Monthly Archives: August 2011

Media Monkey vs iTunes – Initial Impressions

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Media Monkey vs iTunes
Okay, so this will be a tech geek, music lover kind of post. If your interested lies outside of these 2 areas, you’ll get bored by the 3rd paragraph and I won’t hold it against you if you don’t read through it. Really I won’t. I mean it 🙂

So yesterday, after pointing iTunes back to my NAS server in order to access all of my music, movies, and multi-media content (for the 5th time…why does it keep on doing this?), I finally gave up on iTunes when I tried to play a song and it kept skipping and having significant problems to access the track. And I know that Apple fans will want to start a war, but actually, the problem here is entirely iTunes bloatware which while cool in many respects, doesn’t seem to handle network-server access very well.

Now before you say "you must have an old computer," I assure you that I don’t. I bought a brand new laptop with all of the bells and whistles and lots of extra computing power. I probably only use 30% of what the laptop would be capable of doing. So it’s not that.

And before you say "all software has this problem," let me assure you that’s not true either. For example, if I want to stream a movie to my TV using Apple TV, the movies freezes about 40% of the way into the movie. I can plug my laptop directly into the TV and use VLC player and it just works. If I want to listen to music on my network server with Media Monkey, coupled with AirFoil, I have access to my 20,000 songs with no hiccups or delays. Using iTunes, it might work for a song or two and then it fubars.

So, all things being equal, I’ve decided to say ‘Goodbye’ to iTunes until Apple feels like putting out a decent piece of software that can handle large collections of media. I have taken years to convert all of my DVDs and CDs to digitial format because I wanted instant access whenever (and now even wherever thanks to advances from even 5 years ago when I starts to convert my collection), and it was stupid that the iTunes applications wouldn’t let me take advantage of that.

Anyway, I am now about 16 hours into Media Monkey, and while that might be a short time to some, it is more than enough time to make a comparison between Media Monkey and iTunes.

What I like and dislike about iTunes

+ A very clean and simple interface. Much cleaner and simpler than Media Monkey. I do miss that.
+ Music and Video media can be seen and accessed quite easily. With Media Monkey you have to dig around a bit (and I still haven’t found my movies and TV shows visible yet…but it’s only been 16 hours and I was interrupted by an overnight hospital visit)
+ Connection to the iTunes store, especially useful because I have an iPhone and iPad (and this means I can never truly get rid of iTunes unless iCloud changes that for me)
+ iTunes radio and podcast features are actually quite nice. They just work.
– Doesn’t access content through a NAS server properly. Songs take a long time to load, often hiccups, and editing your music (ID3 tags, etc) can take 5 minutes per song or longer. Even if you keep your iTunes library files on your local machine.
– Is a real resource hog. Upon startup it can consume up to 50% of system resources and then continues to take up a lot of resources even after
The NAS access issue is actually a huge huge negative. It overrides anything else positive about iTunes. Many people are moving to NAS server at home nowadays because the technology got cheaper, the broadband acccess better, and quite frankly – many office, productivity, and other applications are bloatware themselves. So something had to give. And for most people, that means keeping the content separate from the local machine. The local machine runs better and the content can be accessed by multiple devices. So Apple should really fix this, even if they want to charge around $20 for a "iTunes Server Edition," I am sure a lot of people would pay for it – I know that I would.

