Warning... Below is me just whining about how long it took me to sync my iPod yesterday. I expect this to generate laughter from some that follow my LJ here, but I can post what I want right? Right. So moving on.Those that know me, know that I adore archiving my favorite songs in that lovely codec FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec). Usually this isn't all that much of a problem. It became something of one last night when I was bringing my poor iPod back to life, so to speak.
Those of you who follow me on Twitter saw me counting down as the day went on. Obviously I was up to something. So now you know what. I was simply resyncing my iPod trying to get everything on there so that I could have it when I was driving around today or at work today.
I was counting down to my ipod finally finishing its sync. Which took 7 hours. (I think. I didn't keep track of time as well as I should have.) I know that that sounds freaking ridiculuos, but let me go into details here.
Big point #1: I absolutely hate iTunes. No, I'm not gonna turn this post into another, iTunes should do better than it does thing. Far too many of those can be found around the internets. Its also no secret that Apple's products are so damn proprietary that poor Windows users like me have a hard time when we want to search for the better alternatives. (And believe me, there are some really well done alternatives out there.)
Now there are reasons why I hate iTunes. It'd be a great peice of music management software if it worked better across all platforms and wasn't so "dumbed down" for the average person. (No, I'm not calling the average person dumb. I'm thinking of my parents and their computer literacy when I say this.)
Big Point #2: lacklustre format supportiTunes' answer to lossless is their Apple Lossless Audio Codec (ALAC). Which is nice and all. But its horrible for a Windows user who doesn't use iTunes. In fact, the software I use is MediaMonkey, and it takes it a second longer to play ALAC files. And according to the folks over at Hydrogenaudio,
its not all that great when compared with other codecs.
The problem with this is that Apple doesn't want to support FLAC (on Windows now, I'm not on a Mac, and honestly don't think I ever will be) despite the fact that that FLAC seems to be a really popular lossless audio format.
It doesn't really need to be said, but you know that iPods do not support FLAC encoded files. (Hell, I don't even think the Zune does. But I don't follow the Zune all that much.) This is hard for me. I estimate that about half of my collection is in FLAC.
My Solution: MediaMonkey!
MediaMonkey has been a lifesaver for me. Really, I can barely remember how I got along without it. But back when I just about lost all my music, I was able to find a recovery program that got all the files and put them in one place. Then I couldn't navigate things. That was when Lifehacker started up the wonderful series on taking control of one's massive collection of mp3, FLAC, and other audio files and
recommended MediaMonkey (along with a slew of other programs).
At the time I shrugged and figured that I had nothing to lose and that anything is better than the mess I had on my hands. So I downloaded, installed, and told it to work its magic. Not too much longer after that, I had a beautiful listing of things in the folders that they were supposed to be in with few mistakes that could easily be fixed. This whole experience only fueled my intense hatred and intense love all at the same times of tags.
Sometime later, I got an iPod. After a bit of research I found that MediaMonkey would sync to and iPod, iPod Touch, or even an iPhone. So, I joined the masses and got an iPod.
Life has been good since. MediaMonkey is staying updated and is moving along smoothly. And I'm able to get my FLAC files onto my iPod as mp3 files thanks to MediaMonkey automatically converting each and every FLAC file that I want on my iPod to mp3. That's probably the majority of my "iPod" playlist, seeing as yesterday's sync took about 7 hours.
I suppose that this is the price to pay for interoperability between everything?
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
During KBS2TV's Invincible Youth recording, T-ara's Hyomin shares her thoughts about the show.
please comment if taking. ASK IF YOU WANT TO TAKE OUT THE LINK.
DO NOT HOTLINK!
credit