Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Consistently wrong since 2002

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Accountability, motherfuckers.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

I was promised a recession.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

Let there be snark.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Tech News and Issues / Itunes Help

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59Comments

  3. 3.

    PaulWartenberg

    I’ve found that adding album covers to iTunes requires hunting down a JPG file of said album, saving it to your computer, then going into the Album’s Info, go to the Album Cover tab, and then use the Upload Art button to find the JPG in your computer.

  4. 4.

    mai naem mobile

    I don’t know shut about Itunes so sorry I can’t help you. I just saw this crazy story about a couple in Missisippi who were going through IVF treatment who found out they were twins. Apparently their parents were in an accident and they got adopted out to two different families, met in college, got married etc. That’s fucked up. It’s like a Lifetime movie or something. I can’t even come up with an ewwww because it’s just messed up.

  10. 10.

    Mnemosyne

    @mai naem mobile:

    I guess we should be relieved that they were having fertility problems. That’s a pretty messed-up thing to discover after the fact.

    It’s also why secret adoptions are a really crappy idea, but anyway …

  11. 11.

    Ninedragonspot

    @mai naem mobile: that’s Act I of Wagner’s “Die Walküre”.

    Except that the whole “we’re separated twins” part turned on Sieglinde and Siegmund.

    See also Thomas Mann’s dicey “Blood of the Wälsungs”.

  13. 13.

    MattF

    And… about iTunes. I went through all that back when I first ripped all my CDs, but that was long enough ago that details about what I learned are irrelevant now. Sorry.

  14. 14.

    Adam L Silverman

    Semi OT: as long as we’re on music, I’ve got part of an earworm I can’t get traction on. So I’ll put it out for the blog’s vast wisdom to help me ID the song and/or singer/band. Back in the early 90s (90-92) there was a rock song in heavy rotation (at least in Atlanta) with a chorus that included lyrics: “when I’m down on my knees and out on my luck”. I’m almost 100% sure the song was about heroin use/addiction and the main character in the song was the “Sugar Woman” who helped out the guy singing when he was down and out. No matter how I’ve tried over the years I can’t seem to ID the song and/or who sang it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    Thanks!

  15. 15.

    Big Picture Pathologist

    There’s dedictated apps for ITunes song management. Go to Macupdate.com and search for ‘ITunes’.

  16. 16.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: I’ve heard similar stories before. It happens with orphans sometimes.

    The strangest, similar story I ever heard, and, perhaps, the saddest was about an elderly couple at a Jewish American wedding. During the rehearsal dinner the grandparents on both sides were together for the first time. One of the groom’s grandfathers spent most of the rehearsal staring at one of the bride’s grandmothers. Before the dinner started he walked up to her and asked her: “what is your number” – as in the NAZI ID number tatooed on her arm. Turns out it was his first wife/he was her first husband. They were separated in the camps and concluded the other hadn’t survived. After the war they went on putting their lives together, met and married new people, had kids, etc.

  20. 20.

    Cosima

    My husband spent approx. 6 hours yesterday sorting out our iTunes library. Since getting iTunes approx. 13 years ago we’ve had at least 10 computers, bought music from various places (rhapsody, iTunes, amazon, CDs, whatever-magical-free-way-our-oldest-gets-them), he gathered all of the various folders together, removing duplicates, then put it all on an external drive. If our ipods ever die (we’ve got about 6 of them ) we will say goodbye to iTunes and be glad of it. We are too cheap to buy fancy phones that would accommodate a large music library, so for the time being we’re stuck with the ipods. My first iTunes account was in the UK, and when we moved to Canada I was told that my license for the music was no good there, so I had to purchase the music all over again. That was 7+ years ago, and I haven’t bought a song from iTunes since. I’d rather buy an entire CD (though now with amazon selling songs individually I don’t have to do that) than give them one more penny. Of course amazon is only slightly less evil than iTunes.

  23. 23.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I don’t know, I actually find that story oddly heartwarming since they were both able to move on with their lives after a traumatic experience. Yes, it would have been even better if they had found out sooner that the other one had survived, but then those two families at the wedding wouldn’t have existed.

    As far as the adoption story goes, the reason we have secret adoptions in the US is that a specific woman with a lot of political pull was stealing babies and selling them, and this was the method she came up with to make it harder to trace her crimes. She sold her method so successfully that adoption agencies all over the country adopted it based on her bogus “research” and her supposed success.

  27. 27.

    Cosima

    @MattF: Yeah, I understood that it was to do with copyright, different countries, etc. However, the CDs that I purchase are able to be played across countries, so if I own music, because I purchased it, whatever the format, I find it infuriating to have to pay twice to listen to it in a different country (or many times over, depending on the countries I visit).

    I’ve not had any problems buying or downloading music from amazon, none of the hi-jinks that were discussed at the link. It’s been very straightforward. I’m not tech-savvy enough to search out alternative ways of purchasing music. We use a Sonos system at home, and it works very well with amazon’s streaming service, which is free for prime members, saving me from spending £10 (or whatever it is) for a monthly Spotify subscription.

  30. 30.

    Ruckus

    @Adam L Silverman:
    I knew a man from Estonia who was in the merchant marine when WWII started. He jumped ship in Canada and asked to stay. He tried to bring his wife over but that was a no go so they decided to separate and go on with life. They both remarried, I know they stayed in touch for a number of years. He moved to the states not long after the war, I first met him in the early 60s and they still were in occasional contact.
    I’d bet there was a lot more of this sort of thing going on than we realize. I’d also bet that it still happens.

  33. 33.

