Category: Longform
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It's a trap!
Last week I bought a bottle of Diet Pepsi from a vending machine. I opened it up, and woohoo! The cap was a winner - buy one 20 oz bottle, get one free.
I held onto the cap until Monday, when I was having a bad caffeine craving. So I redeemed it, and when I opened the second bottle, guess what? Another winner.
Fast-forward to today. I turned in that winner and got another two-fer. I opened the second bottle, and guess what? Yep, another winner.
I think it’s a trap.
Evaluating alternative iPod management software
Yesterday SimpleHelp.net posted 10 Alternatives to iTunes for managing your iPod. (They have since been dugg and their website is down. Bummer. You can still see the guts of the article from the Google cache.)
At my work location iTunes is verboten, so I’m all for exploring other ways to manage my iPod, or at least to play the tunes off of it while I’m at work. Here are my basic requirements:
- It needs to run smoothly. (Duh.)
- It needs to be Windows-based. (No Macs or Linux boxes here.)
- It needs to support the AAC audio format. I’ve got a bunch of .m4c files on my iPod.
- It shouldn’t be a system hog.
Nice to have’s would include portability, support for Last.FM and the ability to copy songs off the iPod back to the PC.
There are 5 alternatives on the SimpleHelp site that are available for the Windows platform. Here are my reviews of them:
This was the first one, and at first glance was a strong contender. It has support for Last.FM, is portable, and has a pretty nice UI. Once I got it installed, though, I found some issues. Even though it appears to support proxy servers, I never could get it to talk to Last.FM. Secondly, the thing was a system hog - regularly freezing up for 30 - 60 seconds at a time when I tried to do anything. No thanks. And then the kicker: no support for AAC. Start -> Control Panel -> Add or Remove Programs -> Uninstall.
Gave this one a try next. The install was quick, the software came up quickly, and it immediately recognized my iPod. Off to a good start! Didn’t seem to hog the system too much. Tried to play an AAC file… no joy. Skipped three albums in the playlist before it got to one that was .mp3 format. So much for that. Uninstall.
When I downloaded this one, it warned me that it was just a developer’s version, that there isn’t an official release of Songbird yet. Well, I’m brave, so I gave it a try. This is definitely the slickest one yet - good graphics all the way around (icons, skins, etc). This one is built on the Mozilla browser platform, so it has way more overhead than a player really should - about 60 MB installed. Then I had to install a plugin to get it to recognize my iPod. Once I got the plugin installed, it found the iPod fine, but then I had to wait for it to load the library. So I waited. And waited. And waited some more.
It must have taken Songbird about 45 minutes to load the library information from my 25 GB media library. Still, if that was a one-time startup thing, I can live with it. And it appears that it is - though who knows if it’ll have to do a full library re-scan when I change something? No telling. I was about sold on Songbird until I actually started playing music from it. AAC support? Yep. But as I played the songs, it hiccuped my audio on a fairly regular basis - every 15 seconds or so. This wasn’t due to CPU spiking - I had plenty of free CPU left - so there must be some inefficiency in the program itself. Uninstall.
The UI on this one appears to be a lot more barebones than some of the other contenders. The sorting options are bad; you can sort only by one field at a time (artist, album, etc), but then it doesn’t sort below that. For instance, I can sort by artist to get all of U2 grouped together… but then there’s no guarantee that the U2 albums will be grouped together. Given that I’m a guy who likes to listen to a whole album at a time, this is no good for me. Still, I should give it a try, right?
So I gave it a whirl with some .mp3-formatted files. The sound was OK, the playback controls simple but marginally adequate. Then I went to AAC. It won’t play AAC. Not only that, it doesn’t give you an error, or skip the tracks, or anything - it just sits there on the file and acts like it wants to play it, but it won’t play it. Unacceptable. Uninstall. Wait, don’t have to uninstall - this one is totally portable. Thank God for small mercies.
