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If you’ve been following my blog for any length of time, you know I enjoy listening to music. Perhaps “enjoy” is too weak a word. I love listening to music. I have since I was a kid, and I would lug a briefcase of hand-recorded cassettes to camp. I jury-rigged my own cassette player to car interface in my first cars. I’ve used various Walkmen, Discmen, and finally iPod Classics … all in a quest to have all my music with me at all times. Further, I don’t want any of this streaming crap, where you are only leasing the music from the music companies at any time. I want my albums, with my album covers, when and where I want them without a dependence on an Internet connection. Albums in the cloud? Feh!

In this quest, I’ve modified my iPod Classics to remove the spinning hard disk, using the iFlash card to replace the hard disk with solid state memory. I used the iFlash Dual card to put in 2 256GB SD cards, making each iPod Classic have 512GB, or about 477-483 GiB. But there is a limitation on the iPod Classic software — it gets wonky and likes to reboot over about 42K tracks. So my iPods only have part of my collection. I have two iPod Classics, each with the same collection of music synced to iTunes regularly.

How many songs do I have? Right now, just over 56K.

So I’ve been searching for a solution to have all the songs on my phone. I will not use an iPhone. I don’t want to pollute and confuse the iTunes ecosystem. I’ve been using Android phones that can accept SD card storage. There are many mid-brand models that do — I’m currently using a Samsung A51 with a 512GB card.

Previously, I had been using the combination of iSyncr and Rocket Player from JRT Studio. But they sold their company about 2 years ago, and the new owners screwed the pooch and broke the software. I NO LONGER RECOMMEND iSyncr and Rocket Player. Under the new owners, Muma Studios, the software no longer works and is overpriced. The key advantage of their software and this combination was: (a) the player could play from storage; (b) the player had an equivalent of smart playlists; (c) it synchronized the music between my PC and Android, and (d) the synchronization tool could move metadata (ratings, last played, etc.) to and from iTunes.

I’m pleased to say that I’ve found a new solution. It isn’t turnkey — you’ll need to do a bit of fiddling and a sync takes about 1/2 hour. But it works. Here’s what you need:

1. An Android phone with SD card storage. The Samsung A series works will (the high end line seems to not take SD cards). There were also some Motorolas and Pixels, as I recall from my last search.
2. Syncthing. Syncthing is a continuous file synchronization program. It synchronizes files between two or more computers in real time, safely protected from prying eyes. There are versions of the software available for almost any platform, and it is free.
3. Gone Mad Media Player. (Google Play). This is a customizable music player, with loads of skins, that supports the equivalent of smart playlists and can play music from SD card. There are a few limitations: the smart playlists aren’t as smart as in iTunes; the ability to bookmark in a track is poor; there is no skip when shuffling — instead, you need a global setting. But it’s about the best I can find. This has a small one-time fee to move from the trial version.
4. Perl. Either Strawberry Perl or ActiveState Perl; both are free for personal use. Perl is the tool I use for the script I wrote. Right now, I’m also using a Visual Basic script adapted from one written by Steve MacGuire (TuringTest2 on the Apple Support Forums). I hope, one day, to move that functionality into perl as VBScript is being deprecated by Microsoft. That will also require me to understand better the iTunes COM interface.

Here’s how the process works for me right now.

Setup. 

1. Synchronize your phone with Android. I’ve got syncthing set up to “mirror” my iTunes Media Library to the SD card on my phone (send only on the PC, receive only on the phone). This took a bit of figuring out to get the SD pathname correct.
2. Get GMMP, and get it set up to look only in where you have stored your music on your phone. Do a scan to have it find all your music. Set up equivalent smart playlists in GMMP to your iPod playlists
3. Add another directory to syncthing — this time, you want bi-directional syncing between the GMMP directory on your phone (in my case, /storage/emulated/0/gmmp) and a directory you create on your PC (in my case, it was d:\dpf\music\GMMP).
4. Create a directory, GMMPStatFix, to hold the scripts and such (in my case, d:\dpf\music\GMMPStatFix\).

Updating.

1. Synchronize iTunes and your phone. I don’t normally leave syncthing running, so I start it up on both ends and wait for everything to be synchronized.
2. Start up GMMP on your phone and do a scan to find all the new tracks (Settings > Scan)
3. Backup your Stats in GMMP (Settings > Backup > Backup Stats). This creates a stats.xml file, which syncthing then copies to the GMMP directory on your PC.
4. Once stats.xml is copied to your PC, go into iTunes and Export your iTunes library into the GMMPStatFix directory (File > Export > Library). Save it as iTunes.xml
5. Run the updatestats.bat file. This file runs both the perl script GMMPStatFix.pl and the VBScript ExportImport.vbs, which is a slightly modified version of Steve’s script (primarily, to work with ASCII files instead of Unicode).
   1. Copies the stats.xml file from the GMMP directory to GMMPStatFix.
   2. Runs the perl script, which does the following: It slurps in the old stats.xml file, if it exists. It slurps in the new stats.xml file. It then chews that stuff with the iTunes XML file. This allows it to figure out the new information for the stats.xml file in terms of ratings, last played, and playcount (I don’t care about skip counts). It will also figure out when the ratings, playcount, and last played needs to be updated in iTunes. It will warn if there are computed Album Ratings, which I hate. It then generates a new stats.xml file, and a file of changes to be made to iTunes.
   3. In then invokes ExportImport.vbs to make the changes to iTunes. I’m working on fixing the dialog boxes so it doesn’t confirm everything, but does output to STDERR what it is doing.
   4. Lastly, it copies the stats.xml file back into the GMMP directory.
6. Syncthing then copies the stats.xml file back to the phone.
7. Once stats.xml has been updated on the phone, go into GMMP and Settings > Restore Stats.
8. Close syncthing on both sides if you want.

