General

Problem:

You have over 15,000 mp3s that exist on a remote server, and you want to relocate them to your local machine while keeping your iTunes Library information (mostly) intact.

Solution:

After moving the files to your local machine, iTunes will stubbornly look for them on the remote host. If said host no longer has those files, iTunes will ask to locate each individual file (which is bad.)

Export your iTunes Library from the File..Export menu. I recommend doing this twice, just in case.

Operator: “[Apartment complex] Emergency Services, how may I help you?”

Me: “Yeah… I’ve got an emergency.”

Operator: “Ok?”

Me: “Well, the front gate to the apartment complex isn’t working and it’s locked a lot of people out. This happens once a week.”

Operator: “I’ll page someone out right away.”

Me: “That’s not really the emergency.”

Operator: “Oh.. ok?”

Me: “This is kind of embarassing..”

Operator: “Go ahead.. ”

Me: “I just drank a huge bottle of water and .. well.. I really have to pee.”

If you’re running Mac OS X (Jaguar), click here to access your internal CUPS admin page.

“The Common UNIX Printing System (“CUPS”) is a cross-platform printing solution for all UNIX environments. It is based on the “Internet Printing Protocol” and provides complete printing services to most PostScript and raster printers.”

Looking for some good Sci-Fi/Fantasy reading? Check out The Internet Top 100 SF/Fantasy List.

It looks like I have a lot of reading to catch up on.

On his album “American IV: The Man Comes Around”, Johnny Cash covers “Hurt”, from the Nine Inch Nails album “The Downward Spiral”. The video was directed by Mark Romanek, who directed the original NIN video of “Hurt”, as well as “Perfect Drug”. The video can be found on Romanek’s site, along with others.

Sam has been playing with Photoshop, and sent me a link to a good Photoshop Tutorials site.

Cory Doctorow‘s first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, has just been published.

Several online and offline booksellers have the novel available. Cory has also released the book under a Creative Commons license, so that anyone may “download it, share it, email it, post it to your site, drop it in your P2P file-sharing cache.”

My own mirror of the freely-downloadable novel: ASCII text, HTML, and printable PDF.

Hey kids, if you purchased a CD or cassette tape from a retail store from a period between January 1, 1995 through December 22, 2000, you’re probably eligible to receive a check for up to $20, as a settlement agains the Music Recording Industry.

Poke here to get money!

Also note that the site requests the last 4 digits of your SSN. However, others have investigated and seem to think that the site is legit. It’s up to you to enter your information.

Because I’m too lazy to post real content, here’s my reply to Darci , who is wondering which Mac laptop to buy: iBook or TiBook?

I switched from my work-provided Toshiba to a self-provided iBook in February. I bought it from a nice place [Microcenter] that promised a full refund if I used it for 2 weeks and didn’t like it.

After two days, I was sold. The built-in applications, like iTunes, iPhoto, even Stickies, truly rocked. My existing optical Intellimouse worked. The iBook autodetected the wireless network, both for home and office. My email worked just fine. My MS Office documents imported cleanly. Everything “just worked.”

Time-travelling scientists must have gone to the future and read Laura’s latest post, then taken the technology and created the Turd Twister.

Come on, if you could time-travel, wouldn’t you steal technology from the future that enabled you to create devices that turned your butt into a Play-Doh Fun Factory?

I really want one of these, just for work. Imagine the expression on the cleaning lady’s face as she finds little heart-shaped turds floating in the bowl, special, just for her.