iTunes images and xml files

ARGH. Been trying to organise my iTunes collection especially as I've had a few dramas with the storage of the music.

- had a harddisk crash on a PC with 3 drives. 2 set up RAID1 whilst OS (Ubuntu) running on 3rd. Fortunately it was the OS drive that crashed, but I had to rebuild that to get to the music.
- had a second disk crash. This time, one of the RAID drives. PC wouldn't boot either, random beeps on boot during POST, graphics card not working, seating of memory affecting it sometimes, plus OS had crashed again.
- Moved to NAS. Working ok, except by trying to clean up what I had, I somehow deleted some of the album covers.
- downloaded icoverart. This allowed me to list and identify the tracks with missing artwork.
- After sorting out 1000's of songs, iCoverArt complains about some tracks yet the image shows in iTunes.
- It looks like I have an Album art folder on the NAS and one locally. And I'm guessing they don't match. Some of the missing art from an iCoverArt perspective is visible in iTunes.
- Now trying to look at iTunes XML file and work out how the persistent ID is used to find an image file.
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- Oh, its that simple. The persistent ID is the suffix to the library identifier. Just a search reveals which hex labelled folder has the ITC file. I was trying to work out if some AND op on the persistent ID and the library ID revealed the directories that the image file is in.

Anyway, iCoverArt is working pretty well to help identify and search for album artwork, along with http://www.coverhunt.com/ and http://www.discogs.com/

It's on, it's off

So perhaps I counted my chickens. The contract fell through, which is a shame after having 4 different parties interested. C'est la vie. Hopefully the open home on Saturday will keep the momentum going.

SOLD!

Well would you believe it; the house is under offer, and pending building and pest reports will be sorted in 35 days. It would be good to be able to move on and not have to worry about having to deal with someone I can't trust, and I'm not talking about the real estate agent.

If anything Dale deserves a medal for getting such a decent photographer round for the house, doing such a good write up, and acting as an independent voice of reason during discussions with Cathy.

There is still an open home this week, so I have to iron the doona and get the fire going for the morning, and hopefully it might continue the interest there has been in the house; it's nice to keep the momentum.

On other fronts, I've got a Bluetooth mouse that works very well thank you very much, and England have one the first test at Lords. Bit of a good day all round really. Just a pity I noticed a pair of my suit trousers seem a little bit tighter around the waist . . . .

Womble

We've been very honoured to look after Womble for the last week. With another 2 weeks to go I've fortunately seen past the puppy dog eyes and found his true character; a hungry, horny and occasionally disobedient creature of fun.

Just tonight, countless cries of "Womble, come here!", "stop!" and "HEEL!" went unheeded as he ran into the dark on Coolangatta beach, bounding up to a group of people in the dark and scaring the crap out of them.

Having never had a dog before, I'm a bit lost when it comes to knowing how to control a dog apart from what I have seen in that dominatrix dog trainer show and what I remember from Barbara Woodhouse days.

It's strange, as I do seem to managed to deal with picking up steaming dog do-do, washing the poor boy, and walking him daily. He is a pretty good guard dog to and a strangely good judge of character, barking incessantly at someone deemed not suitable for entry.

House for sale

Well, after 18 months of living here, it is time to wipe the slate clean, make a fresh start, throw the baby out with the bathwater, go back to square one and take things to the next level. Spent the last few days gardening, cleaning the pool, cleaning, tidying, painting and generally getting the place decent for viewing.

Definitely time to move on, but I will miss the place, especially my Kooka friends and the Koala.

It's on the web at RealEstate.com.au and the agents website First National Real Estate.

Getting plenty of interest but who knows in the current market. There's no rush at least but if it keeps the ex off my back with threats then that has to be a good thing.

CITCON Brisbane 2009

So I attended my first CITCON this year. As K. J. Ross & Associates were sponsors 1) I was obliged to go but there were other attractions such as 2) it was a free as in beer conference 3) it was nearby physically, being in Acacia Ridge, but not that close in terms of places I would visit out of choice 4) some serious drawcards with the attendees.

It was number 4 that was the clincher, with people coming from private enterprise and government, local and overseas, testers to developers, geeks to geekettes, and more than anything, people who wanted to share their experiences and be open to learn something new.

Twitter and flickr were kept busy with people updating the interweb tubes regularly.

http://bit.ly/BkRTV and check #citcon.

I'd probably go next year but that might be challenging as NZ is proposed as a venue.