That’s it. Both sides updated.

If you want a current copy of the perl script and the modified VBScript script, just drop me a note at faigin -at cahighways -dot org, and I’ll get them to you (or comment here).

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along the Road as 🎧 Success! Turning an Android Phone into an iPod Backup by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link to the left. You can sign in with your LJ, DW, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. Note: Subsequent changes made to the post on the blog are not propagated by the SNAP Crossposter; please visit the original post to see the latest version. P.S.: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

If you recall, I recently wrote about some problems I was having with my iPod Classics, both of which had been modified with the Tarkan iFlash adaptor to 512GB. Luckily, the fellow who installed the adapter for me was able to get them out of the Reboot loop, and I have restored them. That got me thinking again about non-iPod solutions. There were a variety of options available:

• Dedicated music players such as the Fiio or Astell & Kern provide great sound quality, but are expensive, require additional SD cards for storage, do not support smart playlists, and cannot integrate with my large existing iTunes library. There are precious little details online about their interfaces, and especially about their interfaces on the PC side for managing the music libraries.
• An iPod Touch does not work, because their storage is not expandable and currently maxes out at 128GB. An older iPhone has more storage, but is also much more expensive, and has been designed by Apple to have diminishing battery life — plus planned obsolescence.
• Using my existing Android phone, which can support Micro-SD cards up to 2TB.

When I started exploring the Android ecosystem, the first option was a cloud subscription model. For a multitude of reasons, I do not like streaming music — you need larger data packages for your phone, and you may not always have service where you want it. But programs like Apple Music and Google Play Music (GPM) do allow you to, within limits (50,000 songs for GPM; 100,000 songs for AM), upload your music library to their cloud (where they may substitute existing tracks they have), and then download it into the SD card from your mobile device. Initially, I thought about that option, in particular with Apple Music, which would support Smart Playlists. Both work with iTunes, either natively or with a media manager. They also have other arbitrary limits, such as GPM limiting playlists to 1,000 songs. Both also require monthly payments to Apple or Google, companies that don’t need your money, avoid taxes, and are not longer out to do good, IMHO.

But then I stumbled upon the apps from a small family company, JRT Studio (FB). They have two apps: iSyncr and Rocket Player, that were of interest. The apps had free and pay version, and the pay version was a one time payment. They appeared to do what I wanted to do: iSyncr would read the iTunes database and move the music to an SD card; it would also sync back to iTunes play times, counts, and ratings. Rocket Player was a music player designed to play music from an Android’s internal storage, and provided a widget to add ratings. I use ratings to flag tracks I like, and tracks that need repair.

So, after stumbling on a sale on 512GB MicroSD cards (for $99 at Amazon, half-price!), I decided to go the iSyncr route. I ordered the card, installed it, and attempted to sync. The good news is that, after some stumbles, I was able to get the process working and copied all the music and playlists to my SD card. The Rocket Player works well, and even additionally supports its own form of smart playlists so that I could create ones that do live updates (existing smart playlists in iTunes transfer as a static copy that do not update). In general, the process was easy once I figured it out. Over time, I’m playing with tuning the process to make it more efficient.

I cannot, however, give the products a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating at this time. I have to dial it back to ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ because of some problems.

For iSyncr:

• The interface is, at times, user unfriendly, or at least, non-intuitive. It took me a while to realize using the USB transfer that it was calculating the space as a preparation to sync, and that you had to initiate the sync separately. If you want to keep adding playlists slowly, it has to rescan iTunes for each playlist. Establishing the permissions for it to communicate is also a bit complicated, although that is in some ways due to Android and Windows. The Windows component also installs straight to the system tray, and the user interface is not explained well.
• The product needs to be a bit more security aware: it may require too many firewall permissions (it is unclear if those can be dialed back, in particular, the public access option if you only want to sync on home networks), and I’m not 100% sure on the Android permissions. They also need to sign their Windows executable. I understand why they don’t sign it (privacy issues), but I believe those should be surmountable.
• It would be nice if the product communicated over Bluetooth as well as Wi-Fi and USB.

