Lindi Ortega - Guilty Musical Pleasure of the week

Discovered via Kent Newsom’s blog Newsome.Org

BTW…according to Lindi’s website, she will be performing locally July 2nd 2013 at McGoingel’s Mucky Duck.

I listen to almost every genre of music…from Gregorian chant, to classical, to Scandinavian metal-rock, and enjoy all things in between. My iPod/iPhone library is a real eclectic mess of material!

But for some reason Americana/Bluegrass seems to tickle my soul like nothing else lately.

Lavie and Alvis are amazed that my car radio has been lingering on the local country-music channel.

I don’t know what the big deal is….

CV

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iTunes Damage Control

modified cc image by bmb at flickr

So while the majority of issues related to my desktop systems volume failure have been rebuilt, there was one  glaring hole facing me.

The system volume that got blown-out just so happened to be the one that held all our iTunes music and video files.

Bummer. REAL Bummer

Fortunately, I had many fortunate things working in my favor when it came to recovery and rebuilding of the years worth of iTunes data and purchases that had accumulated.

No, I hadn’t yet installed the latest iTunes version that allows for backups/restorations.  I didn’t even know that was a feature until I started this rebuild.

No, the biggest thing that have saved me are patience, my original 40 GB 1st generation iPod “brick” device that I synced all our music to, regardless if it was my interest or Lavie and Alvis’s, and the iPod Nano’s that the girls use have all the movie/video files on them, and they haven’t been able to connect them to the downed system, the files they contain are tucked safely away there as well.

So what did I do?

• Connected my iPod before reloading iTunes on the rebuilt system, and made an iTunes recovery folder on my new partition.
• I then copied all my iTunes user files from my recovered user profile when I recovered the system into that folder.  This kept the original files “safe” just in case I mucked something up and needed to try again.  For that I just found the correct path/subfolder location in this What are the iTunes library files? Apple article.
• I then connected my iPod and browed it to find the “iPod_Control” folder and copied that sucker (and all contents over to the iTunes recovery folder as well.  That was after spending some time reading this excellent iLounge post Copying Content from your iPod to your Computer - The Definitive Guide.  Disconnecting the iPod device when done.
• Then I installed iTunes.
• Then I launched iTunes and let it do some initial startup.  Once it settled down I tweaked the options to get it to not do any automatic synchronizations with iPods when attached.
• I then shut down iTunes and killed any associated background services with Process Explorer just to be safe.
• I then copied my recovered “copy” of the original iTunes user profile folders over into the corresponding location on my new user profile.
• I re-launched iTunes and let it figure out (which it did instantly) that it needed to rebuild the list of items there.  Of course, if you clicked on any song, it tossed an error as it couldn’t find the actual media file that went with it.  Not a big deal, yet.
• Now I had to restore the actual media files themselves.  There are a number of excellent and full-featured for-buy ($) programs that can do this.  However I knew of a few wonderful free ones that offered to back up and restore you iTunes library and songs on the iPod itself.
• SharePod - (freeware) – this is the one I chose to use.  It has a easy to use GUI interface, can actually replace iTunes when run as a “standalone player/manager” directly from your iPod when connected to a system, and was rock-solid in performance for me.
• (YamiPod) - Yet another iPod manager - (freeware) – another great standalone iPod player but also has a number of useful device and music library management tools as well.
• iDump - (freeware) – Not updated for a while but it does the basic task of transferring songs off your iPod to a PC.  Very simple and no-frills.  Portable so good to keep on the iPod in case of an emergency
• Sharepod quickly moved my music files from the copied iPodControl” folder back into the correct location for iTunes.
• Next I found I had a bunch of duplicate entries in my library.  I added a “date added” column and sorted by this, then deleted all the entries that were before the date I added in the real media files again.
• I also had to clean up the imported play lists..no biggie..
• Finally, the “Purchased” folder still wouldn’t associate the songs we had bought with the ones I had re-imported.  This confused me for a moment.  Did I have to re-purchase them? Beg Apple to let me redownload them? Nope. They were in my library. Turns out that this folder just is a specialized playlist of sorts that shows which ones you have purchased specifically (Reformated, Backedup iTunes Music Folder, how to restore purchased songs? - iLounge Forums). I just deleted the mess.  All the purchased ones were still present and accounted for.
• Finally I authorized the computer (About iTunes Store authorization and deauthorization) with my iTunes account and all was well…except for the video files that I still have to pull off the Nanos.
• Once it is all cleaned up, I’m going to do a back up (How to back up your media in iTunes and Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive) and tuck it away for safe keeping.  Just in case.

Additional linkage

• Why can’t iTunes Find My Songs? - Ask Dave Taylor!®.
• How to recover purchased itunes songs after computer crashed? - Mac Forums.

Lesson learned…

Claus V.

