The Day Today

At home I use iTunes on my Macbook to listen to music, and I’ve become a regular user of the keyboard shortcuts for controlling playback (pause/resume, previous track, next track, volume, etc). At work I can listen to my iTunes library using my portable drive, but as I’m using Windows and have a basic keyboard I don’t have these dedicated keys to control my music. This is frustrating because there’s even more need for this quick control at work, especially pausing the current song when my attention is required.

A few quick Google searches helped me to solve this issue using a small application called iTunes Hotkeys. You’ll need the free .NET framework before it’ll work but it sits in the system tray and responds to keyboard shortcuts such as (pause). It’s not quite a one key solution but it doesn’t take long for the shortcuts to become second nature. It will even launch iTunes for you if it’s not already running.

I’ve added a shortcut to Hotkeys on my desktop and assigned a keyboard shortcut to launch it. I could have it in Startup but I wont always want iTunes launching when I switch the workstation on.

Since I bought my Macbook primarily for my media, I’ve been thinking about how I want to backup and archive my iTunes library. I’ve come up with a solution that works right for me, and once I’m moved and have set up a network in the new flat I’ll be able to make the finishing touches. This solution gives me a backup locally and remotely in a few simple steps.

First, I have bought a 320GB Western Digital Passport. I have set up an rsync that effectively mirrors my main iTunes library onto the external drive, which covers a “local” backup. I have also set up a seperate iTunes library on the drive, called ‘iTunes Archive’. To this I move the TV shows purchased through iTunes that I’ve watched, which means I can remove them from my main library and frees up space on my Mac.

For remote backup, I have an account with Mozy. Unfortunately Mozy don’t currently offer archiving so once something is removed from my Mac (or PC) it’s also removed from my Mozy backup. To solve this I will set up an rsync from my Mac to my PC that mirrors my iTunes library except the TV Shows and Movies folders, which will be a straight copy (no mirroring). This will mean that the PC will effectively have an archive of all of these items. This archive will then be uploaded to Mozy on the next run. Perfect!

The only concerns I can think of are:

• If I make purchases on my PC rather than my Mac (not likely but possible of course)
• until I have the rsync set up with the PC I have to make sure I have my ‘iTunes Archive’ on my Mac as well as the external drive (not a problem as I’m not too low on space yet).

I’m hoping that Apple announce improvements to iTunes at the upcoming WWDC in June, such as better management of TV Shows and Movies and perhaps a proper iTunes Server solution. By the way I am loving my Macbook Pro, and also really pleased with the WD Passport and can’t recommend either of them enough!

I can’t put off packing much longer… I now have less than seven days until the move. This morning someone’s coming over to pick up an old PC (sold on eBay because there’s no room for it at the new place) and then I need to start putting more things in boxes. On Wednesday everything is taken, leaving me with only the essentials for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Right now I have an urge to catch up on TV, redesign this blog, or go out and enjoy the sunshine but I need to stay focused - starting with the kitchen! Aarrgh!

Okay so I don’t update very often, but I do now have a Macbook Pro and I was wondering if downloading and trying out Ecto would encourage me to blog more. I’m also considering making this site more of a personal blog rather than a technical one. The techie posts will still appear because I find them useful (and hope others do too) but they wont be the only posts to appear.

I’m not sure if I mentioned before but I turned down the rather tempting job offer in Florida and am now working for a large Internet Service Provider as a member of the QA team. In a weeks time I am moving out of my flat in London down to Kent to live with Pam. An exciting time, but I will certainly miss living in the city, and seeing this view every night from the balcony.