BUT at least the weekend was relaxing. Jen started to look at the back fence early on Saturday. I walked out of the garage and in front of her pulled a 30 foot vine out of the pine tree. I had cut it about a month ago, and now it was finally dead and ready to be pulled out. That prompted Jen and I to start cutting back the vine on the rest of the fence. So a couple hours later and we've now got a pile of clippings all over the yard.
After that Jen and I headed out to the Arboretum for Victor Vener's festival on the green. Bob got another table for everybody so it ended up being like the "kids" table for the night. Well at least we all acted like kids. It ended up being Me Jen, David, Missy, Nicole, Justing, Bill, Claudia, Julie and Tom.
Sunday i did NOTHING. Well i finished cleaning the yard, and drained the hot tub. (yes it was growing something strange in it) Then i just got random bits of work done. I just needed to get mentally prepared for this week.
Deadline is coming...
So where the hell is this rant going? Well i figure that Apple when combines CoverFlow and iTunes, and they'd think about where to write the artwork. I'd assume they'd just follow the usual plan and write the artwork in the sound files. That makes too much sense i guess. Instead they write a album artwork directory in your home directory. (yes, even if your music is somewhere else) So now i've got a bunch of music that does have album artwork attached, and i've got my old coverflow cache, and now my new UNWANTED directory of album artwork floating in my home dir.
So whats the solution? Well there was an app called GimmieSomeTune that used to work great. If it encountered an song with no artwork it would fetch the artwork and paste it automatically to all the songs on the same album. It was a little slow cause it did a lot of heavy lifting. It doesn't seem to work with the new version of iTunes.
We'll wait for an update on that.
AND... there's more.
I know why Apple dumbed down CoverFlow. Yes, i said it. They dumbed it down. Well they really just made it work a little better for dumb people (or people who still use piece of shit computers). The original CoverFlow had a great little rollover glow and moved each piece of artwork slightly as you moved the mouse around. It had a better birds eye perspective, and IMHO it just looked a lot sexier. So why did Apple do it? Well they can't allow a piece of software to hog that much CPU! DUH! They can't have the sexy cause it would take too much CPU from the long "Loading iTunes Library" and "Determining gapless play"
I don't know, but this might be one of the first times I've found Apple pulling their punches on making something look better.
Shit i'm not done yet. WTF happened to Apple UI!?! Any time you're in iTunes the left and right arrows play the next and previous song. Now if you're in coverflow view, the left and right arrows do nothing but pan through the artwork. And you'd figure if you click on the song titles and then hit the arrows it would work. Nope, it still pans the artwork. BUT, now if you click on the "MUSIC" link in the left menu, and THEN hit the arrows, it goes previous next. I don't know, but that seems counterintuitive. And we're talking about APPLE FFS!
So i'm not going to be all negative. Here are my suggestions. Add a CoverFlow tab in the prefs. Give the user the ability to change ALL the settings. I want to be able to change the view angle, the rollover states, and where the artwork is stored. And i want to turn off the little scroller at the bottom of the artwork. And my last suggestion is out of left field i know. Every other app that apple makes has a function "Customize Toolbar...". iTunes is the only one without this, and it really shouldn't be. The UI first off is a little crazy. You got icons and buttons on all sides of the window. Forward Play/Pause Reverse, Volume are at top left. View selection and Search is at Top Right. Add Playlist, Shuffle, Shuffle, Repeat and View/Hide Artwork at bottom left. Finally Browse and Eject at bottom Right. Ok, WTF is the deal with this? Please make all the toolbar buttons standard units of size and let me put them wherever I want. You know.... just like every other app you make.
Last thing. Visualizer can't be set to full screen CoverFlow? Why Not?
Friday morning i walked into my Garage at about 7:30 AM to a smell that i know very well. Its the smell of burnt circut board. Something WAS REALLY burning. So i started with the most likely suspects, the older g4's on my rack. I had left my music server on for the last couple of days and it must have finally died. I smelled around it and it was pretty bad. Well it actually was bad all around the garage. I couldn't tell exactly if it was worse just around the g4's. So i turned on all my fans and started to air out the place. As the smell started to clear i took apart the first of my g4's and sniffed around. hmmm nothing.
Next the printer, my new camera battery charger, all the AC to DC converters in the garage, anything that i could think of. Then as the air started to clear of the smell i could really start to track down the origin of the smell.
I was getting closer to the G5.
But it was still running. It couldn't be the... hold on. Shit. It IS the G5. So i power it down and crack it open. drive bays don't smell. the CPU bay doesn't smell. AH fuck its the power supply! But how can it be? the Computer was still on and running when i walked in. Usually if a power supply dies, the computer is off. Hmmm.
So i run a little test and plug it back in and power it up. I keep my nose close to the power supply fan output and keep sniffing for the bad smell. Sure enough it runs for about 2 minutes then starts to stink. I run around to the front of the system and look through the vent holes at the front. I can actually see something on the bottom circut board glowing red hot! Ah shit. So power it down and run off to work. I don't have time to deal with this now.
So today for the first time in about 15 years i took a computer in for service. I tried to crack the thing open, but quickly abandon any attempt. The lower part of the computer that i need to get into houses all the liquid cooling system for the CPUs. I'm not ready to fuck around with this DIY project. Its a little over my head.
So i walked into the only good place around here i know. Nope, not the genius bar. thats right... Di-No Computers!! I didn't have to deal with the "cool-as-shit" apple attitude, and i had 2 guys looking at the computer within 30 seconds of walking in the door. We'll see how they finish up with this problem, but i've got faith in them.