I left this one for last because it wasn’t new to me - I’ve been running YamiPod for a few years now, but only for the ability to be able to pull files back off the iPod onto the PC. I’m not real find of the UI, but it works, which is way more than I can say for some of these I’ve evaluated.
I haven’t actually tried to play anything back on it until just now. So let’s give it a try.
Amazing. It won’t play any of the files. What’s going on? Controls seem unresponsive, it’s not playing anything back. Well phooey on that. At least it’s portable, and it’ll copy files off the iPod neatly. I’ll keep it around just for that.
Winamp Winamp hasn’t been allowed on my office network computers for at least 5 years.
Conclusions:
Each of these alternative players has their strong and weak points, but when it comes down do it, none of them were good enough for me to use as a regular player. I will keep waiting for the Windows version of Amarok; right now it’s Linux-only, but there’s a Windows version coming, and Dan swears that it’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Until then, I’ll keep using Foobar2000. It doesn’t manage my iPod; I have to point it to the Control directory of the iPod and then have it just search for files. But it plays consistently, manages playlists nicely, and has a Last.FM plugin. So, it’s a keeper. And I guess I’ll keep using iTunes at home. It’s a resource hog sometimes, but it does what it needs to.
A little bit sore
Yesterday morning I was awake early so I went to the gym and hit the treadmill and the weight machines. I have been doing at least a bit of running, so the treadmill part wasn’t bad; however, I haven’t hit the weights in two or three months, so this morning I find myself pretty sore. It’s a good kind of soreness, though - feels good to know that I actually did something.
I’ve pretty much been a slacker the last couple of months in going to the gym - time to get it cranked up again. Need to break the weight plateau I’ve been at for the last 4 or 5 months and get to losing some more pounds.
It's Monday again already?!?
Well, it was a busy weekend. The whole family showed up Friday night for one last get together before we head our separate ways this fall. The result was two days of playing cards, music, football, and making at least one obligatory Hubbs shopping trip to Walmart and Sam’s Club. Aaron and Andrew also got haircuts… Andrew opting for the “I wanna look like Chris” haircut. I don’t think he’ll be maintaining his, though, so he should have hair again by the time he gets out out to Oregon.
Hit the gym this morning to run and do a little lifting, and yeah, it feels good to be sore again. I’ve been too much of a slacker the past couple of months. Gotta get back to it. The pounds don’t lose themselves.
Somebody's leaving tracts in the bathroom again...
This morning’s visit to the bathroom here at work revealed that someone has again been leaving tracts on top of the toilet paper holder in the men’s room stalls. Now, the efficacy of leaving tracts at random as opposed to other evangelistic techniques is a discussion for another blog post. But if you’re going to leave a tract in the men’s room, should your first choice really have a pink rose and the words “You’re Special” scripted on the front? *sigh*
What day is it again?
Having a day off from work in the middle of the week has totally thrown me off. Yesterday seemed like Saturday all day, which meant that I kept going into a panic about not being ready for church the next day… no music picked, Sunday School lesson not prepared… I had to keep reminding myself, wait, Chris, tomorrow is only Thursday… you still have time. So last night I picked the music. The Sunday School lesson is still waiting.
Had a good time up in Troy Mills yesterday with the Marsceau family and some assorted friends as we watched the parade, enjoyed Grandma Hazel’s fried chicken, and sat around visiting. Then last night got some work done around the house in preparation for my family coming to visit this weekend. My sister is heading back to Panama for several months and so we’re getting together to have one more weekend as a family before she leaves. We’ll be pretty scattered this fall, what with Andrew heading west to Portland (attending George Fox) and Ryan heading east to DC (grad school at Georgetown). Ah, well, we couldn’t all stay in the Midwest forever.
