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.

I find myself tonight in New York City without an alarm clock. This probably isn't much of an issue, as I rarely sleep much past 7:00 AM these days, but seeing as I'm staying at a place that doesn't have a front desk, as such, (it's a long story, but a nice place) I figured I should look into something I can run on my PowerBook to wake me up.

There's no shortage of alarm clock utilities out there for OS X, but most are shareware and as I only need it for the next five days, I can't be bothered.

The iLife applications have to be some of the most underused ones on my computer… Once I can figure out a way to easily get my photos out of iPhoto and into Movable Type I’ll be using iPhoto a lot more, but the thing that’s going to get me to drop $49 on the new iLife suite next week is GarageBand.I’ve been drinking the Apple kool-aid pretty much since I heard what OS X was all about a few years ago.

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?