounge is playing the sensational news headline game. I just caught an article there with the headline: Report: Amazon now #2 digital music retailer

That caught my attention since it was just a few weeks ago that I heard that Apple was the second largest music retailer in the world.

So what happened? Did Amazon sneak past Apple as #2? Well, it doesn't really look to be true. From the article quoted by the iLounge story:

Amazon takes on Apple with copy-protection-free music
Amazon's (AMZN) MP3 store — which sells only songs without copy protection — has quietly become No. 2 in digital sales since opening nearly six months ago, say the four major labels. That's even though Apple (AAPL) dominates digital music with its iTunes Store (the second-largest music retailer in the world, after Wal-Mart) (WMT) and its hugely popular iPod.

Maybe what is being said here is that Amazon is now #2 in DRM-Free digital music sales.

Apple now has 2 million songs from EMI and independent labels available without DRM, out of its 6 million-song catalog. Amazon offers 4.5 million DRM-free songs.

If that is the case, who is #1 in DRM-Free digital music sales? Wouldn't you think we would have heard of them?

Also, doesn't Mr. Starrett know what a paragraph is? Now, I am going to state up front that I am clearly not a good writer. I'm sure a true writer or journalist would go to town over my lack of grammar and style. However, I would think that an article with 216 words would have at least 2 paragraphs. Hmm. Ah well.

Could someone please clear this story up for me. I would hate to look bad again with this claim, but from where I sit, it sure looks like an overly sensational headline to me.

Update (7:40pm): So, during my regular blog reading, I came across another article on this topic from AppleInsider. They state:

Amazon MP3 takes number two spot behind iTunes

Although it's been an option only since September, Amazon MP3 is now in second place behind iTunes in the US for downloadable music sales, USA Today says.

No independent explanation for the jump is available, though Amazon digital music chief Pete Baltaxe points to a larger DRM-free library of 4.5 million songs that allows all its music to work with any portable player, including iPods.

"They appreciate that everything is DRM-free and so comprehensive," Baltaxe claims.

In contrast, Apple has only 2 million unrestricted songs and only obtains major-label music from EMI versus additional support from Sony BMG, Universal and Warner at Amazon.

OK, so now it's clear that iTunes is the number one store for "downloadable music". Not DRM-Free based. So, this makes the iLounge article a bit inaccurate. iLounge's headline should read: Report: Amazon now #2 digital music retailer behind iTunes.

Now I realize that this might make the headline redundant, but considering the article to follow isn't clear at all that the #1 digital music retailer is iTunes, it seems necessary. The way the article reads, they make it sound like iTunes is #3 which would beg the question as to who #1 is.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Aapl, Amazon, Amzn, Copy Protection, Digital Music Retailer, Digital Music Sales, Free Digital Music, Free Songs, Headline Game, Independent Labels, iTunes, Largest Music, Misleading Headline, Mp3 Store, News Headline, Sensational Headline, Song Catalog, True Writer, Wal Mart, Wal Mart Wmt

Don't get me wrong here, I am really excited that Apple has worked out a deal to allow us to rent movies. I have already used it and am pretty much pleased with it. I'll explain my disappointment in a little bit...

Renting movies from Apple is a real boon for me. I've tried Netflix and Blockbuster's DVD rental via snail-mail and have been nothing but angered with both. After less than a month with each service, I started getting movies that were on DVD's that looked like they had sandpaper rubbed on them. They were completely unreadable. I would return the DVD and let them know that the disc was destroyed. However, the next disc they would send was either just as bad or they had simply sent me the save DVD.

For the longest time, I have resorted to BitTorrent for a way to "rent" movies. I would watch them, then delete them off the computer. This worked pretty well for me, but takes a long time to download and there is an element of danger with using BitTorrent to "rent" movies.

I do buy movies and television shows on DVD. I own all 10 seasons of Stargate: SG1 and the first 3 seasons of Stargate Atlantis (we are currently on season 4). I own over 100 movie DVD's. I have even bought a few movies from Apple. I don't do this often though since you don't get any of the extra's that are on the DVD's when buying from Apple. If I don't care about any of the DVD extra's, I'll buy from iTunes.

Now that Apple is renting movies, I waited till the first movie I wanted to rent was available, The Simpson's Movie, and tagged it for rental. I was pleased to see it start downloading immediately. I was surprised to find that I couldn't move/copy the downloaded rented movie to a different Mac. I'll have to make sure that when I rent movies, that I use my MacBook so that it's on the computer that is attached to my home entertainment system. Otherwise, I won't be able to watch it in comfort.

My "disappointment" came when I was ready to start watching it. I wasn't able to use Front Row to watch the movie. I am able to watch movies I have purchased via Front Row, movies I have "rented" via BitTorrent via Front Row and Perian. Yet, I'm not able to watch rented movies via Front Row. Why is this Apple? What could possibly be done that would break your precious DRM with Front Row?

Also, when playing the movie I rented, I was rewarded with a full screen display that not only had black bars on top and bottom of the video, but on the left and right! For some reason, the full screen experience for the movie was "less" than full screen. Fortunately, my Sharp Aquos HD television has the ability to "zoom" a picture so that I didn't have any black bars. It clipped a few pixels around the image, but was fine for watching the movie. Doing so made the movie a bit pixelated, but I guess that's expected considering the "full screen" they chose to give me.

Oh, I know. They would be competing with TV! Really? TV is $229, a MacBook is $1099 and a MacMini is $599. How could that be competing with TV? Seriously Apple, let us use Front Row with Movie Rentals. Why else would you have opened up Front Row on all Macintosh computers in Leopard if not so that we can get the full multimedia experience with Front Row?

Another disappointment is the lack of ability to rent TV Shows. If I am going to pay over $30 for the ability to watch a season of a TV show, I'm going to just go out and buy the DVD box set. I want to be able to watch the series for a fairly minimal cost. Say $4-$5 for 4-5 episodes. Pretty much a DVD's worth of episodes. I hope they are just testing the waters with movie rentals and will be adding TV shows later.

Now, another possible disappointment is the lack of HD quality movies using iTunes instead of TV. Now, its possible that there just isn't any HD quality movies out yet since the TV software update isn't out yet. I do hope that this is the case. My MacBook is more than capable of displaying 1920x1080 interlaced (1080i), so why not allow me to watch HD content? Now the "Steve" told us that HD content is coming. So I can only hope that it's coming to all rentals and not just TV rentals.

Overall, I'm still pumped about the idea of renting movies via my Macintosh. I just wish they would do a better job of it. If they don't deal with some of these issues soon, I'll have to go back to the "best" way to do it. Via BitTorrent. It's slow, but it works and gives me true HD quality.

written by Dave M. \\ tags: Apple, Bittorrent, Blockbuster, Boon, Disappointment, Element, Few Movies, Home Entertainment System, iTunes, Little Bit, Long Time, Longest Time, Mac, Macbook, Netflix, Sandpaper, Sg1, Snail Mail, Stargate Atlantis, Television Shows On Dvd