What I like and dislike about Media Monkey (MM)
+ It handles all content (whether local or on a NAS server) quickly and efficiently. No hiccups or slow starts detected so far
+ Tagging seems to work great
+ You get many options for recovering lost album art to make your collection more polished (actually, too many options, but whatever). This is great for me because after converting over 500 CDs to digital format, I long gave up on scanning the album covers. And it seems like MM will help me to make progress on associate album art with my songs.
+ File monitoring detects very easily when anything in the target directory has changed.
+ Seemed to handle importing of podcasts very well. The real test will come when updates are available and that hasn’t been tested yet.
– Library directory could use some improvement. MM doesn’t do a great job of grouping an album together if there are featured artists (as an example, the issue comes up if MM uses Janet Jackson featuring Carly Simon as both the Artist and the Album Artist even though the song belongs to a CD put out by Janet, it will treat them as 2 different albums unless you do a manual correction).
– Interface is not as simple to use in my view. Probably because you can do so much customisation. This isn’t a bad thing as much as you just have to use it for a few hours to get the hang of it.
– I still can’t figure out where my movies and TV shows are. I am one of those who still download seasons using iTunes so this would be helpful to know if I can use Media Monkey or just need to get used to using VLC player or trying through my Sony PS3
– Internet Radio isn’t inherently built-in to MM. You get sent to internet directories where you can choose. Was nice in iTunes to have the listings presented to you.

Overall, I have to say that so far I am glad I made the switch to Media Monkey. Combined with AirFoil, I get my music all over my house just as if I was using iTunes. And of course now I have access again to my 20,000 songs which play without hiccups. While I am happy with Media Monkey, it is also disappointing that Apple doesn’t really give a damn about it’s customers and the way that they are using technology. There is a host of problems and complaints about this issue on various forums and Apple gives no indiciation that it is listening. Maybe your experience is different if you use a Mac or something, but enough of us are having this issue and we can’t all be stupid uneducated morons. The sooner Apple fixes the NAS server reliability/playback issue with iTunes, the sooner their user base will grow as people migrate back to iTunes. And since when did growing your user base become something uninteresting to any company. It seems only to be uninteresting to Apple.

So it was all about Stockholm Pride last weekend

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Pride Flags

After my original plans fell through at the last minute to go and visit some friends around Europe this weekend, the focus of the week and the weekend was about Stockholm Pride.

This was one of the more interesting Stockholm Pride experiences that I had. This year I decided against all-things-Pride-all-of-the-time and just decided to focus on a couple of events. This year that was Schlager night on Thursday at Pride Park, as well as my participation in the parade on Saturday, and some celebrating in the evening.

The Thursday night Schlager night was notable less for the performances, but more for the company that I was with. It was cool to be at the Cafe Opera tent with friends and acquaintences and socialise with people who were just chilled out and relaxed. After the Schlager night, we went to Cafe Opera courtesy of Micke and Daniel (THANKS!) and had a great time. I can’t remember dancing so much on a Thursday in a long time.

On Saturday I joined Moderaterna in the parade. Yes that’s right, the conservative political party was in the parade. I am continually grateful to be welcomed to participate by politician and personal friend Tomas Tobé. Actually, most of the political parties were in the parade directly or represented through their alliances. And it says a lot about the openness and appreciate of diversity in Sweden that the political parties actually look forward to being in the parade. Moderaterna in particular (the lead party in power) does an  outstanding job of to driving the home to importance of inclusion at every level of government. Every year at least one of the high-ranking party members joins in the parade and walks. This year it was the Mrs. Filippa Reinfeldt, who is the wife of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, along with one of her daughters. Literally 1,5 meters away from me. So I considered it to be a treat and a honor march with a party who country’s first lady and daughter show such open support for GLBT citizens. So participating and dancing along to great music, seeing friends in the crowd, and feeling good the whole way made for a great Saturday afternoon. I really highly recommend that everyone go in the parade – it is even more fun than watching it! And at least in Sweden, Pride is not about who get naked and acts the most outrageous. It is an fun environment where people of all ages (from children to adults) line to streets to watch and support. Some dancing along with you on the streets, clapping and cheering from windows, or just watching and wondering. It’s all okay no matter what. What I like to think is that what is most important, is that people see us and visibile and comfortable with who we are. And the response from the crowds in the parade showed societal acceptance and support. I wish it could be that way in the US. We have a long long way to go.

