Back when I used Windows as my primary operating system, I was very resistant to using iTunes. I prefered Windows Media Player for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was that it did a better job (understandably) of working with my Dell Axim handheld.

A couple years ago I took it upon myself to get a bunch of my music together and digitize it. I already had some music on my computer, but I had chosen to encode it at low bitrates (128 Kbps, and later 160 Kbps). I figured as long as I was going all out on content, I should go all out on quality too—so I elected to rip my music into a lossless format. This was not, after all, something I’d really want to do more than once, and once you’ve ripped something into a lossless format, it’s relatively trivial to change it all to another lossless format on a whim.

Of course, lossless formats don’t really jive too well with mobile devices, since as a rule mobile devices are limited in terms of storage. Windows Media Player didn’t have an issue with this, since I could configure it to automatically re-encode lossless files into lower quality (and smaller sized) files.

Then I got my MacBook Pro, and predictably took advantage of the opportunity to get a heavily discounted iPod. What this also meant was that I had to migrate my media collection to the Mac, and (by extension) iTunes. This proved problematic.

For one, I didn’t really intend on using my laptop as my primary computer (at least, not at first). I built a desktop PC that I had meant to last me awhile, and it seemed to make more sense to me to use my desktop at my desk, and my laptop on the go and at school. The problem here was that although I could run iTunes on my laptop and on my desktop, I couldn’t figure out a workable (and reasonable) method of maintaining access to my media on both my laptop and my desktop. I toyed with external drives, synchronizing files, copying iTunes library files—nothing worked the way I wanted it to. I wanted a workflow that would be easy to maintain, which meant I wanted things like metadata, ratings, album art to be the same everywhere. I also didn’t care too much for the idea of moving an external drive between my laptop and desktop, or even having to use an external drive on my desktop in the first place. The solution here was to just use the laptop for media.

Another point I discovered was that iTunes, for all of its supposed excellence in integrating with the iPod, doesn’t allow you to re-encode files it syncs to an iPod to a lower bitrate. The one exception to this is if you have an (oppressively small) iPod shuffle, in which case this option is built right into iTunes. For all other iPods, however, you’re out of luck.

The solution I came across here was a set of workflows that allowed me to duplicate my lossless files as lossy files. I then made a smart playlist with those lossy files and had that sync with my iPod. (This didn’t automatically keep my metadata (mainly ratings/playcount) in sync automatically, but one of the workflows facilitates this. If only I remembered to run it.)

Now today I was trying to update my library to feature album art. The first problem here is that in order to get album art from iTunes, you need an iTunes account—something I’ve refused to get because I won’t give Apple a credit card number. I got around this restriction by redeeming a code for some free songs that was readily available online (presumably as a part of some sort of promotion). Unfortunately, however, there were still a number of albums that iTunes (ostensibly) didn’t have art for, which confused me a bit, since I didn’t have any trouble finding a number of these albums in the iTunes Store. (I tried changing the metadata on my computer using iTunes’ clunky editor to match what was in the iTunes Store, but that didn’t work either.)

So then I had to search around for album art, which worked well for a little while—until I realized that I was adding artwork to my lossy files only. Since manipulating album artwork in the first place doesn’t exactly qualify as “fun” or “simple” in iTunes (at least not when you’re doing it on any significant scale), this pissed me off enough to write this blistering critique of iTunes.

There are a bunch of other interface issues that bug me. For example, whenever you edit metadata in iTunes and it takes more than a moment, you get this stupid progress bar—which prevents you from clicking anywhere else in the interface. So you have to wait for it to get your album art copied before you can move onto the next one (read: figure out which one the next one is), which is a pretty stellar waste of time. Podcast support is pretty unimpressive—sometimes I download podcasts without subscribing to a feed, but there’s no way to tell iTunes that those podcasts belong under “podcasts” and not “music” in my library. I really prefer Windows Media Player’s notion of a “Now Playing” playlist, which was an easy way to just pick and choose some songs on the spur of the moment and queue them up however you wanted.¹ I don’t like how any media file that I ever play ends up in my library automatically, to the point that I go out of my way to open files in QuickTime instead of iTunes. And, although this isn’t a complaint specific to iTunes, I’m really sick of companies integrating music stores into music players and not letting the user turn the “store” part off.

