Topic: I hate iTunes

[RABicle]

EasyCure. Goot the iPod preferences, tick "Manually Update iPOd" or whtever, then you drag and drop from iTunes. Thats how your bouncer friend had a most savvy friend get stuff on there. :p

(which means googling an image, saving it to the appropriate folder, and doing the whole itunes process)

Sure man, I can just drag the googled album art directly from the internet to the "Drag Artwork Here" square. If you don't see that square, hit the button fourth from the left down the bottom.

I've you've been using iTunes since before it was even called iTunes learning every new feature is pretty easy, but then again I'm also on a mac.

[EasyCure]

Damn, what'd we miss?

[Shorty McNostril]

This is why i refuse to own an Ipod.  I have had my Creative gear and have never had a problem. 

[BranDonk Kong]

If you're trying to inject MP3s with album art, then open your library, right-click on the album you want to add it to, and choose "get info." Find your album art (Google images or albumart.org), then just copy and paste it into the empty space where the album art goes. If you do it any other way (at least if you choose "download album art"), it will only put the art in a folder so it shows up in iTunes/iPod, but it won't actually put the album art inside the MP3, doing it the way I mentioned will actually embed it. You can also just use Media Monkey. I don't even use an iPod anymore, but I do use iTunes for all of my MP3s because I like how it renames them and such, and how it's relatively simple to add album art (though it doesn't always work, and then I switch to MM).

[Stratos]

Oh, good. I've been wondering how to add album art manually since iTunes is terribly fond of getting album art wrong. (live album covers on studio releases and random crap that is completely unrelated on others...)

[EasyCure]

you didn't know? its one of the first things i learned to do (since to use the "get album art" option requires an itunes acct and i never plan on making one).

So today i noticed that at least one album was missing. I figured this was because a few weeks ago, i had to restore my ipods library from a backup and didn't have the most up to date backup. No problem, just re-add the folder to my library and sync it up. After what should of only been 15 mins, itunes says the sync is complete and before even ejecting the damn thing I notice the capacity bar at the bottom has gone down from 58GB of audio to ZERO (2.97GB of video are still there).

What the ****?

As of 4:30pm I'm resyncing my entire ipod. I'll update this post when its done in like two days.

[EasyCure]

as of 4:40pm (after my last post) i noticed itunes had not stared syncing my ipod. I hit the sync button once more, and the first thing i notice is my Video is gone too. Wonderful.

[BranDonk Kong]

But Apple makes everything so easy!

[TheBlackCat]

But Apple makes everything so easy!

Apple makes everything really easy as long as you do only the things they want you to do exactly the way they want you to do it.  They make it very hard if you want to do anything different.

[Stratos]

But Apple makes everything so easy!

Apple makes everything really easy as long as you do only the things they want you to do exactly the way they want you to do it.  They make it very hard if you want to do anything different.

Reminds me of a joke:

If   Operating Systems Ran  The Airlines...
 
  UNIX  Airways
 
  Everyone brings one piece of the plane along when they come to  the airport. They all go out on the runway and put the plane together  piece by piece, arguing non-stop about what kind of plane they are  supposed to be building.
 
  Air  DOS
 
  Everybody pushes the airplane until it glides, then they jump on  and let the plane coast until it hits the ground again. Then they push  again, jump on again, and so on...
 
  Mac  Airlines
 
  All the stewards, captains, baggage handlers, and ticket agents  look and act exactly the same. Every time you ask questions about   details,  you are gently but firmly told that you don't need to know, don't  want to know, and everything will be done for you without your ever  having to know, so just shut up.
 
  Windows  Air
 
  The terminal is pretty and colourful, with friendly stewards,  easy baggage check and boarding, and a smooth take-off. After about 10   minutes in the air, the plane explodes with no warning whatsoever. 
 
  Windows  NT   Air
 
  Just like Windows Air, but costs more, uses much bigger planes,  and takes out all the other aircraft within a 40-mile radius when it   explodes.

[EasyCure]

update: i left my apt for the day, came back thinking my ipod would still be syncing but no.. it stopped with only 4gis worth of music. It didn't sync past the A's!

[TJ Spyke]

as of 4:40pm (after my last post) i noticed itunes had not stared syncing my ipod. I hit the sync button once more, and the first thing i notice is my Video is gone too. Wonderful.

Sometimes iTunes won't even recognize that my iPod Touch is connected, and it's annoying.

I would be pissed if I had to re-sync 60GB of date, just re-adding 7 GB on my iPod Touch takes like 2 hours.

[EasyCure]

as of 4:40pm (after my last post) i noticed itunes had not stared syncing my ipod. I hit the sync button once more, and the first thing i notice is my Video is gone too. Wonderful.

Sometimes iTunes won't even recognize that my iPod Touch is connected, and it's annoying.

I would be pissed if I had to re-sync 60GB of date, just re-adding 7 GB on my iPod Touch takes like 2 hours.