    MoeLarryAndJesus

    LPs and a turntable or you’re soft. iTunes can eat the clumps out of my cat’s litter box.

  34. 34.

    rm

    I don’t want to hear about alternatives to itunes. I want apps that help organize my library, add art to albums, and gets rid of dupes.

    I’ve found I cannot entirely avoid itunes, given that some music was purchased there and I have an iphone I use to play music, and my kids for some ungodly reason buy movies there.

    But here is how I minimize contact and hold on to my sanity during the agonizing minutes I am forced to have itunes open:

    — if I don’t mind not playing the part of my library that came from CDs, artist websites, or the Golden Age of Music Blogs, then I can, on my phone, use Apple Music’s “purchased” playlist to download itunes-bought stuff, and then go to the Amazon Music app and download Amazon-bought stuff (though, infuriatingly, not all of it), and then PLAY IT USING THE AMAZON APP NOT FUCKING APPLE MUSIC THAT CANNOT BE USED. The Az player can see all the music on the phone.

    — When I want to manage the library and put songs on my phone that came from CDs and other sources, on my laptop, I use MusicBee. It is like itunes from 2005 or whenever the last time was that itunes worked. It can do the same things and can see my iphone (which even itunes often cannot).

    — On itunes itself, I use “show duplicates” and select “same album” so I get to the actual duplicates and not similarly named songs, then painstakingly select duplicate songs, right-click, and “delete from library” but I DO NOT “move files to recycle bin” because one single fucking file will have like four iterations in the goddam itunes library.

    — I think I just discoverd I can do this process more easily on MusicBee. So the future holds a much lower risk of death by heart attack as I will spend even fewer minutes interacting with itunes or waiting 25 minutes between clicking the icon and having the program open.

    — I do save all my music on an external hard drive, which I erase and replace once in a while from the laptop where I manage the library, so that the hard work of eliminating duplicates etc. and newly acquired music is all saved.

    — itunes has a “find artwork” menu item but it doesn’t find it all, or often finds the wrong album cover. No solution to that except the handmade solution someone outlined above.

    — whenever a friend speaks to me of “streaming” or “Google Play” or “playlists,” I punch them in the nose and tell them they are the reason for civilization’s downfall.

  37. 37.

    Another Scott

    @Olivia: The lyrics match exactly, but the time doesn’t seem to be right. I can’t find any other band that has performed it earlier.

    Dunno.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    Paul K.

    There’s an iTunes add-on called “TuneUp”. I got mine as part of a bundle ages ago, but it is also available in the Mac app store (bit pricey though). It automatically retags tracks with the right artist/title/etc. info, adds artwork, and finds duplicates. Works great for me, but of course YMMV.

  49. 49.

    Nunca El Jefe

    I am not advocating switching over, but music monkey is pretty great. It will do everything you seem to be looking for and won’t force you to leave iTunes. Also too, it’s free, but primarily a Windows program (I think).

  50. 50.

    Nunca El Jefe

    Crap, right as soon as the edit time runs out I remember that it’s media monkey, not what I wrote.

  51. 51.

    Mary G

    My bronchitis is back, so I couldn’t go, but thousands of people marched in LA today asking to see Twitler’s taxes.

    Marchers filled blocks of closed-off streets as they walked from Pershing Square to City Hall, waving signs and chanting “Donald Trump has got to go.”

    Among their placard messages: “Prove you have nothing to hide,” “Donald Ducks his Fair Share,” “No 1040, no peace” and “I pay for your golf trips. Do you?”

  52. 52.

    Big Picture Pathologist

    @Another Scott:

    (Finds same tune, is excited to tell Adam, finds someone else beat him to it)

    Daaaaaaaammmmmnnn youuuuuuuuuu Scooooooottttt

  53. 53.

    Paul T

    I’ve learned to use Foobar over the last year for pushing music to various places on my wireless network.

    I’ve also learned to use Mp3Tag for tagging and adding Album Art.

  55. 55.

    michael

    @PaulWartenberg: I’m an android guy, but I bought an app called Poweramp that is available on both Apple and Android formats. This app allows me to edit playlists, download album art, play music in multiple playlists, and is the best app for organizing your music. It’s cheap, just pay the man.

  56. 56.

    michael

    @PaulWartenberg:
    I’m not an Apple guy, I have android. But there is an app named Poweramp that will meet your needs. It works on both formats and allows you to edit playlists, download/edit album art. Has a 9 channel graphic equalizer. I was just as frustrated as you, just pay the man and enjoy. I believe you get a one week free trial, so quit yer bitchin.

  57. 57.

    michael

    I’m not an Apple guy, I have android. But there is an app named Poweramp that will meet your needs. It works on both formats and allows you to edit playlists, download/edit album art. Has a 9 channel graphic equalizer. I was just as frustrated as you, just pay the man and enjoy. I believe you get a one week free trial, so quit yer bitchin.

  58. 58.

    burnspbesq

    @rikyrah:

    I have never bought anything from iTunes.

    The only time to buy from iTunes is when what you’re looking for can’t be found anywhere else. The iTunes store’s default file format is 256k AAC, which sounds like crap and has to be transcoded to mp3 or FLAC to be played on Android devices.

    Amazon is the best place to harvest album art. Use a browser to search for the album on Amazon.com, then Alt-click on the image and select “Copy Image,’ then paste it into the “Cover Art” tab of “Get Info’ in iTunes.

  59. 59.

    Dr. Ronnie James, D.O.

    @Nunca El Jefe: second Media Monkey, although you may want to read up on how to use it a bit before you start. Its library management tools are…potent.

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