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Archive for March, 2010
Cleaning and scrubbing the music library
With the arrival of the Squeezebox I’ve taken on a task I should have completed ages ago: cleaning up the mess that is my music collection. There is more than one – tons of MP3 files are sitting around on external drives waiting to be added to iTunes. Multiple copies of the same file have been placed in my initially carefully considered hierarchical directory structure, resulting in many duplicate titles.
Whilst there are various ways of trying to identify duplicate files, I wasn’t in the mood to rely on iTunes‘ ability to display duplicate tracks. There are command line utilities for checking and identifying duplicate files. Once again, that isn’t something I’m interested in: quick identification and easy deletion or archival where at the top of my list of priorities. A quick Google search resulted in me downloading the first program I came across on a legitimate link: Araxis FInd Duplicate Files. The application appeals because of a very simple user interface and an ability to check each file for its size and checksum, amongst other attributes. The fully-featured application is free to use for a couple of days. After a quick test, I purchased it at USD 15, a very reasonable price.
Find Duplicate Files provides a simple user interface: select the folders or locations to scan, then start the scan an walk away. Various preferences can be set that allow only certain file types to be identified and the action to take once duplicate files are processed.
One improvement I would suggest is that the list of found duplicates be populated in real-time. My current music library was roughly 340GB in size, requiring a fair bit of searching to run through – during the entire time, the results section of the application stayed empty, until the search operation had concluded. A minor gripe, but something that would alert the user to the fact that something is busy happening.
Once the identification of duplicate files has been completed, a list of all attributes is presented, with various colours being used to separate individual groups of duplicates. In the case of the music tracks, cover art is displayed if available.
I performed a few rudimentary checks to ensure the application had indeed found five or so examples of where I knew duplicates to exist. Instead of deleting the duplicates, I decided to archive them to another location just in case. Over 10000 duplicates existed, freeing up over 50GB of disk space. Not bad going, and certainly a great way to rid the iTunes library of additional burden.
Squeezing the Box
Media centre PC‘s and standalone PC‘s to serve music are all well and good. Unfortunately, their use generally depends on a bit of technical know-how and a fair bit of fiddling with extra kit. It’s just never a seamless experience. With a wireless network already blanketing 90% of the house, I decided to try out a gadget that I’ve been eyeing for some time: a Squeezebox. Now owned by Logitech and probably one of the few worthy Sonos competitors, I favour the Squeezebox primarily for its Logitech branding and a more reasonable price point.
Availability of the Squeezebox products is somewhat limited – with little to choose from, I selected the Squeezebox Boom.
In simple terms, the Boom is an attractive, black box featuring speakers on either end and a control panel midsection. In contrast to the Squeezebox Radio, there is no colour screen – no album art can be displayed. Whilst that initially may seem like a disadvantage, the Boom‘s green, text-only display is very functional. There’s no need to view album art the size of a matchbox from 10m away – it’s the sound that matters.
The box contains the Squeezebox Boom, a remote control with a battery included, power adapter and 3.5mm connector cable. If you have any thoughts of taking the Boom with you, a handy protective pouch is provided, though the unit is on the heavy side and you’ll need to remember the power adapter. Without a network and Internet connection, the Squeezebox is of little use. In this mode, it functions as an amplifier for a music source connected by the 3.5mm cable. When connected to a wired or wireless network, however, the functionality of this music device comes to the fore.
It starts with the setup, which is seamless and absolutely first-rate. Prior to starting up the device, I downloaded and installed the SqueezeCenter software on the iMac. This service collates music from iTunes and interacts with Logitech‘s SqueezeNetwork. Signing up is free – I entered my user name and password into the SqueezeCenter, then allowed the service to run through my 300GB iTunes music library. SqueezeCenter also runs on Linux and Windows and is able to serve music files from a variety of sources.
The Boom will live in the kitchen. There’s no wired network connection there, so I decided to try out the wireless connection. After plugging the unit into the power adapter, I watched the Squeezebox Boom go through its setup routine. It’s all automated and the process of entering values using only the dial or remote control unit a no-brainer. By way of DHCP, the unit obtains an IP address. The only other requirement is to enter the IP address of the iMac serving the music and running the SqueezeCenter. A reboot after updating its firmware meant the Boom was ready for service in an area with a wireless signal strength of less than 30%.
First off, I selected an MP3 from the iTunes library. Good sound quality and immediate response. The same when selecting a playlist. The Boom provides a number of onboard features, the creation of ad-hoc playlists being one. Searching for artists and titles is intuitive and easy: scroll through possible entries and enter text one letter at a time by turning the dial or the buttons on the remote. One feature I miss is the ability to play Audible books. That playlist doesn’t show up on the player. I guess issues with the DRM preclude this, but it would be a great addition to the Squeezebox. What amazed me most was the instant access and clear reproduction of Internet radio stations. A host of presets featuring radio stations across the world is provided, selectable from the menu. In all cases, I experienced no lag and no buffering – all radio stations played clearly and without a hitch.