For Rocket Player:

• Their live list capability is a bit more limited that iTunes. Here are a few things that I noted:
  • iTunes smart playlists provide full equation capability — that is: a & b & (c | d) & (f | g). LIve lists give each predicate an option of mandatory or optional, where “optional” means connected to the other predicates with an “or” (and that only really comes into play if there is one required component — if all are optional, you get the entire library)
  • There are conditionals available on iTunes, such as “starts with”, that are not available for live lists. Of course, Apple needs full regex matching, but that’s probably a reach.
  • There are fields you can test for in iTunes, such as the length of the track, that are not available for Live Lists. This was particularly annoying for me, as I have Smart Lists that partition my podcasts based on length, and I couldn’t reconstruct them in Rocket Player
• One of these apps (I suspect Rocket Player) may be a battery drain. I noticed since adding the apps that the battery drains faster, but I haven’t fully figured out the culprit.

However, the biggest problem for both apps was, well, dealing with bigness. The programs do not work efficiently with very large libraries such as mine: 45,600 songs, playlists that are 20,000 songs, and at least 256GB in music and podcasts. iSyncr originally took an hour or two to process the playlists to sync. By tinkering with which playlists I transfer (and recreating the smart playlists and live lists and not transferring them), I’ve gotten the time down to 15-30 minutes.  Rocket Player takes a long time to start up and recognize the music, and an even longer time to scan for new music. Some of this may be due to the Android media library, but I don’t think that’s the entire picture. I think they tested in on smaller libraries and it worked just fine; my library is an anomaly and very large.

Given that the products are (currently) a backup, and that I only plan to sync once a day when it is near my computer, the faults are not insurmountable. Still, they are annoying (and thus the 4½⭐ rating). I hope that they can improve the efficiency and user interface of these products in the future.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along the Road as 🎶 App Review: iSyncr + Rocket Player by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link to the left. You can sign in with your LJ, DW, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. Note: Subsequent changes made to the post on the blog are not propagated by the SNAP Crossposter; please visit the original post to see the latest version. P.S.: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

One of the categories in which I collect news chum is titled “Music and iPod”. The articles I’ve collected here fall into two broad categories. The first looks at the changing music marketplace. The second collects information on potential iPod replacements. So unlock your device, take your scroll-wheel for a spin, and let’s start.

The music industry is changing. What’s old is new again, and maintaining what you have becomes more work. The world is divided between those that want to own their music (some say “hoard, my precioussss”), and others are just fine with leasing it and paying subscription fees. Generational divides are at play here. Here are two articles exploring that divide:

• Spotify is fine. But let’s mourn the passing of CDs. Once loved, the humble CD is now derided. It’s forefather, the vinyl LP, is having a resurgence. There are those giving the cassette some loving for the mixtape. But the CD? It’s sound was “too perfect”. Is it time for the requiem?
• Wired headphones are having their quartz moment. When Apple decided to get rid of the 3.5mm port for headphones, wired headphones began to be pushed out the door. People were willing to live with the spotty connections and limited battery life of unwired headphones. But just like mechanical watches and vinyl, wired headphones are finding their space.

One of my worries is the eventual death of the iPod and the iPod ecosystem. I’m not sure whether it will be due to the death of hardware, or Apple deciding to remove iPod Classic support from iTunes, leaving iPod users high and dry. So I’m always looking for alternatives. Here are some articles related to that:

• Best high-resolution digital audio player: Which DAP reigns supreme?
• Fiio M7: Fiio’s new high-res music player is $200 and comes with USB-C.
• Fiio X7 Mark II: Fiio X7 Mark II review: You can swap out the amplifier in this Android-based high-res audio player.
• HyBy R3: HiBy R3 is a $229 iPod alternative that’s rocking Kickstarter.
• A&norma SR15:  Astell & Kern put a charmingly crooked screen on its latest music player.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along the Road as 📰 Pod People Read the News by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link to the left. You can sign in with your LJ, DW, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. Note: Subsequent changes made to the post on the blog are not propagated by the SNAP Crossposter; please visit the original post to see the latest version. P.S.: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

We all have fears. Some find strength in them. Some let them shape their lives.

Fear, thy name is Apple.

This post, of course, is brought to you by the letters “i”, “t”, “u”, “n”, “e”, and “s”. Put them together, and they spell “iTunes” — the reason for this musing, especially after reading an article titled “How iTunes built, and then broke, my meticulous music-listening system“. I’m one of those folks: curing my iTunes library, making sure the meta-data is right, the album art reflects the version of the album I have — for all of my 40,000+ songs (yes, I’ve crossed the 40K song mark). Although the article discusses the problem of iTunes with newer devices, I’m dependent on the software to sync with my modded iPod Classic (512GB storage). I’ve even stayed on iTunes 11, because I know that will work with the device. I will never get an iPhone, because that would mean upgrading iTunes — and we all know that will spell doom.

So what are my fears?

Well, my iPods could die. I’d still have the music of course: tracks lovingly downloaded, ripped from CDs, recorded by hand from LPs, extracted from videos. Most of the music not available elsewhere digitally. But that’s why I have a backup iPod Classic. Primero and Segundo. Prime.

But what if iTunes 11 no longer works when I move eventually to Windows 10. How will I sync my music? How will I move everything to another library system. I really do not want my music in the cloud. There are so many places where streaming just does not work. Not to mention, of course, that it is MY music. I paid for it, I should be the only one to control it.

That, by the way, is why I tend to buy digital music from Amazon, but not use Amazon Music.

