Andy Chase

I've been using iTunes for over six years now, and I rely pretty heavily on ratings and playcounts to create any number of Smart Playlists, most of which revolve around finding music in a particular genre that is highly rated OR frequently played AND has not been played in a while.

The result is not unlike the mix tapes of favorite music that I used to make for myself, back when I had few enough albums that picking a mere 90 minutes' worth of faves was not a laughable notion.

But having one giant, never-ending Smart Playlist is depressing in some ways; I could start my "unrecent favorites" playlist and never reach the end, thanks to the "Live Updating" feature. The major thing missing from having a massive digital music library is that sense of deliberateness that used to accompany listing to music on physical media. In particular, cassettes and vinyl LP's, which required the listener to get up, flip sides, and resume playing.

For a while now I've been paying homage in the nerdliest possible way to the act of flipping over a humble 45-minute per side mix tape. I started with a smart playlist titled "Unrecent alt/rock Faves", limited it to 45 minutes, and then unchecked the 'Live Updating Box'; after all of the songs play, I edit the playlist, re-check 'Live Updating', click 'OK', then re-edit the playlist and un-check 'Live Updating' again. Kind of a pain, but it does break the music up into nice listenable chunks.

Just now I decided to bite the bullet and hack together an AppleScript that consolidated this silliness into one step, and managed to pull it off. You need two playlists: The aforementioned "Unrecent Alt/Rock Faves" smart playlist (limited to 45 minutes, with the 'Live Updating' option checked) and a new regular playlist called "Unrecent Faves Cassette". As far as I can tell, there's no way to alter the 'Live Updating' attribute of a Smart Playlist via AppleScript, so this method just copies from a Smart Playlist to a static one.

Here's the script:

tell application "iTunes"
	set theSmartPL to playlist "Unrecent Alt/Rock Faves"
	set theDumbPL to playlist "Unrecent Faves Cassette"
	
	delete every track of theDumbPL
	
	set selectedTracks to every track of theSmartPL
	
	repeat with aTrack in selectedTracks
		duplicate aTrack to theDumbPL
	end repeat
	
	reveal theDumbPL
	play theDumbPL
	
end tell

When saved in ~/Library/iTunes/Scripts it shows up in the iTunes Scripts Menu, and when run it wipes out the current contents of 'Unrecent Faves Cassette' playlist, replacing it with the newly updated contents of the 'Unrecent Alt/Rock Faves' playlist. It then selects and plays the Cassette playlist. I can even run the script from Quicksilver! The only thing that would make it better is have the script play a .wav file of a cassette being flipped over before re-starting, but I can't seem find a free one online.

You can download the .scpt file as an attachment, but if you want to name your playlists something else you'll need to open it in Script Editor.app and tweak it yourself.

What these arguments remind me of is guys who hem and haw when it comes to neutering their male pets because they somehow find it threatening to their own masculinity.(Wow, another Apple-related post, and I don’t even own one yet. I’m not becoming a fanatic, I promise.)

Reaction to the new iMac has been predictably split between high praise and snide derision… but the reasons tech journalists use to pan the new design are (for the most part) really petty.

David Coursey is all bent out of shape because Apple gave Time magazine the scoop instead of him. He spends another paragraph wringing his hands over the compact form factor; his argument goes something like:

I don’t need my hardware wrapped up in a neat little package. I just put my big manly tower under my desk. Therefore, there’s no market for a computer designed like this.

Similar articles I’ve read elsewhere (sorry, none of them were memorable enough to track down; otherwise I’d provide links) take a similar tone, smugly criticizing the new form factor.

Nobody will take the new iMac seriously; what do you expect from a computer that looks like a desk lamp?! [Insert nerdly sarcastic snort here]

One article went so far as to quote somebody whose big concern was

“Think of your desk lamp and how many times you have knocked it over”

It doesn’t really look like a desklamp, you know; both lamps and the new iMac have articulated arms, yes, but that’s really about it. It’s very small for a full-featured desktop system, but we’re still talking a base that’s 10 1/2 inches in circumference and densely packed with electronic components; that’s a lot bigger than any desklamp I’ve seen. The “Think of how many times you’ve knocked your desk lamp over” analogy just doesn’t work. If you’ve got problems with repeatedly knocking stuff off your desk, maybe you should work on that before you buy any computer at all.

What these arguments remind me of is guys who hem and haw when it comes to neutering their male pets because they somehow find it threatening to their own masculinity;

“But my peers won’t think I’m 31337 if I don’t have a big huge box full of noisy fans under my desk! Therefore the new iMac sucks!”

