Yes, even us folks running Vista can now share our iTunes libraries over the Internet with Simplify Media. This is my laptop’s new favorite software and my hotel room’s best friend.
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More on Simplify Media
26
Jul 2007
As I posted yesterday, Simplify Media allows you to share your iTunes library over the Internet with up to 30 of your closest friends. Now that I have it running on three out of four of my computers, here’s a few follow-up notes.
- The software does not yet run on Vista. (Which is of course my personal laptop’s OS.) According to the company “a release for Windows Vista will be available shortly.”
- One of my friends has reported that the software is “not reading the data from my external HD.” My main collection is not on my main drive but on a secondary internal drive so that seems to work. I have not yet tested sharing a folder on an external drive myself. I’ll report back if I receive any additional news on this issue.
- Simplify Media only shares the contents of your “Music” category in iTunes. Items listed under “Podcasts” and “Audiobooks” will not be shared.
- I claimed via Twitter that I’d making “a week” worth of Bowie tracks available. For the record, I’m sharing just four days, 1368 tracks, or Bowie. Sorry if that’s not enough for some of you
Just one additional comment: Simplify Media is a good company name but the software itself needs a name of its own. “Simplify Meida” just isn’t a great name (maybe it’s just me) for this program.)
Category: apple, itunes, music
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I’ve got gigs and gigs of music on my home desktop. I’ve got some podcasts and a few choice albums on my office desktop. If only I could listen to the music on my home PC at work. Or, better yet, on my laptop while on the road. What would be totally amazing is the ability to listen to anything from the libraries of up to 30 of my friends. Wait. What? You mean Simplify Media has software that will let you do all these things? No F’in way! I gotta get me some of that!
My username is “travelinlibrarian” for those wanting to share. I’ll add anyone right now but when I hit the limit I’ll need to start cutting people so you’d better have some interesting music. Me, I’ve got more than a full week worth of Bowie for your listening pleasure. Also, you can not copy files between accounts so I think that’s how they’re “legal”. I’m still wondering how long it’ll be before someone sues them…
Category: apple, itunes
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I’ve seen the article Speed Up Windows Vista from ExtremeTech blogged about several other places so I wasn’t going to mention it here. I did read it though and agree with the criticism regarding the section of the article dealing with Windows services. But the one thing that I got from the article was the importance of making sure your drivers are up to date; especially if you’re upgrading from XP to Vista.
First a little background: In my workshop Tech Support on the Fly I talk about Windows update and the different categories of updates you’ll find there. One category in XP is “optional hardware updates” and I stress that you should only install hardware (i.e. driver) updates when you’re having trouble with said hardware or if the new driver gives you new features you want. This advice spawns from the times that I’ve had to rollback video drivers on computers where I can no longer see anything on the screen. That is not fun!
So when I upgraded my laptop to Vista I updated as many drivers as I could but was unable to find the updated driver for my video card. (As blogged earlier.) My laptop was running but it seemed a little more sluggish than I would like. I was poking around in the computer’s properties last weekend and found something called the “System Rating”.
The one pictured here is from my second office computer with known issues so don’t worry too much about the low score. In the case of my laptop the score was 2.8 out of five. Looking for a little more detail I clicked on “Windows Experience Index” and found the detail and explanation I was looking for.
It turns out the the rating is based on the lowest score in five categories: Processor, Memory, Graphics, Gaming Graphics, and Primary Hard Disk. In my laptop’s case, the graphics rating was 2.8. This may just have been the reason for the sluggish performance of my machine.
A commenter to this blog had recently pointed out where I could find the driver and a few days ago I download and installed the update. I then went to Windows update and noticed there was an “optional” update to my video driver so I took a chance and installed that next. After all the required reboots I went back to look at my computer’s score. The score hadn’t changed but it did inform me that it had “found new hardware” and needed to rerun the tests to recompute my score. I clicked OK and waited about five minutes. The score was updated to 3.8 and I was told that I could even comfortably run the Areo interface now.
I switched Aero on and started to play. My laptop is now back to the speed it was running at with XP. (Unfortunately, Second Life still won’t run and my iTunes problems still exist but I’ve ruled out my video driver as the source of the problem.)
So, the bottom line, if you’re running Vista, my current advice is to install those driver updates as soon as they become available. Might your system die as a result? Sure, but I’d say the benefits outweigh the very small risks in this situation.
Category: apple, flickr, itunes, second life, video, vista, windows
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iTunes & Vista
18
Mar 2007
Well, I updated to version 7.1.1 today which said addressed “minor compatibility problems”. Despite the fact that I don’t view any of the problems I’ve been having “minor” updates rarely do damage so I had hope. The result: no noticeable change. The display problems have not gone away.
Category: apple, itunes, vista
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iTunes & Vista
16
Mar 2007
Just when you think the display “problems” can’t get any worse, exhibit A:
Category: apple, itunes, vista
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iTunes & Vista – Part 2
12
Mar 2007
Over the weekend I finally upgraded iTunes to version 7.1, the one that supposedly solves most of the problems in Vista. (Notice the important “supposedly” in that previous sentence. Well, here’s my results:
I downloaded the update and ran the installation program. (Side note, why can’t iTunes update itself from within the program like most other software today. Why oh why do I have to re-download the program every time there’s an update?) The first oddity was the fact that I was required to shutdown Microsoft Outlook in order for the install program to continue. I was also running the Outlook widget in the Vista sidebar and I was required to shut that down too. (Oh wait, I just realized that I had set iTunes to sync my Outlook contacts and calendar so maybe that’s why…) Other than that the install worked but seemed to take twice as long as it usually did. (More on speed later.)
Once the install was completed I was given the option to run iTunes automatically. I chose that option and waited a good ten minutes, disk thrashing the whole time, before finally giving up and running iTunes via the desktop icon.
