iTunes Party Shuffle

Posted on 05/21/2004 by

iTunes has always had a shuffle option that will randomly play songs from your song library, playlist, or CD. With version 4.5, there is an improvement on this concept with “Party Shuffle.” This special list creates a dynamic playlist. It will show the last X songs played and the next Y songs coming up. It optionally gives weight to highly rated songs. This is not that different from shuffle (which is still there) except I’ve found it very useful to go back and see what just played or what is coming up.

In this snapshot, the entire album Dark Side of the Moon (46 minutes) entered the shuffle because I imported that as a continuous song (no tracks.)

Now playing: Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd

Unlocking iTunes Songs

Posted on 05/19/2004 by

This article tells how to unlock iTunes songs so that they can be played anywhere by the person who bought the tune (your personal information stays embedded in the tune):

How to play purchased music on other systems – Engadget – www.engadget.com.

The instructions are based on using a utility called HYMM (Hear Your Music Anywhere…. which looks like HYMA to me.)

UPDATE Jan 3, 2008: iTunes gets updated so often, Hymm has not been able to keep up, and no longer works with newer versions of iTunes.

An alternative is to “burn” your iTunes songs to a virtual CD (so you don’t have to waste a real CD) and then reimport them. Here is an article on that approach:

How to Unlock iTunes Songs Without Burning a CD

MT’s $10 Per Person Works!

Posted on 05/15/2004 by

Six Apart responded very quickly to the new licensing complaints. They said they did not realize how many people were using MovableType for small groups like families. Now I can pay a reasonable price (around $100) for 5 users and then add users at $10 per. So a family of 10 can be legal under $200. MovableType is so much more useful than Word, Excel, or PowerPoint, I can’t complain.

Six Log: Movable Type 3.0 Developer Edition

Move Family To WordPress?

Posted on 05/14/2004 by

I feel SixApart has deceived us in a HUGE way. I have 8 family members maintaining 10 blogs on an iMac running MovableType. MT’s new license would require me to “turn pro” and pay upwards to $700. Good grief! It’s just a family blog.

C A R T H I K . N E T ?? Moving from movable type to WordPress

Anti-Barbie

Posted on 05/13/2004 by

There is an Anti-Barbie website, although given how much they’ve put on this site about Barbie, I’m starting to wonder how anti-barbie they really are.

Why You Don’t Want Bullfrogs

Posted on 05/12/2004 by

Carol claims Bullfrogs do not eat fish. If you’ve seen the Discover Channel special on Bullfrogs you find out they eat just about anything and everything. Like a snake, they can stretch to eat things as big as themselves!

I’ve included a link to the full article at the end of this excerpt. The 3 mile thing makes me worried our bullfrog may come back.

Why you don’t want a bullfrog in your pond

1. Bullfrogs eat desired wildlife like birds, small

mammals, dragonflies, butterflies, native

frogs, fish and turtles.

2. Bullfrogs reproduce prolifically. One egg mass

will typically contain thousands of eggs.

Bullfrogs spread to neighboring wetlands

and gardens. The thousands of eggs hatch

into thousands of tadpoles, and the tadpoles

transform into thousands of juvenile bullfrogs,

which may disperse as soon as the rainy

season starts. Some of these frogs travel

over 3 miles in search of a new home.

3. Bullfrogs, unlike native leopard frogs, have a

loud call that may disturb you or your

neighbors at night.

Full article w/ photos: Pond Pests.pdf

Learning Movable Type

Posted on 05/09/2004 by

This website is a collection of tutorials on using Movable Type:

Learning Movable Type

Nekid Barbies and Trolls

Posted on 05/05/2004 by

One problem with having little girls is that you can come home from work to a pile of naked Barbies. The two problems are: 1) they have too many Barbies and 2) their little fingers can undress Barbies but cannot dress them. Why they end up in a pile in the middle of the living room floor is not clear to me.

As the little girls grow older, they learn to dress their Barbies, and the phenomenon cleans itself up. Having three girls, I’ve had to endure this problem many times over the years. I thought it was all a distant memory.

Then I walked in on this:

Kelly and Mary Claire had decided to inventory all of their Barbie clothing. They were arranging it in stacks by category. Something of a mini laundry folding. I don’t know why they were doing this, nor did I ask. I just ran for the camera crying out “evidence! evidence!”

Reviewing the evidence, I see now that there were trolls involved. (What kind of clothes do they have? Click in to zoom if you dare.) And I think there is a Ken in the middle somewhere. Wish I could see his face.

My friend Greg Willits, who now has four boys, is likely to never experience walking in on such a graphic scene of twisted plastic flesh.