And a major part of my annoyance is the knowledge that these issues probably won’t be resolved anytime soon. After all, nowadays it seems that every update to iTunes is just meant to add some new syncing functionality to some new Apple product that I don’t own, to the point that media functionality is utterly neglected. It’s not like my complaints are new, or that I’m the first to express them—it’s just that Apple has been entirely apathetic to them and has practically zero incentive to improve.

Big surprise.

1. Party Shuffle mode is somewhat like this, but it’s more convoluted and less flexible than WMP’s approach. [↩]

Comments (0) | Apple, Geekish

While I was pleased to hear of this decision in the Veoh case, I couldn’t just let this tidbit slide by without mentioning it:

(The judge also consulted Wikipedia to better understand what “Flash” might be, and he concluded that it is “the name of a file format used to transmit videos over the Internet.” Remember, kids, Wikipedia is only good enough for the federal judiciary to make precedent-setting legal decisions, not for your term papers.)

Veoh Safe Harbor ruling could help YouTube in Viacom battle

Comments (0) | Geekish, Snark, Sophisticated Commentary

As a rule I shy away from paying for software. I’ve mentioned this before, but it might be prudent to elucidate some of my reasons.

1. I’m cheap. I’d just rather not spend money on things when I can avoid it. A lot of people are cheap, and many of them resort to pirating things rather than paying for them. I don’t do that because I usually have at least enough respect (or, occasionally, disdain) for those who provide commercial software that I choose not to¹. Besides, the right to not buy something is often neglected in contemporary American culture.
2. Free stuff is usually good enough. I feel like a lot of software (at least for my purposes) isn’t worth paying for, given what you can do with free equivalents. Besides, I’ll be damned if I can’t learn whatever it is I need to write my own software that’ll do the job myself².
3. In theory I think I’m supposed to be in favor of free (as in speech) software, but honestly, I’m more cheap than I am virtuous³.

Another reason I don’t particularly care to pay for software is that I don’t like spending money on things that will become obsolete. This is a bit of a paradox, since I am somewhat a fan of gadgets and gizmos that almost invariably become obsolete within months of purchase, if not sooner. But hardware naturally becomes obsolete—it’s not exactly something you can reasonably avoid. No such technical limitation exists for software, however: updates can be downloaded easily and cheaply. So if you’re trying to get me to buy software that isn’t marketed to professionals, I would think you’d probably need to throw in a “free updates for life” clause in there to sway me.

I understand that commercial developers need to account for things like development costs, gouging the customer⁴, etc. and that this explains the cost of software upgrades. Most software that you’d buy under such terms, in my experience, still allows you some access to free incremental upgrades. For example, if you were to buy HelloWorld 1.0⁵, you’d probably be freely entitled to a bug fix release called HelloWorld 1.0.1⁶, and possibly a major-dot release called HelloWorld 1.1⁷. Once you had 1.1, you’d almost certainly get access to security update HelloWorld 1.1a⁸. You wouldn’t, however, get a free upgrade to HelloWorld 2.0⁹.

Less understandable are those programs that offer upgrades on a timed basis: you pay for some software for some amount of time, and when the time expires, you lose access to new versions (even if you can keep using the version you already have, and redownload versions that you once had access to). I’m not talking about subscriptions, either—I’m talking about software that you download and run yourself, either on a computer or web server of your own.

What’s drawn my ire in this case is Jelsoft’s vBulletin¹⁰. vBulletin is paid forum software; you can buy a lifetime license for a fixed cost, but must pay for access to updates after the first year on a yearly basis. The main reason this is curious is one of timing: you could conceivably buy a license that gets you access to version 2.3.4 when you buy it, gets you a free upgrade to 3.0, and then ends when you’re running 3.1.0—just before a bug fix release comes out, which (of course) you’ll need to pay for.