I was asked to accept the license (typical of the first run of iTunes after any update) and was then informed that it was “updating iTunes library…” Twenty minutes later, this was complete. (I don’t have the largest iTunes library in the world, just 3712 totaling 16.47GB so this seemed to take much longer than it should have.)
Once I was actually able to use iTunes I started to update my podcasts. Every few minutes I would receive an error that said it couldn’t update my library due to not having the correct permissions. I continued to click through the errors and once the podcasts were done downloading I closed and restarted iTunes and this error has not come back since.
As for the display problems, some of them seem to have been solved. For example, the add artwork bug has been fixed. However, all of the other display problems do still occur but after a longer period of time than before. According to Apple, “iTunes may display text or graphics incorrectly on your screen. Resizing the iTunes window should correct this issue.” However, I’ve noticed that once the display problems start, the only solution is to close the program (which does then crash) and restart. Any attempt to resize or minimize locks the program forcing me to go to the Task Manager to kill the process. My theory is that iTunes is incompatible with the Aero interface that I’m running. However, running iTunes in XP Compatibility mode doesn’t solve these problems and since compatibility mode turns Aero off, this may not be a logical conclusion.
I eventually noticed that since I chose to make iTunes my default player during the installation process, the default player error has not returned.
Finally, having made sure I followed all of the warnings on the Apple site, I decided to actually connect my iPod to the laptop. The short answer is that it synced as it should. The longer answer is that it seemed to take forever to start the syncing process. Seriously, I plugged it in, Vista made it’s horrid “bonk” indicating the presence of a USB device, and my iPod appeared in iTunes within seconds as it should. But, it all just sat there for the better part of ten minutes before any syncing actually started to happen. (I’ve since synced my iPod a few more times with the same wait each time.) My iPod is in working condition and I lost no data that I’ve noticed.
So, my conclusions: It’s better but serious problems still exist. The known display problems are something that need to be fixed immediately. (I’m assuming that fixing the display problems will solve the crashing issues since it only seems to crash after the display goes wonky.) The other item that must be fixed is performance. I now feel like I’m working under water while in iTunes. Importing works at normal speed but everything else either is or just feels slow, especially the sync function.
iTunes & Vista – Update from Apple
08
Mar 2007
As of yesterday, Apple has released iTunes 7.1 which supposedly addresses a number of compatibility issues with Windows Vista. I’ll test it out tonight and report back.
Category: apple, itunes, vista, windows
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iTunes & Vista
05
Mar 2007
Some of you have been waiting for this post and I’ve finally got around to writing. So, how’s iTunes working with Vista in my case? No so well. Here’s the details based on what I’ve been experiencing.
First, when I run the program I’m told that it’s running in compatibility mode. Trouble is, I’ve not set that option so I have no idea why I’m being told this.
Next, I’m informed that iTunes is no longer my default audio player and offered an option to go to the screen that will change these settings.
However, once I get there I see no way to make iTunes my default.
There may be a way to fix this but I’m not seeing it. Why can’t I just tell iTunes to set itself as the default like I can with other programs?
Once iTunes is running it usually works for several minutes. Then, the display problems start. They’re inconsistent but these are some of the problems I usually see.
Here I’ve inserted a CD and the window that you can see through is the one that’s asking me if I wish to import the CD:
Here the vertical lines separating the tracks have disappeared and the vertical lines have gone bold.
In this example I’ve selected a single track. Instead of highlighting the track, the track’s information disappears.
Here we have all tracks but one selected. Only the unselected track shows information.
When I try to import album artwork, it doesn’t show up in the right place, it appears in the upper-left corner of the window instead.
Sometimes when I try to update track information (this is the result off adding the previously illustrated album artwork) I’m told that the data can’t be saved. The data does appear to be saved regardless of this message.
Lastly, on close, the program crashes.
I’ve not tried to actually sync my iPod yet. I’m using this as an opportunity to get caught up on my podcast backlog. Here’s hoping apple releases an upgrade soon.
Category: apple, ipod, itunes, vista
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To Vista or not to Vista?
01
Mar 2007
Ok, so, what’s my official advice on upgrading to Vista? I did it, so should you? Well, let’s keep in mind a few important items:
- Some would consider me a bit of a geek and willing to futz around with my computer and change all sorts of settings just for fun.
- I specifically bought this laptop with the specifications needed to run Vista Ultimate edition and planned on upgrading it once Vista was released.
- I get paid to do this first and warn everyone else about the potential pitfalls.
So, with those things in mind, my official advice and this time is the following:
- If you’re going to be buying a new computer, get Vista. (Really, you won’t have a choice but if you did I’d still say go with Vista.)
- If you have a recently-purchased machine with one of those free upgrade coupons, go for it. I’m assuming you haven’t had the computer long enough to customize it too much and you’re probably not running any highly-specialized programs. (Check with vendors if you are. Hell, OCLC software had some problems with IE7. Who knows how they’re reacting to Vista.)
- You’ve got an older computer and the Windows Upgrade Advisor says the hardware can handle it, don’t unless you’re a masochist like me.
- The Upgrade Advisor says you can’t run at least Home Premium, don’t even consider it. If you can at least run Home Premium, see #3.
To be honest, I love it despite the problems I’m having. (Second Life won’t run, iTunes is fracked, I’m having some issues sharing files between the Vista computer and my XP computer, (let’s not even consider the NT4.0 box,) and there’s still an outstanding issue with upgrading my BIOS.) The bottom line, is that if everything’s running fine on XP and you’re considering upgrading everything in the library to Vista “because I can” or “because it looks cool” don’t bother. Wait for the next round of computer purchasing and bring it into your system then. You’ll be much better off in the long run.
Category: apple, itunes, microsoft, second life, vista, windows
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