arlington, va
October 6, 2006

Isn't there enough misery in the world without Steve Jobs piling on. A couple of weeks ago, I *upgraded* to iTunes 7.0... Bad move. iTunes made two copies of every "tune" in my library. I spent the better part of 24 hours: fuming (mostly I myself for installing the new version), trying to get back to the old version, accepting that I was stuck with the new version, and finally deleting all the dups. Now, I have about 30 gig of "tune" - that was a non trivial exercise. I never had the guts to try to attach my iPod to the new iTunes.

Well, yesterday afternoon - I trotted down to the library and checked out some books on CD - figuring it was time to get a few new books in the Pod - and there was a version 7.0.1 available - "Do you want to download version 7.0.1?" it asks. NO F*ing WAY... So, I get set up to rip some CD's. Well, that didn't work. Actually, I think it might have worked had I been patient enough. I think each CD would have taken about 10 hours. Alan Alda's Book "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed" has 11 CD. The old version ripped a CD in about 10 - 20 minutes depending on the alignment of the planets.

Maybe I do want version 7.0.1... Down and install. No problems. I notice that it is supposed to "improve" importing. WELL, this is good news. Start importing again. It vastly improved - now it might take only 5 hours to rip a CD.

Despair. I fly into furious hacker mode. Find old version of iTune. De-install 7.0. De-install QuickTime. Find an old iTunes Library file. install the old iTune. NO JOY. Some how I have a corrupt version of QuickTime somewhere in the computer. OK, download a good QT. It will not install.

All this is going on the the Living Room/Kitchen/Computer room. It is past dinner time even in our house. Carlton is starting to look concerned. What's wrong. Did you lose all "our" records. NOPE. I assure him they are safely backed up. I just lost access to my iPod. Nothing that would concern you. Then he starts looking at the kitchen area. "Why isn't wife-person cooking?"

The XP restore function is of no value. XP doesn't consider iTunes/QT worth trying to save. But, never the less I take the computer back several days and get QT and iTunes 7.0 back. Good, if I ever want to spend 10 hours ripping a CD.

But, today is another day. Think I'll try ripping them with MediaCenter. Of course then I'd have to be brave enough to connect the iPod to 7.0 to get the books into my iPod. Maybe I'll try to get my CD-less Fujitsu to recognize the CD drive in this computer and use it to rip the CD's. That will be slow. But, I bet it will not take 10 hours.

PS... we finally had dinner. A nice peanuty thai infusion chicken dish with rice. And beer. LOTS of beer.

PSS... I am now officially cured of "Mac" envy.