Ha so at least you feel my pain. I can't even re-sync the ENTIRE iPod at once because my external HD is prone to overheating after long periods of time on and then won't be recognized by the PC. Re-syncing my entire library usually takes about a week of checking off albums and leaving them to  update overnight and while I'm at work the next day. I come home, and if its done I'll check off some more albums, turn everything off until right before bed and start over.

On a more positive note; I finally got around to instaling my last cars after-market stereo into my new car (something i've been meaning to do since October) because it has an auxilary port; ie i can finally listen to my iPod in the car..

that is, I woud be if all this **** didn't happen the SAME day

[BranDonk Kong]

But Apple makes everything so easy!

Apple makes everything really easy as long as you do only the things they want you to do exactly the way they want you to do it.  They make it very hard if you want to do anything different.

I guess I should have use sarcasm brackets.

[BlackNMild2k1]

But Apple makes everything so easy!

[gbuell]

My god these iTunes problems are ridiculous. I've never had so many issues, even when I was using it on Windows. I think most of the problems on this thread stem from assuming that iTunes will somehow recognize changes to your Music folder's file structure. IT WON'T. Turn on "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library" in prefs, drag and drop new songs onto the iTunes window, let iTunes sort them by their metadata, delete the originals, and everything should work much better. And when you want to edit album names, artist names, song titles etc, DO IT IN ITUNES, NOT WINDOWS EXPLORER, and everything will be dandy.

[gbuell]

By the way, in that OS Airlines joke above, the Mac one sounds like the best option by far. If that's supposed to make Apple look bad, it totally doesn't.

[EasyCure]

I configure all my date in BOTH itunes and windows explorer, because iTunes will never be my default media player. I also never alter my music folders under itunes (learned that the hardway a looong time ago) because my fake OCD makes me do everything a certain way; so my problems do not come from that, they come from iTunes being an Apple product

[gbuell]

If you change folder names or file names in Windows Explorer, iTunes will not work for you, period. Use another media player, there are lots of them and many will sync with iPods. I don't understand why you're even trying to use iTunes if your workflow doesn't match up with the workflow iTunes is designed for.

[EasyCure]

If you change folder names or file names in Windows Explorer, iTunes will not work for you, period.

You mean if i alter something already synced up? Because I know that. When i alter file names and folders, thats all pre-game baby. Once its uploaded to itunes, i just use the sorting options to tweak everything one last time and then i'm done.

Example:

-I download both albums by The Advantage
-Create a folder under iTunes/iTunes Music for "Advantage, The"
-create subfolders for "01 The Advantage (2004)" & "02 Elf-Titled (20006)"
-be sure to rename tracks in the format of "01 [track name]" in each folder
-upload to iTunes
-Change sort Album names to add "01" and "02" respectively in order to display albums chronologically
-sync

i know its a long annoying process, but its something i choose to do to keep everything organized to my liking. I've invested too much time for my massive library to suddenly switch to a 3rd party software option, but on top of that my computers such a peice of crap lately that i'm having trouble installing any new programs.

I recently heard of something called "tuneup" that is supposed to fix all this ****, but simply being unable to download it, i heard its a paid service. Why would I want to pay for that when I already do it on my down time? just not worth it.

[vudu]

My god these iTunes problems are ridiculous.

How about the problem I outlined in the original post?

[gbuell]

vudu, did you try unchecking "Manually manage music", and then going to the Podcast tab and making sure no podcasts are checked?

Example:

-I download both albums by The Advantage
-Create a folder under iTunes/iTunes Music for "Advantage, The"
-create subfolders for "01 The Advantage (2004)" & "02 Elf-Titled (20006)"
-be sure to rename tracks in the format of "01 [track name]" in each folder
-upload to iTunes
-Change sort Album names to add "01" and "02" respectively in order to display albums chronologically
-sync

Why not turn on "Keep iTunes Media Folder Organized", drag and drop the Advantage music onto the iTunes window, and edit the track metadata in iTunes, which will sort them into the proper folders for you? iTunes will also automatically rename tracks to the [track number] [track name] for you.

[TheBlackCat]

Not everyone likes how iTunes chooses to organize their music.  I have a very specific organizational structure to my music that is totally different than what iTunes uses.  Some people like to actually have some measure of control over their computing experience, but that goes against the Apple philosophy.  It is not like it is hard to have a media player that keeps track of changes in your music, lots of other developers have done it (in fact I would say it is pretty much a standard feature of modern media players).  So it is a perfectly legitimate complaint.

[BranDonk Kong]

I let iTunes manage my music folders, simply because I don't care, and my MP3 software on my phone just reads the actual song titles, etc, anyway, so it doesn't even matter how they're named.

[NWR_insanolord]

If you want to keep your own folder system, set it up to not copy the files to the iTunes folder and do all your editing before you import things into iTunes. That should work.