I can appreciate and even agree with the criticisms about the lack of expandability, but that doesn’t make the iMac a bad machine. Feh.

There's something to be said for taking the guts of the computer and basically turning them into a weighted base that supports the monitor; it's an excellent union of form and function.I actually saw the new iMac on Sunday night, when it appeared in an article on Timecanada's web site in an article dated "January 14, 2002". The general assumption is that this was an error on Timecanada's part, but two days later there's no word of any legal action by Apple against them.

Anyway, my immediate reaction to the new design was ambivalent; I wasn't crazy about the look of the dome, but I'm all over the swiveling flat screen monitor.

When the computers were officially announced with specs yesterday, I got a lot more interested, and I'm definitely buying into the shift in perception the new iMac could bring to the consumer computing market. I hated the original iMac, having used them for cross-platform web page testing at both Edmunds and Stan Lee Media. I understand that in the last couple of years the line was upgraded considerably, but those originals were woefully underpowered and prone to crashing every 20 minutes. The other thing I really, really hated was the way they were marketed; not as an easy to use, all-in-one computer, but as a fashion accessory/piece of candy. One billboard in particular, which featured pictures of all five of those original fruity colors, made me especially apoplectic - the only word on the billboard was "Yum."

That being said, it's easy to forget how heavily the industrial design of the original iMac has influenced competitors' designs since 1998; nearly all of the major PC manufacturers have at least streamlined their boxes in the wake of the iMac and switched from beige metal to shiny plastic, with many adopting Apple's idea of bright colors. The original white and aqua color scheme was applied to all manner of peripherals and accessories.

My main criticism of applying so much design to something as purely functional as a computer has been that it becomes impossible to add third-party peripherals without the thing looking like crap; how good is a new, beige CD-RW drive going to look sticking out of your HP's smoky gray plastic case? And if your computer's going to be a big rectangular box, what difference does it make whether it's shiny plastic or beige metal?

With these new iMacs, expandability is much less of an issue for me; the hardware spec is much better than the first ones I used, and since ethernet, 56K modem, and firewire are all standard there's not a lot else I'd want to add except memory, which can be expanded all the way to 1 gigabyte- not bad for a consumer-level desktop machine. For what I'd be doing with it (programming, surfing, graphics work), a mid-range iMac would be entirely adequate.

As for processor speed, I wish people would get it through their thick skulls that you can't directly compare Motorola clock speeds to Intel clock speeds, as explained here. And unless you're a seriously hardcore gamer/Video Editor/multimedia artist (in which case you wouldn't be looking at an iMac anyway), you don't necessarily need the latest and greatest PowerPC/Pentium IV processor. For me personally, I'm liking the new iMac feature/cost ratio a lot when you factor in the flat panel display.

The form factor is what's really winning me over, though; aside from reducing desktop clutter, I think the new iMac design will encourage people to think of their computer not as an intimidating entity sitting on their desk, but as more of an appliance. I mean, I don't have the slightest clue about how an automatic dishwasher works on the inside, but I'm not afraid to throw some dishes in and just use the thing the way some people are afraid to use their computers. The desklamp analogy is already tired (Every other sentence about the new iMac on ZDnet uses the words desk lamp), but there's something to be said for taking the guts of the computer and basically turning them into a weighted base that supports the monitor; it's an excellent union of form and function.

At this point I'm thinking that maybe I'll set my sites on one of the new iMacs as my next computer; while still unrealistic given my current financial situation, it's a little less far-fetched than my coveted Ti PowerBook.

I don't know how I managed to miss it for the two years it's been out, but I just read Neal Stephenson's essay In the Beginning Was the Command Line, and found it to be incredibly perceptive and still relevant two years later (an impressive accomplishment in itself when it comes to writing about computers, software, and the internet in general.)

Anyway, Stephenson's essay should be required reading for anyone who's ever engaged in the tired, never-ending PC vs. Mac debate, or complained about Linux being too hard to use. It's a great examination of how Microsoft, Apple, and Linux got to be where they are today, and some of the strengths and weaknesses of all three when it comes to user interface. He also speaks very favorably of BeOS, although in light of current events this is more of an interesting aside. (Unfortunately, it appears that BeOS is finally, for all intents and purposes, doomed, having been borged by Palm Computing for purposes as yet unknown. The industry consensus seems to be that Palm will probably throw BeOS into the trash; what they're really after is the team of developers that put the trim, elegant OS together.) It's a long read in a web browser, but I found it very interesting and entertaining, always a winning combination in my book.