This brings us to the problem with MP3 download collections. Unlike CDs or LPs, there’s nothing tangible. Nothing to pass on. It is in a fixed format that might not be supported in the future. Then what? Pay for your music again, if you can find it. I can still listen to LPs from almost 80 years ago (alas, I can’t deal with 78s). We can still listen to CDs from 30 years ago. 30 years ago, the MP3 format didn’t exist.

30 years from now, how will we listen to our expensive MP3 downloads? We will probably still be able to find CD players (although forget those CD-ROMs you recorded — they’re likely toast now). We’ll find the cassette players, and LP players. But will our computers still be able to play MP3s? Ask yourself this: Could you open a Wordstar file?

So a big fear of my: My music won’t age well with me. Of course, in 30 years I’ll be 87. I probably will have forgotten how to use a computer. Hopefully, my iPod Classics will still be working 🙂

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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It’s Rosh Hashanah afternoon (L’Shana Tovah to all), and I’m exhausted from the morning. Yet I have a bunch of news chum to post. Let’s see if we can braid it into something sweet and circular, coming back by the end to where I started. This time, we’ll just give headlines and a few comments.

• The O shaped iPod? On Rosh Hashanah, you dip Apples in Honey, so where else to start but with a circular Apple product. This article describes a new circular design for the iPod Shuffle that is quite cool, if a Shuffle has enough storage for your needs.
• The Taxonomy of Tech Holdouts. As we’re talking about iPods, here are the nine archetypes of planned non-obsolecence, from the Anachronist to the Careful Curator. I think I’m the latter.
• Navy scuttles sailors’ enlisted rating titles in huge career shake-up. Moving from holdouts to non-holdouts. The Navy is holding on to specialist ratings no more. Effective immediately, sailors will no longer be identified by their job title, say, Fire Controlman 1st Class Joe Sailor. Instead, that would be Petty Officer 1st Class Joe Sailor.
• New college at Onizuka Station pays homage to the ‘Blue Cube’. Moving from the Navy to their sister service, the Air Force. Those in the Bay Area might remember the blue cube, the former Onizuka AFS. It has been converted into a local college, but still plays homage to its history. The walkways leading from the parking lot to the campus are speckled with flecks of blue paint harvested from the cube. Once inside, there is the Onizuka Cafe for hungry students and the Satellite Lounge next door for relaxation and study. Two murals that previously had been inside the cube are now hung in campus hallways. One features the Challenger shuttle with a memorial poem. The other is signed by many former employees of the Onizuka Air Force Station and coincidentally features a large owl—Foothill’s mascot—with a lightning bolt in its talons.
• An Abandoned Hospital in West Adams Has Been Filled With Fine Art. Moving from an Abandoned Air Station to an Abandoned Hospital, although this one is still abandoned. The LA Metropolitan Hospital was one of the first black hospitals, but it close a few years ago and is pending redevelopment. However, for the next month, there is an interesting art exhibit in the abandoned hospital.
• Texas prisons ban books by Langston Hughes and Bob Dole – but ‘Mein Kampf’ is OK. A hospital is a pubic service building, and so is a prison. So here’s an interesting prison story: prisons in Texas have banned books by Bob Dole, Harriet Beecher Stowe or Sojourner Truth. But inmates are more than welcome to dig into Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” or David Duke’s “My Awakening.” The rationale: they ban offensive language or violence or sex, but not offensive ideas.
• Palestinians’ Abbas seeks British apology for 1917 Jewish homeland declaration. Moving from Hitler to another group that doesn’t like the Jews: the Palestinians. According to the Palestinian President, Britain should apologize for its 1917 declaration endorsing the founding of a Jewish homeland in Palestine and should recognize Palestine as a state.
• Your Samsung washing machine might be about to explode. Moving from explosive ideas to explosive washers. The problem it appears, is a defective support rod that is causing washer tubs to separate, potentially launching wires, nuts and other parts.  Boom!
• The one step you shouldn’t skip when cooking with your cast iron pan. Moving from the Laundry Room to the kitchen, here are some tips regarding use of cast iron pans.
• Fat Flora? Gut Bacteria Differ in Obese Kids. What do you cook in a cast iron pan? Food. And what happens if you eat too much food? You get fat. Researchers have found that obese children have a different population of microorganisms living in their intestinal tracts, compared with lean children. These microorganisms appear to accelerate the conversion of carbohydrates into fat, which then accumulates throughout the body, the researchers said.
• Attack of the plastic eaters: Can mushrooms, bacteria and mealworms save the planet from pollution? Speaking of bacteria, it runs out they may be the solution to accumulating plastic. As it turns out, nature might offer us the solution to our man-made problems. Scientists around the world are harnessing — in test tubes, under glass domes, and within large bioreactors — the power of living things that can digest plastic without suffering harm.
• Inside Arizona’s Pump Skimmer Scourge. Of course, if you’re in Arizona, you should keep a close eye on your plastic — not due to bacteria, but criminals that are doing a lot of skimming of gas and other credit cards.
• Why the Hallmark Card Company Owns Thousands of Priceless Artworks. Plastic, of course, refers to a credit card, and who is one of the largest purveyors of greeting cards? Hallmark. Here’s the history of Hallmark, and why the company owns lot of priceless art.
• UC Berkeley mascot Oski celebrates 75th birthday. Of course, you send greeting cards on an anniversary, and it just so happens that Oski, the mascot of UC Berkeley, is celebrating an anniversary — his birthday.
• Horses can communicate with people using symbols. Oski is a bear, and another type of animal is a horse. It turns out that twenty three horses learned to tell trainers if they wanted to wear a blanket or not. Subjects were shown three symbols: a horizontal bar to say “I want a blanket”, a blank square for “No change”, and a vertical bar for “I don’t need a blanket”. They learned the meanings in a day or two and using them to convey if they were too warm or too cold, building the case for self-awareness.