Not having access to the latest bug fixes is normally just a nuisance—unless the latest bug fixes are also security fixes. vBulletin employs a system called “patch level” releases, which are used to fix security issues and designed to be painless to implement, relative to a typical upgrade. If you have access to a version of vBulletin that’s been superseded by a patch level release, you’re given access to the patch regardless of your upgrade status.

But ponder this: vBulletin, as of this writing, maintains two separate, stable branches of their software: 3.6 and 3.7. 3.7 is the latest, recommended version, while 3.6 is(/was) maintained for those who hadn’t yet upgraded. 3.6.10 is the most recent release of the 3.6 branch (excluding patch level releases) and has been for some time; 3.7.2 is the most recent release on the 3.7 branch (again, excluding patch level releases).

Now let’s take a message board that upgrades from 3.6 to 3.7.1, after which its access to updates expires. vBulletin’s developers discover a couple security issues in both branches, and then proceed to release patch level versions of 3.6.10 and 3.7.1. Not a problem—the site has access to 3.7.1 and thus has access to its patch level releases too. vB 3.7.2 comes out a little while later, but this message board doesn’t get access to it. Fair enough—3.7.2 just contains ordinary bug fixes.

But then additional security vulnerabilities are discovered. The developers now release new patch level versions for 3.6.10 and 3.7.2. The security vulnerabilities still exist in 3.7.1 (and 3.7.0), but since those aren’t the latest releases in any currently supported, stable branch, no patch is released for either version. The message board is stuck running a vulnerable 3.7.1 until it coughs up the money to upgrade¹¹.

Suddenly the entire situation bounds right over the “curious” barrier into “absurd” territory. As it happens, this message board could have been left running 3.6.10 and gotten access to the security patches, but there’s no way to downgrade and no way to know that a security patch is coming until it comes.¹²

Rather, the situation could just as well have been avoided had vBulletin—like so many other software products out there—used a system that required payment for major-dot updates only (e.g. 3.6 to 3.7, or 3.7 to 4.0), with minor-dot releases (e.g. 3.7.1 to 3.7.2) being made available for free. The software is already developed in a fashion that lends itself to this payment plan, given that support for any given release is essentially dropped (including, importantly, security patches) once superseded by a new minor-point release in the same branch. And even though it would be a more logical setup than what Jelsoft currently uses (and certainly better for the customer), I can think of a couple reasons that Jelsoft probably isn’t inclined to adopt it:

• Jelsoft wants you to upgrade. If they can structure their payment plan such that you’re left in the lurch without access to the latest security and bug fixes, all the better.
• vBulletin updates pretty infrequently. Guess which is more likely to happen in a 12-month period: a new major-dot release of vBulletin coming out, or your yearly license expiring? (Here’s a hint: the latter is guaranteed, while the former is more of a coin flip.)

In any event, for me it’s a helpful reminder of one reason why free stuff is often better for the job—with free software, no corporation is going to hold your security (or your data, or whatever else) hostage until you agree to pay up. And while there may not be any free software that quite matches vBulletin in terms of features, performance, etc., like I said: usually, and for most people, there’s something out there that will be good enough.