I've been meaning to read some of Neal Stephenson's books for some time now, and after reading his essay Snow Crash goes right to the top of the list of things to look for next time I go to the bookstore.

Apple has made a fine computer with the Ti Powerbook, and it's the one that's going to get me to jump the Wintel ship just as soon as I can justify the cost.I've spent quite a bit of money on tech stuff (computer & related components like hard drives, network equipment, etc) and gadgets (PDA's and related accessories) over the last couple of years, thanks to a booming economy and good salaries at my last several jobs. I'll be the first person to admit that I probably should have put most of that money away for a rainy day (or couple of months, which was how long this spring's unemployment spell wound up lasting.)

The problem is that technolust was just too strong for this early-to-mid-twenties geek. The real gadget orgy started with my purchase of a Handspring Visor Deluxe, which I bought back in January of 2000 back when you could only order them directly from Handspring. The folding keyboard upon which this is being written came next, followed by a couple of Springboard modules, my Visor Prism (I actually received one as a Christmas gift, but I had already decided to buy one for myself), and culminating early this year with the purchase of a new Cell phone and a cable for connecting it to my Visor.

I've been a pretty good boy since getting laid off in February; my current salary requires it, but I'd also like to think those two months of unemployment were a little bit sobering. I did buy a Wacom Graphire tablet back in September when I got the creative itch that turned into this site, but that's about it.

Handspring hasn't released any new updates to the Visor line that I absolutely must have, which has been a blessing... for the most part, I haven't had any burning material wants since that cell phone / cable wireless rig. (Well, that's not entirely accurate - I badly want to purchase an Etherwave kit from Big Briar, but that's worthy of a whole other blog.)

Even Apple's rollout yesterday of the new iPod MP3 player didn't give me that pining feeling. Yes, it's a very cool unit and I'd love to have one, but I don't feel like I neeeeed one.

I shouldn't have gone to the Apple web site to read about the iPod, though; while I was there I thought I would take another peek at the Ti Powerbook, a computer that grabbed my interest when it was released earlier this year.

It wasn't lust at first sight because after all, it's a Macintosh, and I got really burned out on the whole one button mouse thing in 1997 when I worked on a PowerMac 9600 with OS 7 for the better part of a year.

But 1" thick...

and DVD-ROM...

and that wide, wide screen that's bigger than my damn CRT monitor at home...

The Ti Powerbook has been slowly but patiently working its mojo on me, and I visit it every time I find myself at Fry's Electronics much the same way I try to slow down as I pass the Audi dealership on Van Nuys boulevard to catch a glimpse of the TT coupes. I had heard about Apple's price cuts on the Powerbook about a month ago, but I didn't realize that in addition to dropping the price by $400 they had increased the processor speed and hard drive space on the low-end model. 550Mhz PowerPC plus a 20 gigabyte hard drive. (Hell, I could put OS 9, OS X, and Mandrake Linux 8 on that thing!) Anda free extra 128 megs of RAM through the end of the year.

:::sigh:::

I've got that pining feeling, and it's not going away.

The other thing that's hurrying me down the path to Camp Macintosh is Microsoft's Windows XP shenanigans; aside from their invasive and cumbersome product registration process, their .NET and hailstorm initiatives scare the hell out of me. Linux is fun, but not quite stable enough as a 24/7 desktop OS for my liking.

OS Wars aside, I also like the fact that Apple (love them or hate them) seems to understand the fact that Microsoft has won the shoving match for desktop market share; Apple's goal instead seems to be making quality computers that appeal to people on certain key levels; aesthetic (I really don't care what my desktop tower looks like; a beige computer works just as well as a shiny translucent grey and white one, but Apple does make some damn fine looking machines), philosophic (people bought into the whole iMac simplicity thing in a big way), and of course the fanatical (I promise, I won't become one of those people.) Just yesterday somebody made the analogy on Slashdot that Apple is trying to position itself as a sort of Harman-Kardon of computers... a higher end, niche market, but a very loyal one. I don't know if I would actually rate Apple as Harman-Kardon to E-Machines' Yorx, but you get the idea.

Microsoft gives me the impression that it will settle for nothing short of world domination over all aspects of computing from the desktop to the internet to the anti-terrorism ID chip they'll be putting in the backs of our necks soon - quality, usability, privacy, and security be damned. I'm really tired of it, and ready for a change. Apple has made a fine computer with the Ti Powerbook, and it's the one that's going to get me to jump the Wintel ship just as soon as I can justify the cost. Anyone need twenty two hundred bucks' worth of web development?