Archives for August, 2006
CD Encoding on Mac OS X
I know most people prefer the use of application for all of their needs, but I’m the type of person who thinks that sometimes better results can come out of using specialized software. This is not always the case, but for my situation is works out better for me. I have my CDs backed up on my Linux box which can be seen from any device on my network including my Mac. I’m also very keen on keeping my naming convention the same for new directories and files. iTunes may be able to do all of this, but for me, I like the idea of trusting a separate application to give me exactly what I want. I found Max, and it appears to be one of the better encoders available at no cost. It can encode to FLAC, OGG, and MP3. I still prefer MP3 because of device compatibiliy. It also has the ability to connect to amazon.com and retrieve album art to be embedded in the meta data for each song. This helps if and when I add the album to my iTunes Library.
How I do things against the norm: Rather than using iTunes to encode my CDs straight into the iTunes Library, storing them locally on my Mac, I’m using Max to encode them locally. I then double check the files for quality before moving them to the music share. My wife would love nothing more than to be listening to some music downstairs and have the song full of JITTS and SCWARBLES. Once the album is moved into the appropriate genre folder, I manually add it to the iTunes Library. I don’t use the automatic feature, because I’d like to have the say of if and when something gets put into the Library. Ultimately, my music storage is easy, clean, and logical as is my iTunes.
Installing Ubuntu on my Sony Vaio Notebook
In the past, I’ve always run into trouble running Linux Live CDs or install CDs because my Sony PCG-R505DL Notebook’s optical drive is in a docking station, which connects internally via IEEE1394. When these CDs would load Linux, they would boot, but as soon as the kernel was loading, the necessary IEEE1394 drivers were disabled, which killed the installs. The newest version of Ubuntu had no issues with this, so they must have addressed the issue. However, the Live CD was very slow to load and when I finally got it loaded, I chose the Install option, which took 4 minutes to even acknowledge the command. Once it started, I was greeted with a screen that told me to select the language to be used on the system, but the list hadn’t been completely rendered. Another 3 minutes passed before the list appeared. English was selected as the default, so I clicked on Forward, but it is taking a long time for this ‘click’ to execute. Very very slow so far. Oddly enough, I can hear the CD cranking, but the screen hasn’t changed yet. In fact, the screen ironically says I will need to answer a few questions and the install will begin from the HDD rather than the CD to speed things along. Here I am waiting for the first question to go away, so I can answer the others and get started. Also, the screen says, ‘Answering the questions should only take a few minutes,’ but I think in reality the questions only take a few seconds to answer while the loading of the answers is going on 45 minutes now. Why is the process so slow? Installing on a desktop machine only takes about 40 minutes from start to finish, so this is beyond me.