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Utility Gumbo

There’s a lot in this pot.  Probably something everyone can find to enjoy.

I’m serving it up tonight out of the back of the truck on the side of the road.  So it will be short on dialog, full on flavor.

Feel free to pick-around.  Just wash your hands first.

And yes..bring your own bowl because unless noted, it’s all free

RE: Windows Roux

• TinyApps.Org Blog : Computer hardware chart – Amazing find from TinyApps.  Great image detailing lots of different forms of connectors, ports, memory chips, CPU’s, etc.  Real work of love there.  Download and keep that image handy.
• Mark’s Blog : The Case of the Temporary Registry Profiles. – More advanced than usual investigation of a software-error message.  Great tutorial on advanced troubleshooting techniques.
• Debug 101: What does !analyze do? and Debug 101: What does !analyze do? – Ask the Performance Team blog continues its Debugging theme.
• Updates: Autoruns v9.52, VMMap v2.2, procdump v1.2, procmon v2.5 – Microsoft Sysinternals tools update notices.
• Updates: Autoruns v9.53, ProcDump v1.3, Process Monitor v2.6 – Microsoft Sysinternals tools update notices.
• Updates: Zoomit 4.0, procdump v1.2 – Microsoft Sysinternals tools update notices.   Whew! Got em all?
• PowerGUI 1.9 RTMs - Dmitry’s PowerBlog: PowerShell and beyond. Much updated version of a GUI manager for Windows PowerShell script building and management.
• Upgrading from Windows 7 RC to RTM… you had to try it didn’t you? – MarkWilson.IT – Me? I’m planning on just copying my data off to a USB drive, doing a clean install, then reinstalling as needed.  Though I will make an ImageX image of all my systems’ partitions.  That way if I miss anything I can just mound the WIM’s and extract the data as needed.  Clean installs are always the way to go in my book.
• WinFontsView: View samples of Windows fonts installed on your system. – New clever tool from NirSoft.  Very fast and handy.  I’ve personally been using the slick NexusFont tool but what Nir’s lacks in GUI polish it more than makes up in size and speed.
• Update: UserAssist Tool Version 2.4.3 and see also UserAssist -- Didier Stevens – “The UserAssist utility displays a table of programs executed on a Windows machine, complete with running count and last execution date and time. Windows Explorer maintains this information in the UserAssist registry entries. My program allows you to display and manipulate these entries.”  Keep it handy as it’s portable.
• LockHunter – A freeware utility that comes in both x32 and x64 bit flavors to delete stubborn locked files.  This version supports Win7.  Runs as application directly or from the Windows Shell integration.  For more locked file and process killers see grand stream dreams: I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways ... post.
• Sunbelt Blog: The 40 Most Popular Tools for Your System Admin Bag.  Excellent list and great descriptions.  I’m saving this to go back and explore some more.  Many tools are (proudly) found on my USB sticks.  There are some that are new to me as well in this list.  Can’t wait to start checking them out.  One of these day’s I’m going to take up an off-line challenge and work with a fellow blogger to come up with a collection of our own as my Portable SysAdmin Tools list is still good, it is quite light to what I now carry around and needs significant updating
• What’s My Pass? » Tech Toolkit 2.0. – Amazing collection of sysadmin-worthy tools that are all USB portable in various forms.  Developer gets around the issue that others have run-afoul of in building such collections by using Ketarin to have the end-user (you) download all the tools directly from the developer’s own sites, rather than packaging them up himself.  Good stuff, but be aware, depending on your AV solution, many of the tools included (particularly those of Nir’s) may set off AV/AM alarms as hacktools or potentially unwanted programs (sigh).  Poor Nir.  Send him some love guys and gals.  I’d be lost without his brilliant tools and generosity in sharing with the community.
• Malware causes "Access is denied" error – TinyApps blog.  Nice and simple tip for dealing with malware that renders exe’s un-executable.  Great CLI and CALCS info.

RE: “Prettification”

• Rainmeter – x32/x64 bit Windows desktop customization package.  Really amazing stuff.  Spotted via Rainmeter 1.0 Brings the Enigma Desktop to Everyone – Lifehacker post.  My desktops are covered almost full time when I am in front of them so I don’t get as much value out of these as I would wish. Thus give me a nice wallpaper, a good icon-dock (RocketDock), and maybe a larger calendar/task-manager (Rainlendar) and from time-to-time, stickys (PNotes Portable), a non-standard “official” MS theme (XP Embedded Theme – Cool Blue!) and my desktop is good to go on XP. I have found the default themes in Vista/Win7 sufficient, though the apps above come along for the ride.
• Samurize.com – The above statement aside, the only time I really went “wild” trying to trick out my desktop with extra gadgets, I found Samurize to be my preferred desktop gadget-building tool of choice. Of course there are a lot more tools as well. See these older GSD posts: A BIG List of 34 Free XP and Vista Tweaking Apps and 20 Free Ways to Pimp Windows XP if you are curious.