Porsche 918
2 years ago
by manfred
in Moblogging
Porsche has come up with a very interesting slant on a hybrid vehicle: the Porsche 918 Spyder is a concept car that carries both a V8 engine and two electric motors, one for each axle.
The V8 does quite nicely, providing 500 horses. But coupled with the electrickery, an additional 200 horsepower is added. That propels the Spyder from 0 to 100 in less than 3.5 seconds.
Top speed is somewhere around 260km/h. Since it’s a hybrid, fuel consumption and emissions are kept to a minimum. Road noise will be the next optimization, I’m sure…
Windows 7 RC expired
2 years ago
by manfred
in Life in South Africa
Finally time then to move the last Windows user in the household to a Mac!
Canon MP990
The Canon MP990 is finally available in South Africa. A multi-feature printer, including a scanner, this is one device I have been waiting to get to use for some time. Let’s talk about the features the MP 990 provides: it’s a compact three in one device, containing a photo printer and a scanner. That’s just a part of it, of course. The MP990 is a photo printer and high-definition scanner, an all-in-one unit that will fulfil all needs a fairly demanding user will want to have access to. Not only does the MP990 print photographs in high definition, but it provides decent scanning with support for slides and duplex printing on demand. It may be worthwhile to provide some additional detail on this device in the future.
But, as a Macintosh user, I am becoming rather aware of the support provided to that platform by hardware vendors. Canon is usually quite excellent when it comes to camera support on the Mac. On the installation procedure for the MP990, I found their offering quite lacking. After having unpacked the printer and having followed the rather deliberate unpacking cues provided by orange magic tape, I loaded the provided Mac CD ROM and proceeded to install the software to get the printer to function. That’s an error, of course. The release of Snow Leopard has made many hardware installation procedures invalid. Whereas systems without Snow Leopard can safely load the provided CD ROM software, more modern systems will have little success in getting the multi-function MP990 to work. Here’s the lowdown: Snow Leopard has significantly altered the way hardware support is provided. To install a modern Canon peripheral, the first step is to download the Apple-supported Canon drivers. Get the 250MB download here.
Once the Apple drivers have been installed, set up a printer in the system preferences and point the printer to the correct device. I found that the printer would work only once the Apple drivers had been installed and the latest drivers for the MP990 had been installed from Canon‘s support site. It is important that the MP990 is identified in the Apple configuration indicating the Canon IJ network connection:
This is possible only once the latest Apple drivers have been loaded, followed by the installation of the latest drivers available from Canon. Get the Canon drivers here.
Scanning seems to work without an issue, even over a network connection. Printing requires an extra effort… It’s not out-of-the-box…
i Burst at the lack of service
2 years ago
by manfred
in Connectivity
iBurst has been my only reasonably-priced option for access to the Internet from home. I’ve been a customer for some time and have, until recently, been happy with the levels of service provided. But my patience is starting to wear a bit thin.
A few months ago, internal system changes at first resulted in my daily usage reports not being sent on a regular basis. Not too huge a problem, until a change to the company’s billing system created a discrepancy in the actual amount of bandwidth consumed versus the reported amount used. Some interaction with the call centre resolved that. Usage reports came back up, only to falter a short time later. A promise of free bandwidth to make up for the inconvenience could not be held by the customer call centre. No problem: just provide the paid service.
But the biggest annoyance that I’ve been trying to deal with in the past month is the inability of the self-service login to function. At first, its failure was explained away as a result of an upgrade to the site certificate. That should take a few minutes. I gave the service more than 24 hours. More than two weeks later, I still cannot login.
I consider the invitation to call a human being to boost my bandwidth ridiculous and of no use whatsoever: like I explained in my Screamer rant, I am unwilling to telephone someone to interact with a company that bills itself as an Internet service provider. If that procedure involved a fast interaction, I might even consider talking to a human being. But to have to provide personal details each time I want to spend ZAR 50 on a bandwidth booster is just not worth the effort.
Hoping to get more information and assistance, I tried iBurst‘s once-responsive Twitter account. No help there. And to think that a the Talk to us feature on the dysfunctional website would actually elicit some kind of response is a pipe dream. Like all other interaction features of this nature, messages seem to end up directly in the trash can. Talk to the hand would be a more appropriate heading for this service.
Bad service. An unresponsive company. Time to check out whether I have an alternative provider I can take my business to. iBurst seems to have lost the plot…
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