1. Movies and games aren’t really my things, and if I want to watch television I’ll almost always watch it live or record it. [↩]
2. Needless to say, if it really were that easy, someone else would’ve done it before me anyway. So it’s never really come to this. [↩]
3. I don’t have a problem releasing code I write, aside from the fact that I haven’t really written any code that’s both (1) in releasable condition and (2) appealing to people other than me. [↩]
4. This one’s more of a corporate thing, I’ve noticed. [↩]
5. A program, of course, that simply prints “hello world” and exits. [↩]
6. In which they fix the typo that caused “hello” to be printed as just “hell”. [↩]
7. In which they add the ability to say “hiya” and “howdy”. [↩]
8. In which “howdy” is removed in deference to offended cowboys. [↩]
9. In which they add multilingual support, so you can say “hola mundo,” “salut le monde,” and “世界您好” all in one program. [↩]
10. I don’t own vBulletin myself (for reasons I hope I made clear already) but I know a thing or two about it from having used, administered, and maintained it elsewhere. [↩]
11. Typically it makes sense to pay for an upgrade for vBulletin, even if it bothers me. Let’s just say that in this particular case, there were external circumstances that made it impractical to renew access to upgrades. But even if there weren’t, making people pay to patch security flaws in the original product is dangerous. [↩]
12. It also happens that 3.6.10 came out after 3.7.0, so given a slight change in timing, 3.6.10 could easily have been released after access to new updates expired. Similarly, what if 3.6.11 is suddenly released, and new security flaws are found? [↩]

Comments (0) | Geekish

Dear Valued Newegg Customer,

[...] After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that we have stopped collecting New York sales tax, effective August 21, 2008. This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued customers. [...]
Sales Tax: Hooray Newegg Stops Collecting New York Sales Tax

I got this email this morning (even though it was sent to me yesterday). Good news in my book, even though they do include a reminder that people should pay their own “use tax”. Now if only Amazon would jump on board.

Comments (0) | Geekish

So WNBC ran a story tonight about domain name squatters, which was basically a story complaining about how all the “good” domain names have been taken. It’s really not news in my eyes, since it’s a practice that (as the story itself said) has its roots in the cyberbubble of the 90’s. But I guess since more people are getting Internet savvy(?) it’s becoming more obvious to more people, and thus is now considered “newsworthy”.

The problem is they simply misrepresented things. In talking about domain name squatters, they said that the largest owner of domain names is Go Daddy, the domain name registrar. Registrars don’t own the domains they register, they simply handle the registration process on behalf of people who would like to purchase domains. The domain is owned by the person who buys it through the registrar. However, the story made it seem as if Go Daddy itself was a domain name squatter, and the quote they used from Go Daddy didn’t help clarify things:

We consider domain names the real estate of the 21st century.

Makes sense if you understand that Go Daddy is trying to convince you to buy your own domain name, but if you’re already under the impression that Go Daddy owns 30 million domains of its own and is just trying to auction them off to the highest bidder, it sure won’t dissuade you of that opinion either.

Their website doesn’t really make things any clearer. They offer a link to Go Daddy’s complete email in response to their questions (which, again, doesn’t necessarily clear anything up if you’re already misinformed) and a link that simply reads Who Owns The Most Domain Names? (Again, this is a list of registrars, and nothing about the page they linked to implies otherwise.)

Then again, the page in question also currently links to file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/501452663/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20Internet%20Files/OLK1639/product_detail.htm, so, uh, you’ll excuse me for not taking them too seriously.

Comments (0) | Geekish, TV

In case you were wondering, an iPod Touch purchased since the 2.0 firmware was released will not, in fact, come with version 2.0 installed. It won’t be an oversight, either, because it will come installed with version 1.1.5 instead, which was released after 2.0.

And, needless to say, Apple will still be willing to charge you $9.99 for the upgrade, finally putting a nail into the coffin of that silly old “we only charge for the upgrade because we have to for accounting purposes” excuse that they’ve been touting.

My annoyance with Apple in this regard (no, I don’t own a Touch) is only outweighed by my disappointment with Microsoft’s Windows Mobile platform, which has been thoroughly put to shame by the iPhone OS. As much as I dislike Apple’s resistance to removable batteries and external storage cards, the lack of Bluetooth/speaker/microphone on the Touch, and Steve Jobs’ draconian control over what applications can be marketed and installed to devices that Apple sells, the usability of an iPhone or iPod Touch vs. a technically superior (with regard to hardware) Windows Mobile device is just so much better that my qualms more or less become irrelevant.

There are a lot of things Apple does wrong, and many things that they do worse than their competitors, but their final package is often simply unmatched in the end. In a way, it’s kind of disappointing.

Comments (0) | Geekish