Of course, a square is a simple polygon, and if you keep adding sides to a polygon infinitely, you end up with a circle. An a circle, of course, is the shape of the new iPod Shuffle, which permit us to spiral back to where this post began. Of course, circles and spirals are the shape of a round Challah, which we dip in honey as we wish EVERYONE a happy and healthy new year. May you all be written and inscribed for the happiest of years.

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This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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Even though I’m on vacation this week, I’ve still been reading news and collecting articles. One subject that has been popular this week has been Apple, iTunes, Apple Music, and the future. Here are some of the discussions that caught my eye:

• All About the Benjamins. A number of articles have been circulating about the skyrocketing value for older iPods, such as this article, which notes that the U2 edition of the iPod is now supposedly fetching $90K, but of course only if it was factory-sealed in its box. To us old timers, this sounds like the Cabbage Patch Doll craze of many years ago, or the Beanie Baby craze. iPods are meant to be used: to hold music, to play music, to be the center of your musical life. They are not meant to remained boxed. I have two iPod Classics, each modified to have a 512GB SSD memory instead of the 160GB Hard Disk, and I use them everyday (in fact, I’m using one of them as I write this up: currently playing, “Fireflies” by Vana Mazi from the album Izam Anav).
• W3C, DRM, EME, and other Acronyms from Hell. Yesterday, on Boing Boing, was an open letter from the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) to W3C (the Web Advisory Council) about their stance on new DRM (Digital Rights Management) technology for the web. They are creating a video DRM standard designed to prevent people from implementing it unless they have permission from the big movie and TV companies, by invoking the notorious Digital Millennium Copyright Act and its international equivalents. Earlier in the week there had been a similar article about how earlier attempts at DRM could have killed iTunes and the iPod. That article noted that “iTunes was able to become a powerhouse in music by allowing Apple customers to legally format-shift their digital music. The fact that the RIAA hated this, said it was (or should be) illegal, and tried to stop them didn’t mean that Apple couldn’t go on.” I’ve been format-shifted music I own for years, and there’s nothing that can stop it (especially if you’re willing to go the old analog route, and actually do analog re-recordings of music). I do analog recording from LPs, CDs, and cassettes; digital ripping of CDs, and purchase music digitally. Back when I was much younger, I even recorded off of AM or FM radio (that’s how we used to “stream” music 🙂 ).  I’m of the belief that people should actually own copies of the music they listen to; if they do, they should have the ability to format-shift their purchase so they can use it.
• iTunes and Destroying the Will to Collect Music. However, these days, collecting music has gotten much harder. Our interfaces to manage the music doesn’t help — witness how many people complain about iTunes (which is likely still the largest music manager for MP3 players and their brethren).  Here’s one man’s story about how iTunes destroyed his desire to collect music. What with fears about iTunes replacing carefully curated tracks with similar versions on the cloud, to the tendancy of iTunes to lose tracks or delete music, the ability to manage a collection — especially large collections — gets difficult. I can understand the concern. If you’ve visited our house, you know I have a large collection of LPs and CDs (and once upon a time had a very large collection of cassettes recorded from those LPs and CDs). I have just under 38,000 tracks in iTunes, and plan to add more. I recognize how I’ve grown tied to iTunes and its play counts and ratings, as well as how easy it is for iTunes to screw up and lose music.
• iTunes vs. Apple Music. But the music industry may be trying to screw listeners once again. There are conflicting stories out there about how Apple is going to kill the iTunes store within 2 years; but then again, it may not. The conflict (and the reason for the conflicting reports) is the movement to streaming music (which I view as an insidious plot). Supposedly… Apple wants to get out of the profitable business of “selling” people music through the iTunes store, and replace it with the streaming of music through Apple Music, where you can stream tracks you are leasing (but I put “selling” in quotes, because in someways it was leasing as well, because Apple could delete the trick, or might have DRMed the track). I tend to side with the folks that say Apple isn’t doing this now, simply because it is a profit center. I think the risk of it going away is there, especially if more people move to storage in the cloud and a streaming model. Luckily, I think the artists still want to have the ability to get music in the hands of their fans — be it  through download, CDs, or other means. I have yet to hear rumors that Amazon is getting out of the digital music field — and I always get my music through Amazon if I can as they do not DRM protect their tracks; I subsequently import them into iTunes (which moves them out of Amazon Music’s reach).