On Saturday night I went to a pre-party and then we went to Cafe Opera (just the regular section) and Zipper and had a great time. And here I must give a shout out to Gregory for being fantastic to hang out with during the night (and for the bravery of biking back to his house from the club without killing himself…I cheated and took a taxi back to my house). Sunday was spent relaxing and recovering and as I was thinking over how my Pride week had gone, I feel like it is was one of the best Pride Weeks ever. I simultaneous look forward to the possibilities next year as well as have a little fear that I won’t know how to top how great this year was 🙂

So it’s been one of those weekends

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First off, I have to say that it has been bonkers at work. My days got a whole lot more busier even though my job has stayed the same. That is because during the last 3 weeks or so I have been covering for people who have been on holiday. Some weeks it has been 4 people and some weeks it has been 5 people. So although I have not had many meetings, I have had a ton of emergencies pop up here and there. I can’t ,ake pretend that I will be sad to see most of the people I was covering for come back to work tomorrow. And I see a bunch of long weekends in my future as a form of recovery.

Anyway, it’s been one of those weekends where nothing went according to plan, but the weekend was basically good anyway. Being so exhausted from all of those little emergencies.

Friday was an intentional stay-in day. I tried my hand at one of the recipes from Mark Bittman’s ‘How to Cook Everything’ website and I have to say, the Mushroom and Chicken Paella (Paella de Setas y Pollo) came out fantastic. I ended up downloading the cookbook from iTunes. I have a general rule that you sample a recipe from a cookbook and it only takes one sample to know if it is good. So between dinner, some red wine, and a tv (mental note: too music CSI and Criminal Minds back-to-back is not good for my overactive imagination) and the night was a success in my book.

Saturday was good enough during the day. I went to a lighting and hardware store in order to do a little DIY in my apartment regarding electrical outlets. I am still alive and the apartment isn’t shorted out so I think I did something right. Also got in a awesome workout in the afternoon. I now remember the importance of some free choice in my workout routine. I love the classes I take, but I need to add in some alternative exercise days or else I will not make my 2011 target. The even was spent making another cookbook recipe that came out fantastic – stir-fried beef in ginger with veggies and rice. Liking this cookbook. Then it got disappointing. Got a call and a sms from 2 friends asking me what I was doing tonight and if I wanted to go out. So I said yes and to give me a call in 30 minutes so I could get ready. Well no sooner than I get out of the shower then I get 2 sms messgaes with each one of them saying that they wee tired and that they were going to stay home (note: these 2 people aren’t together nor do they live together). Fair enough I thought…off to the club anyway as there is always someone I know. Fast forward to 45 minutes later when I notice on facebook that one of them cheched-in at the other one’s apartment. More than a bit annoyed, I shared my views. It ruined my mood to go out, but I decided when I went to bed that hey, at least I know where I stand with them. Another positive – my facebook friend list is now right-sized by 2 people.

Sunday…feeling good. Started the way I start every occasional sober sunday…chillout music streaming in the apartment, a download of the morning papers and websites to keep informed (this debt ceiling thing is a manufactured mess), read and answer some e-mail, write a letter to a friend in a difficult place to try and help out, and of course, fresh-baked scones a la cookbook, homemade strawberry jam, and some typical scandinavian breakfast items. The morning feels good. The afternoon though is all about the gym and The last Harry Potter movie (quite good…a good use of 3D for the right reasons too). Dinner was chicken Adobo from the cookbook (of course) which I was not overly pleased with because I added too much japanese rice vinegar to the sauce. A glass of red wine and relaxing at home. Some cleaning as well.

So really overall it was a good weekend. A restful weekend. Which I think that I will come to appreciate because this upcoming week is Stockholm Pride week. The week when the love that dares not speak won’t shut the hell up. I am rather fired up for Pride. Certain days anyway. I’ll try and blog and stream it if I remember.

So anyway, I hope everyone had a good weekend ans sweet dreams when get that far. I am actually going to go for 6 hours of sleep (a doubling of my normal time) and see if these new resting and sleeping techniques I learned can trick my body into being tired.

Godnätt 🙂

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