nanovivid

WANT

Sure, iPod Touch is very cool and all, but there are a couple of things that make iPod Classic much better for me. First of all, I love having all my music with me, all the time. That’s definitely not an option with iPod Touch yet. The clickwheel on the Classic is also nice for use with gloves in the winter. Which we tend to have a little bit of around here.

I’m still rather amazed that the low-end iPod Classic has more than twice as much storage as my 3rd generation for half the price. I think it’s about time to upgrade. Of course, once I do, I’ll have to think up a new tagline for my Last.fm page since “Running out of space on my iPod” will no longer be true. Such is the price of progress.

♫ Le Castle Vania - Trouble In Daylight

Since we have CallVantage again, I’ve updated CallVantage Dialer. The major new feature is that it actually works again, so that’s pretty fancy. Other changes include storing your username and password in the keychain and better compatibility if Quicksilver isn’t installed. Get it while it’s hot!

♫ Klaxons - Golden Skans (David E Sugar Remix)

So! Hello internet! We just freakin’ bought a house! It’s still sinking in, but I think it’s going to be cool. The house is in Lakewood, so we’re going back to the west side, which I’m a little sad about since it means a longer commute again, but I like the area better, so I think I’ll survive. Not to mention that we’ll be able to get Angelo’s again. I think that’s the main reason Bryan wants to move — we haven’t found good pizza on the east side. ;-) Anyway, the house is super nice and has had so much done to it — plumbing, electrical, insulation, waterproofing… just about everything is redone. We’re closing in February and moving in April!

Speaking of buying things, I’m getting a 15″ MacBook Pro, which should be arriving on Tuesday! I’m excited to be replacing my aging PowerBook with an ultra-fast machine.

Now we get to spend even more money on things for the house. Time to start eating Ramen? Not likely.

♫ Manuel Göttsching - E2-E4

I’ve been sitting here listening to the ends and beginnings of tracks for like the past half hour. And grinning maniacally every time.

Hee! There it goes again!

Let me explain. As soon as I skip to the end again.

Yay! Yayayay!

See, the new iTunes 7 has gapless playback. That means…

Woo!

That means that if you have a continuous mix, or really any album where the tracks go directly into each other on the CD, there’s no longer a little blip of silence between each track when they’re played sequentially.

It’s amazing being able to once again listen to albums the way they were recorded after years of gaps. Apple could have released iTunes 7 with just this one feature and I would have been thrilled. I’m seriously that excited by it.

Again!

♫ Le Knight Club - Mirage

Wow. Wow. Wowowowow.

Sorry, my mind is a bit blown by the amazingness of Amora. David Lanham always makes beautiful art and Amora is no exception. The initial inspiration was the video for Björk’s All Is Full Of Love (which is also great).

Now my Mac is all tricked out with Amora and it’s wonderful.

♫ Slyder - Lex Luther

In addition to being a lazy-ass loser, one of the reasons I haven’t been blogging lately is called Deanach OSX.

It’s a port of Deanach3 for Windows to the Mac that I’ve been working on (with Anubis from MacThemes Forums) for, oh, the last four months or so. Theming OS X is insanely time consuming, because there are exactly thirteen-bajillion elements to skin. I’m not kidding. I counted. And by counted, I mean… approximated.

Today, however, I am freed from the time-consumingness of this theme (well, except for the bug-fixing and tweaking). It’s finally released, and the reactions have been good. Finishing a project of this magnitude and having people like it feels quite nice.

For as much as I enjoy pixel hacking, I’m definitely going to wait a bit before diving into a new theme. The amount of time sucked down by creating (or even porting) a theme is rather insane. Plus, Bryan gets tired of me constantly having my nose in ThemePark and Photoshop.

To celebrate Deanach’s release, we’re going out to eat with Bryan’s friend Sandra tonight. Actually, dinner has nothing to do with Deanach. But I can pretend that it does, because I’m a dork like that!

♫ Swimmer One - Cloudbursting

When Apple introduced iTunes 4.9, they also introduced a rather annoying bug where a valid MP3 occasionally gets identified as a "QuickTime Movie." The problem comes when you try to sync to your iPod, because iTunes refuses to copy the songs over. iTunes MP3 Rescue to the, um, rescue!

When you launch the program, it will search your iTunes library for MP3 files that are incorrectly identified and repair them. Simple as that. (See below for update).

Many thanks to Cian Walsh of Afterglow Design for the fabulous icon.

2008 Update: I don’t think this is an issue with newer versions of iTunes, but if you’re still having problems, please see this hint and the code here.

♫ M.I.A. - Sunshowers (Mylo Mash by Luminfire)

My PowerBook came home today! It’s all better, well, except for the 512 Megs of memory that Apple said was bad. I’ve ordered replacement RAM that should be here by the end of the week.

I’m tempted to sleep with my laptop tonight as if it were a large, flat, metal teddy bear, but I don’t think Bryan would appreciate that much.

♫ Clea - We Don't Have To Take Our Clothes Off

I’m still ‘Bookless. Since Tuesday, the status of the repair has been “Hold - Awaiting Part.” When I called today to get more information, I was told that the motherboard is bad, but the person didn’t know if that was the part they were waiting for. (It was some combination of a database being down for maintenance and today being Sunday that kept him from getting more details).

Discovering that they are replacing the motherboard is a bit odd — do they still make motherboards for Rev. A 17″ PowerBooks? I can’t see how it would be very economical for them to do so, unless there’s an epidemic of dead ones.

Regardless of what’s happening, I just want my PowerBook back soon!

My laptop is sick. Yesterday I started having the first serious issue I’ve had with my PowerBook. I figure two years with almost zero problems is pretty good, so I’m not too upset, but is is a bit of a pain. On the plus side, I was able to do a full backup, so I’m not worried about losing anything.

I was happily using my laptop when all of a sudden it totally froze up and I had to power it off. When I tried to turn it back on, nothing happened. After trying every troubleshooting step I could think of with no results, I called Apple support. They weren’t able to help, so they told me to bring it to the Genius Bar. And here I am.

Hopefully they’ll be able to clear things up quickly!

Update: Well, they weren’t able to figure anything out here, so my PowerBook is on its way to Apple. Have a safe trip!

Also, I’m trying out a Mighty Mouse here and I want to like it. I mean, I drink the Apple Kool-Aid, right? This mouse just doesn’t feel right though. To make the side buttons activate, I have to push way harder than I expect. The scroll ball also has issues — it’s not very responsive and feels too small. II really like the idea of the Mighty Mouse, but the implementation is a bit too meh.

But three to seven days without my computer… how will I survive?