So what is the upshot of these articles. I think it is simple. People have always wanted to own the music of the artists they like: be it sheet music in the early days, LP recordings through much of the 20th century, cassette records, and later CDs and digital tracks. With recording technology, they like — and need — the ability to format shift their music to formats of their choosing. They also need the ability to pass their music collections to their children (something that may be difficult to do). We should not be forced to buy new copies of recordings we own every few years, despite what the music companies claim.

As for Streaming Music: Streaming music is demon spawn. It is a reinvention of the radio, but under your control. However, with streaming, you not only pay for the music, you pay for the bandwidth used to deliver it. Further, the streamers can lose the ability to send you the music at any time. Further, it is only good if you have a signal to stream the music. Fight streaming. Purchase your music, record it to a format you can use, and just play from your collection — non-streaming or local (i.e., your house) streaming. Oh, and that iPod Classic you’ve got in your closet — don’t sell it as a Cabbage Patch MP3 Player, and don’t throw it away. Replace the hard disk with SSD, load it up, and use it. You can have your entire music collection with you, and listen to the songs you want.

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’tis the weekend, and that means it is time to clear out the accumulated links that didn’t them… well, at least those I remembered to send back home from work. In the spirit of the day, feel free to share these stories with your sweetie.

• A Yiddish Date. Let’s start things with something fun for the day. If you haven’t seen the Yidlife Video linked in this post yet, go watch it. It is hilarious. Plus, it stars Mayim Bialik.
• Nobel Drama in Trouble. The Nobel Middle School drama program is in trouble, falling victim to a parent complaint and district policies that dictate, at the Middle School level, that activities can’t select based on skill level.  Thank you to Colin at Bitter Lemons for spreading the word about this beyond the school community to the theatre community in Southern California.
• Congratulations to Van Nuys HS. Ever since my daughter was part of the Van Nuys Academic Decathalon team, I’ve silently cheered them on against the nation’s leader, Granada Hills HS. So congratulations to Granada for winning at the LA level and going to state, but even more congratulations to the other high schools the district is sending: Marshall, which finished second; Franklin, which finished third; El Camino Real; Garfield; Bell; Van Nuys; Grant; Narbonne; Hamilton; North Hollywood; and, for the first time, Cleveland and Lincoln. It is a lot of hard work by a lot of good kids.
• A Nigerian Needs Your Help. At the ACSAC conference, we presented the Nigerian Spam Scam Scam, a story about how Dean Cameron led on Nigerian spammers to get money out of them. Well, it appears another Nigerian needs our help: this one is lost in space unless you provide the funds to bring him back. What I found most interesting here was the email address used: XXXX@nasrda.gov.ng . At the conference, we actually had a Nigerian senator in the audience, and even he was using a Hotmail address because the Nigerian government infrastructure wasn’t set up. Note that here we have a .gov.ng address. Very interesting.
• Kickstarters Makes Good. Two Kickstarters we’ve supported have made the LA media. The first, which we knew as Smash Cup but is now called StoJo, is a collapsible reusable coffee cup that got written up in the LA Times Gear section. The second kickstarter is Game Haus Cafe,  a wonderful board gaming cafe that got a nice piece from KCET’s SoCal Connected. They only made one error: the problem with the place is not finding a seat, but finding parking.
• Theatre Podcasts. Here’s an interesting announcement from The Folio Group, which has brought together a number of theatre podcasts into a collective, including two that I listen to: the Ensemblist and Theater People. I do find it interesting that they did not get The Producer’s Perspective or Broadway Bullet to be part of their collective.
• Undercover Boss. One of the shows I enjoy watching is Undercover Boss, although I do find it odd that only a few select people win the largess lottery. Here’s an interesting article on the show from one of the bosses from a recent episode.
• Changes in the Archie Universe. Whereas comic books in the past tended not to push the bounds, today’s comic books reflect society. Surprisingly, one of the ones at the edge is Archie, which once was the whitest of the white breads. Riverdale has added gay characters, and now Jughead has come out as asexual. This is good: the asexuals are a group that society doesn’t understand, and attempts to force into mold that just doesn’t fit them.
• The Feathers are Gone. The last Showgirl show in Las Vegas has ended. Jubilee, at Bally’s has closed its 35 year run, leaving the strip devoid of shows with the traditional Las Vegas showgirl. Will the era ever return?
• Crumbling Presidents. 43 Presidential Heads are decaying in a field in Virginia. I view the images as a pictorial commentary on the state of our politics, and of the respect we show for our leaders.

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This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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Prologue. As I’ve noted before, I listen to a lot of podcasts. Perhaps too many, as it takes a lot of work to keep current; this is partially because there is such a resurgence in the number of really good podcasts. I’m learning about more and more everyday, and there just isn’t time to listen to the podcasts that sound interesting. Now I’m “old-school” on my podcast listening: I actually download them daily to an actual iPod, as opposed to using streaming data to listen to them on a mobile platform. I find that I can only listen to spoken-word podcasts in certain environments (primarily those where I’m not consciously using the “reading” portion of my brain): driving, shopping, working out, walking. Further, I can’t just sit back and listen — if I do that, I’ll fall asleep (which I blame on conditioning from the vanpool). As a result, I’m regularly backed up on podcasts; my typical backlog is on the order of 15 podcasts, not counting Woodsongs.