RE: A Hard Drive to Crack

• Tableau Disk Monitor – free with registration – nice tool for providing information on hard-disks. Particularly from a forensics perspective.  Interfaces with supported read-write blocker devices as well (it appears).  I registered and downloaded it.  Requires installation. Has some handy extra features when used in conjunction with a Tableau disk bridge device. For more see these Pocket Hard-Drive Utilities post and more newer finds at this Tweak SharePoint and NAS Links post.
• Atola Insight - ($6990 - $8990) (not free) – I have to confess I wasn’t really sure what to make of this.  From a feature-standpoint it definitely seems to have all the bells-and-whistles for just about any hard-drive servicing needed under the sun including firmware backup/restore and hard-drive password display/recovery/blanking. Atola Technology blog has more information and demos.  Before you run off because of the price, give them credit as they also are the producers of the free/pro versions of Partition Find and Mount — free partition recovery software which is simply an amazing piece of software and something every sysadmin should be familiar with.
• Acronis® True Image Home 2010 Beta II – TinyApps blog recently brought to my attention that Acronis is accepting beta-tester signups for this application.  I’m mostly an ImageX guy for my imaging needs at work, as well as use a basic backup solution that came with my FreeAgent drive, but I must confess I haven’t really deployed an effective data-backup solution at home.  I hope I have some time to kick the tires on this one.
• O&O Software - O&O DiskImage 4 Express – free version for home users – More of a real-time imaging/backup solution than a real-time backup solution.  Nonetheless, it still might provide a certain level of ease-of use and recovery for home users.  Version 4 reports some good feature updates.

RE: Other Stuff

• Java SE 6 Update 16 Is Here – SDN Program News.  Wasn’t auto-picking up on my systems with the Java Control Panel tool.  Manually get the update here..
• ATI/AMD Catalyst 9.7 - first unified Vista and Windows 7 WHQL driver - Aaron Tiensivu’s Blog.  - I’ve been accepting the default drivers for Windows 7/Vista provided by Microsoft Updates.  However if both our systems did continue to have BSOD issues with the video driver (Catalyst…you would know), I might try this fix.  So far only been having them on Vista.  Win7 x64 bits (RC) is rock-solid stable so far
• Recuva – file recovery app – lots of updates of late: View full version change history...
• Paint.NET v3.5 Enhanced for Windows 7 - Windows Experience Blog – I love Paint.NET. Will be designed to use a special Win7 API to enhance some performance and rendering.  You can download an alpha build (build 3509) of Paint.NET v3.5 here.

RE: Browsers

• Namoroka, Portable Edition 3.6 Alpha 1 - PortableApps.com - “Standalone” portable version of the next-gen release of Firefox.  Use this to play with it without installing or changing your current version of Firefox.
• Mozilla Security: Opt-in security with ForceTLS (Firefox add-on introduced) – Donna’s SecurityFlash.  Read carefully to understand the concept and impact of using this. Locking up the valuables: Opt-in security with ForceTLS at Mozilla Security Blog and Force-TLS :: Add-ons for Firefox.  For some reason I want to say I saw some comments that suggested that early adopters found some weird behavior (not malicious but just unexpected) when using this as it seems to be cutting-edge stuff.
• Tab previews in Firefox 3.6. Third time the charm? - Mozilla Links.  Nice but I’d rather have a trim and fast browser in a small footprint.  I’m concerned about built-in bloat in Firefox growing. (As opposed to the bloat I add via my selected/desired Add-ons.)
• Practicing safe surfing can derail attempts to cruise ‘Net anonymously - Network World.  I’m not sure this qualifies as “new” news, but is a good reminder that even anonymous web-browsing isn’t really all that anonymous.  Good read.

RE: A/V Sweetness

• hype-free: Basic multi-media (post)processing.  Great tips from cdman83 on post-processing along with some great freeware/OpenSource tools listed in the post as well as below.  Go read it and get better output.  See also this related “hype-free” post No codec packs please!
• The Levelator – drag-n-drop processor to auto-adjust sound-levels in audio files. Sweet! 
• VLC Media Player Portable – Who needs Windows Media Player? Not Me!.
• The KMPlayer – My personal preference.  Seems to have all the codecs I need to play the audio/visual files I regularly encounter at work and home. Nice interface also.
• ffdshow tryouts -  “ffdshow tryouts is a DirectShow and Video for Windows codec with support for a wide range of audio and video formats, such as Xvid, DivX, and H.264. It includes a powerful filter set that can enhance the video quality - with filters for resizing, deinterlacing, and displaying subtitles - as well as audio quality through normalization, down-/upmixing, and resampling.”  Bleeding edge versions also available that now support x64.

Thanks cdman83!  Great tools all the way round.

Cheers

--Claus V.

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