So now it’s off to a slow day at work… there will be a lot of people taking the rest of the week off. At least, as Geof Morris just reminded a friend, tomorrow is Friday. :-)
Ah, Home
Becky and I arrived back home late in the evening Saturday. Travel was uneventful, though we did have a long-ish layover (4.5 hours) in Minneapolis. But hey, we got home, so no complaints. It was a fun trip, quite relaxing and enjoyable. I might post a few pictures to Flickr here when I get a chance, but it looks like they’re mostly of the beach, and all the beach pictures tend to look the same before long. There are a couple night-time ones that came out pretty well - gotta love the new DSLR camera. :-)
Now it’s back to work, trying to clean out the ol’ email inbox and figure out where I left stuff a week ago.
Blue Man!
Last night Becky and I went to see Blue Man Group over at Universal Orlando. BMG is one of those acts that’s very hard to describe to folks who haven’t heard of them before. “Well, it’s three guys. And they’re all blue. And they do stuff with drums… and paint…” You see? That makes no sense at all, does it?
So last night we had tickets that put us in row 3, the “poncho” area. That’s right, there are plastic ponchos on each seat and yeah, you ought to wear them. It truly is the “spray zone”. The show was a mix of loud music, sweet drumming, and humor. The Blue Men never say anything, but the show is narrated by an unseen voice. They did a few hilarious “skits”, and they often pulled audience members up to participate. The one girl did so well that I have a hard time believing she wasn’t a plant - no way a random person does so well in an improvisational scene. But still, it was quite enjoyable. We laughed a lot, went “wow” several times, and left the show bleary-eyed but pleased. Oh, and Dad, if you read this: you’d get a real kick out of the trombonish instrument they made out of PVC pipe. Pretty cool. Here’s the picture as they’re trying to assemble it:
For those really curious about BMG, there’s a pretty decent review written up here.
Nine Years
Hard to believe it’s been that long already. Nine years ago tonight, on a hot, sticky night in Charlotte, NC, Becky and I exchanged our vows and became Mr. and Mrs. Chris Hubbs. (Our first stop after the wedding was in a Home Depot parking lot that had an available dumpster, but that’s a different story.) God has blessed us greatly, and it’s been a wonderful nine years.
So today we are celebrating in Orlando. Becky woke up at 2:45 CDT this morning to finish getting ready so she could catch her 5 AM flight from Cedar Rapids to Minneapolis, and from there she headed down here to Orlando. I picked her up at the airport about 1 PM. We grabbed a little lunch and then came back to the hotel. I think she spent some time at the pool while I grudgingly attended the afternoon’s technical sessions at the conference.
Tonight we ate dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. It was my first time at a Ruth’s Chris, and given the price I wouldn’t be able to eat there very often even if there was one close to Cedar Rapids. That being said, tonight I had what was hands-down the best steak I have ever had in my life. It was a filet, cooked medium, and just the smell of it on that sizzling plate as it came to the table was almost worth the purchase price. I will say this: Ruth’s Chris knows how to do service right. When we made the reservation online, the form asked if it was a special occasion, and I noted that it was our anniversary. From the time we arrived at the restaurant and gave our name, each staff member who spoke with us first wished us a happy anniversary. Then they gave us dessert “on the house”. It was tasty, too. Bravo, Ruth’s Chris of Orlando.
Two more days of conference and then we have two days on the beach before heading home. Nice.
Orlando
Made it with no serious travel glitches to Orlando about 7:30 pm local time. Gotta say this - that iPod with video capability is pretty great. I loaded Season One of Battlestar Galactica on it and made it through the first two episodes before my ears got sore from the headphones. You can bet I’ll watch some more this week. Good stuff.
Got my rental car (a 2007 Mustang, pretty spiffy, though a little lacking in the headroom department) and found a restaurant to stop for some dinner before heading to the hotel. I guess hotel is really the wrong word - this thing is a full-blown resort/convention center. Got a good room without a hitch, finished my week’s worth of ironing, now I’m gonna finish a book and try to convince my body that it’s really almost 11 pm instead of the 10 pm that it is back at home.
Tomorrow morning should be fairly slow, no meetings until 11 AM and then just afternoon sessions. Good times.