Boy, I’m starting to feel like Ira Glass opening an episode of This American Life (one of the podcasts I listen to).

So the other day, I’m shopping at Trader Joes and listening to a recent episode of the Startup podcast. Startup was the first podcast from Gimlet Media, and originally told the story of the startup of Gimlet. It has gone on to look at other startups, such as DatingRing, but it occasionally tells Gimlet’s story. Right now, they are doing a half-season on Gimlet, and the latest show tackled the question of Diversity.

I strongly urge you to give it a listen. This episode explores the level of diversity of Gimlet Media. Although they have made an effort for male/female balance, they are working to correct a significant white/people of color balance. The episode explores why that divide exists, how diversity begets more diversity, and why the question of diversity is more than skin deep. That’s meant to be literal: for there are questions of diversity across religion, orientation, political spectrum, etc. Alex Bloomberg of Gimlet rightly points out why diversity is so important: it enables them to tell a better story that exposes all sides of an issue.

This post consists of three acts (no, that’s not right). Well, there are three articles that came across my feeds this week that illustrate this so well.

Act I: Dating Apps. The first was a post by Ferrett Steinmetz over on LJ (you do remember LJ, right). It explores a new dating app: this time it is one developed by women for women. Dating is similar to porn, in that what women want and need in the experience is often drastically different than men, and yet it is mostly a male-centric industry that is producing the product. This results in an inherent bias in the product towards the male point of view. Nowhere is it clearer than this dating app: whereas men want to see the widest variety of women, the women only care about those men who are somewhat local, who are congruent on interests, and who have a mutual interest in them. In fact, it restricts the profiles that you can see to those where there is a mutual match of criteria. This is a clear example of what a different perspective can bring, and why that perspective is so important.

Act II: Wearing the Hijab. The second was an article in the Washington Post, which was subsequently echoed by other outlets such as NPR. The article looked at the recent movement to support Muslim women by wearing head scarves as a show of solidarity. The problem? No one asked Muslim women what they thought about this. Modern Muslim women haven’t adopted the headscarf out of choice or even out of religious reasons; it has been forced upon them by the male-dominated atmosphere of Islam. They would prefer an approach that actually encouraged Islam to liberalize its attitude towards woman, instead of reminding them of their second class citizen status. It is as if society said they wanted to support Jews by dressing in long black frock coats, growing long beards, and wearing tzittzit and kippot. So where did the headscarf notion come from? People who did not understand the Islamic culture, but “meant well.”

Act III: The Theatre. Broadway Bullet, Episode 608, was specifically focused on women’s voices and diversity in the theatre. Again, this is an issue I’ve brought up many a times — as recent as last week, in fact. In order to draw audiences to the theatre, we need to have diversity in the writing of the shows. We need diversity in the casting so that what is on stage reflects what is (or what should be) in the audience. We need diversity in the back and front of house production and creative positions as well. This diversity ensures we hear the voices we need to hear. But far too often, theatre go for what is safe, and that is shows often by white men aimed towards the white mindset.

Post-Logue. These are just three examples, and show why diversity is so important, and is so much more than tokenism. It is a change of attitude, a desire to bring not only diverse people but diverse viewpoints to issues. These articles — and it is emphasized in the Startup Podcast — show how these diverse viewpoints can improve the end product, often by coming at issues from a very different place and experience.

P.S.: You’re probably wondering why I chose the userpic. Two Gentlemen of Verona — at least the  musical version from the New York Shakespeare Festival — was one of the first productions that emphasized diversity and color-blind casting. It wasn’t a bunch of white men spouting Shakespeare.

P.P.S.: So what podcasts do I listen to? Here’s the current subscription list: The Allusionist, BackStory, Broadway Bullet, The Ensemblist, Freakonomics; Gastropod; Invisibilia; Irish and Celtic Music Podcast; LA Observed; Opening the Curtain; The Moth; NPR Technology; Planet Money; The Producers Perspective; Quirks and Quarks; Reply All; Science Friday; The Specialist; Startup; Theater People; This American Life; Wait, Wait, Dont’ Tell Me; The Woodsongs Old-Time Radio Hour; and 99% Invisible. There are quite a few more I’d love to add to the list, but I just don’t have the time. [ETA: Over the weekend, I added Surprisingly Awesome and Answer Me This.]

