iTunes

Reviewing my iTunes purchases from the beginning.

The first thing I bought from iTunes back when I started using it 5 years ago was a Ben Folds EP. But it wasn't until 2006 that it looks like I started to use it as my primary source of music purchases.

iTunes Movie Rental,

Thanks for stopping by, I wanted to send you this quick note to let you know why I like your service so much.

I have really been enjoying your service for the last couple of months. It is really nice to rent movies in my home for a couple of dollars. It is especially nice to just open iTunes and be able to browse without the hassle of going out and being in a store with tens of other people looking to rent the same movie as I am, but there is only 2 copies of the movie, so who gets them? I don't have that problem anymore, because there is a copy for me and anyone else that is interested in renting from you because it is a digital download.

You were even nice enough to give me 30 days to start watching the movie, so I could actually rent it today and not watch it for a full month. I could rent a movie tonight but get caught up in something else and still have 29 more days to watch it.

You were also nice enough to give me 24 hours to re-watch the movie, or finish watching the movie from the time that I started it. Man that is a great feature because what if something happens tonight. Maybe I fall asleep while watching it and then I . . .

Wait, no, you apparently take the movie away as soon as there is not enough time to watch the movie in that 24 hour period. That is crap, don't tell me 24 hours and then take it away at 22.5 hours. I wanted to watch the end of the movie, so why did you take it away? I don't understand your methods iTunes Movie Rental. I mean, you told me that you would be here for 24 hours, and I counted on that, so whats with leaving early? Is that something you do? Maybe you had something more important going on, but if that were the case, you could have called ahead of time and told me you were leaving, or at least emailed me to tell me that you were taking off early.

All I am asking is that you give a guy a heads up if you are going to change the policy, maybe a quick note, not hand written or anything, but at least a little something telling me that I don't have time to watch you again, then I would be a little happier with you methods.

I guess I will see you again soon,

Nick

iTunes

iTunes has been my major force of entertainment in the evenings since I arrived here. I go out every now and then for a drink or to have some coffee or see a few local bands play, but the majority of work nights, I usually sit at the house and listen to music and read or watch television shows that I am downloading from iTunes.

It is working pretty well. I started by downloading a couple episodes of a show every day and watching them when I arrived home, then I found out that I can save about 10 dollars a season by ordering the whole season at the same time. So I now purchase whole seasons that take about 2 days to download and watch them throughout the week. I am actually through about 3 seasons of a show and am working on downloading the fourth right now.

It all worked so well that I didn't notice that I missed an episode in Season 3. It didn't make sense because I purchased the whole season, but it wasn't there. I checked the store and the running time is listed as 0:00. It began to make sense. I contacted iTunes support and told them that I had a problem and they gave me the episode for free. But, when I downloaded it again it didn't have anything. I couldn't watch it.

I replied to the email and told them that I thought there was a deeper seeded problem than, it just didn't download. The support representative replied and told me that it could be a couple of weeks before they could have it fixed but graciously gave me a free download to replace it once it was back, AND to compensate me for my time and trouble, they gave me an extra 3 video downloads. I thought it was totally unnecessary but also incredibly nice of them.

The moral is that if you have a problem, let them know. They seem to be pretty intent on making sure people are happy.

Macworld

Macworld should probe to be interesting. I don’t say that because of any specific product they might release, though I think there are a few that they will release that are cool. I have come to find that the Macworld Keynote is fun and entertaining. Regardless of the products that are released I am drawn to them for entertainment. The updates on iTunes and iPods are always interesting. There always seem to be predictions that are floating about for a week or so prior to the Keynote. Some are absurd, some are plausible, and some are down right stupid, but they are always fun. Someone should start a Macworld Keynote pool. Take all the predictions that are made and put them into a chart and let people buy squares for a couple dollars each, then you could also have a pool for what order they would come out in and what the … On last thing … would be. By my calculation, assuming 10 dollars per box, the winner could take home up to 300 or so dollars. That would be if there were 5 predicted products being announced (ie upgraded macbooks, Mac Minis, Mac Pros, Macbook Pros … )

I think it could be fun.

iTunes Originals (Another Update)

It is getting better. Tuesday they released Elvis Costello. I still have a small beef to pick. The best one so far that I like is the Ben Folds Originals. All the songs, as far as I know, were new performances. Seems like all of the others have a couple of original recordings and a bunch that are just from earlier recordings.

I guess now I am just nitpicking.

Update on iTunes Originals

A while back I wrote about how iTunes Originals had really fallen to the side of the road on iTunes store. I found this disappointing then and I find it even more disappointing now that they have put up a new Originals, Gloria Estefan. My first and only thought about this was, what year are we living in? and how many copies of this can they possibly sell?

Almost 11 months passed between new albums and this is what we get? Thanks Apple.

Airport Disk

I have, until recently, kept my iTunes library on an external hard drive in order to keep all of my music in the library. I have a lot of music that I don't listen to very often, if at all, but I like to have it there so that i have the option to listen to it.

When I found out that you could attach a disk to the new Airport Extreme Base Station, this seemed like a great idea because I would no longer need to mount and un-mount the hard drive in order to connect to my library while I was at home.

I am here to tell you that, even with instruction, and many days of futzing around with it. I am still unable to get the library to work over the Airport. I am a little disappointed about it. I can connect to the hard drive and move things back and forth. The only thing I can't do is use the iTunes library.

If anyone has any ideas about what I might do to get this to work, please, let me know.

Otherwise I have to say that, like every Apple product I have owned, the Airport works great. The speed of the thing is incredible. I can transfer files back and forth and open files from the hard disk really quickly, now if only my internet connection was faster.