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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Everytime we get a quarter of the poop deck clean, some RSS feed comes along and makes a mess, leaving us to swab it again. Here are some technological arrrrrr-ticles that will soon walk the plank:

• Banner Ads. One of the few articles I remember from Communications of the ACM was an article that discussed how ATM networks work: they collect all the information, and then it is bounce, bounce, bounce till they get the answer and it bounces back to you. It turns out that banner ad networks are similar, bouncing back in microseconds to get bids on what ad to show you. Always need to learn what happens behind the scenes.
• Windows 10. Speaking of behind the scenes, did you know that if you have a non-Windows 10 machines (i.e., Win7 or Win8), Microsoft has been using your disk storage and bandwidth to download the Windows 10 image just in case you decide to load it. I’ve confirmed they’ve done it on my machine — and I haven’t even reserved a copy of Windows 10. It’s not even clear if they keep that image up to date. If you are tight on disk space (it takes multiple gigs), you should learn about it and how to remove it.
• iPod Classic Update. Just a few items related to the iPod Classic. First, here’s a review of 5 of the best iPod Alternatives, as well as a writeup of yet another alternative (Tidal) to hit the market. Then again, you could just upgrade your iPod: Tarkan has just launched iFlash-Dual — an adapter that allows you to replace your hard disk with 2 SD cards (yes, you can do 2 x 256G). Given that my response there has provided me a connection in West Covina that can do the upgrade, I might do this at the end of the year. Supposedly, if I do, the next limit I’ll hit is the 60,000 song limit — remember, I’m already over 36,000 songs. (more on this upgrade here)

Music: The Sammy Davis Jr. Show: “Sam’s Song” (Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin)

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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If you’ve been reading my iPod posts for a while, you know that a growing concern of mine is what I will do when my iPod runs out of space. Perhaps I’m old fashioned, but I like owning (not leasing) my music, and having control of what I listen to when I want it. I like not being tethered to a data plan (or at least consuming it with music); I like being able to listen to all my music when I have no network connection. As background, I’m currently at 36308 songs taking 136 GB, plus podcasts, leaving about 12GB on my iPod Classic (7.5g, 160GB) free.

Previously, I had been exploring alternative high-capacity Digital Audio Players.  There were a number of leading contenders: Fiio, Astell and Kern, and iBasso being the primary ones. They all stored their data on microSD cards, but all had suboptimal user interfaces, could not handle smart playlists, and required use of different media managers.

About a week ago I began to ask myself: why go for a standalone player? After all, if the key aspect was storage of music on an SD card, I could likely find an Android phone that could take a card (iPhone have no external storage support). The most likely player looks to be Rocket Player. They also have a premium version. I’ve seen comments that it supports smart playlists, but who knows if they are compatible with iTunes smart playlists.  But it looks like there is a wide variety of players available (see also here). PlayerPro seemed like a possibility, but it looks like there are currently playlist problems. There’s also DoubleTwist, which has some interesting syncing capabilities with iTunes.

With music on Android, there would also be the question of how to manage it. The best solution is, surprisingly, iTunes (with an add-on called iSynchr that allows iTunes to talk to Android). Of course, this would have the question of how long iTunes would continue to work with the add-on. Doubletwist is also recommended, and presumably it works best with the DoubleTwist app. I haven’t seen any recent surveys, however, and most I’ve read indicate that iTunes with the iSynchr is still bettter. However, even using the phone, there is still the problem of battery life: playing music on the phone decreases the overall phone battery.

The best solution, of course, is to keep using the iPod. But, you say, iPods are no longer made and they max out at 160GB. Perhaps the stock ones do. There are adapters out there that permit a modder to replace the iPod hard disk with a SDXC flash card — supposedly up to 256GB. They could likely take the iPod to more storage (software permitting), if they do the full SDXC standard that goes to 2TB; however, cards larger than 256GB are not available yet. Yet.  Google News has also been pointing me to this article about turbocharging a classic with an SSD up to 1TB. This in someways is less expensive as one can use an mSATA SSD — where getting 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB is much less expensive. There is a fellow that sells the needed adapters; he has even made a 1TB iPod. His website has a whole batch of interesting posts about such mods, including tutorials and recommendations on drives to use. He even compares the different types of storage.

The one drawback to upgrading the iPod is: I’m a software guy, not a hardware guy. I wouldn’t be comfortable attempting to make the mod myself.  I’ve dropped email to three local iPod Repair shops: Northridge iRepair, Repair Stop Northridge, and uBreakIFix. Northridge iRepair responded quickly, noting that they had tried this with a personal iPod, and had been able to install it just fine — but it wouldn’t boot up. My guess is that they ran into a media problem — evidently, not all mSATA drives work, just as not all SDXC cards work. So hopefully they will try some more and get things working before it need it.  I’ll update this as more folks respond.

My plan forward at this point is to… wait. I’ve still got 12GB to fill — that should take about a year. When I get close, I’ll switch from synching all to just synching playlists, and make some music on the computer only. That may give me another 2GB of play, but hopefully it won’t require reloading the iPod when I make the change. I may also explore converting the older of the two iPod Classic (iPod Primero) to SSD — either a 256GB SDXC card (although if I want larger storage, if the interface works, all that means is getting a larger card) or a 512GB mSATA drive. It all depends on price and the success of the installer on working with particular media.

This entry was originally posted on Observations Along The Road (on cahighways.org) as this entry by cahwyguy. Although you can comment on DW, please make comments on original post at the Wordpress blog using the link below; you can sign in with your LJ, FB, or a myriad of other accounts. There are currently comments on the Wordpress blog. PS: If you see share buttons above, note that they do not work outside of the Wordpress blog.

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