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How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
How To: Remote Control Your Home Computer From Anywhere With VNC
The iPhone 3.0 OS Is Not Ready For Everyday Use; Here's How to Downgrade
How To: Hackintosh a Dell Mini 9 Into the Ultimate OS X Netbook
How To Photograph Fire
Dealzmodo Hacks: 8 Ways To Get More Miles Out Of Your Old PC
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Admore thinks really long names make you funnier
04/16/09

In reply to How To: Hackintosh a Dell Mini 9 Into the Ultimate OS X Netbook
Great install guide, but I think I've caught one problem at STEP 15 if you are using the USB install method.

If you are using the USB method with two partitions described above (I did) - then you may have to enter "81" instead of "80" to choose to boot from the SSD after you have installed OS X, but are still doing steps with the "Type 11" bootloader partition, at step 15.

If you're using USB and following all the steps, and think it's not working, try entering "81" instead of "80" at the point where the Gizmodo guide calls for it.

-----

Also, some of the files may not download from their links - search for the filenames and you should find them.
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Chuan Wei
04/16/09

In reply to How To: Hackintosh a Dell Mini 9 Into the Ultimate OS X Netbook
Hey Gizmodo, must a PC Dell mini 9 be used? Or can one with ubuntu do the trick?
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Admore thinks really long names make you funnier
04/16/09

@Chuan Wei: It doesn't really matter what OS is on the Dell Mini9 - you'll be erasing it to format with OS X. Save money, and get Ubuntu instead of windows. I did, and it's fine.
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Voyou_Charmant
04/11/09

In reply to How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
when I use iTunes, I wonder if I accidentally installed failure instead. It's just a terrible terrible, slow application for anyone who isn't in the cult of Apple.
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something_unique_and_descriptive
04/11/09

In reply to How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
Not all lossless codecs are created equal. FLAC is far superior to Apple Lossless in terms of quality, you'll just have to get over your fanboyism to use it.

The sad thing is that iPods, from a hardware standpoint, can handle FLAC just fine (5.5G or earlier can load RockBox) Apple just chooses not to support it... which is stupid.
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frigg
04/11/09

In reply to How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
As a musician, I work with high resolution audio files. But then everything gets squashed to MP3s anyway. So sad.

High rez video gets all the love, but high rez audio formats got washed away by the tidal wave of MP3 convenience. And most people don't know or care.

I for one welcome our future high resolution consumer distribution audio formats (almost said it... almost...)
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Soliq
04/11/09

@frigg: That's where Blu-Ray audio discs come in :)

192/24 albums!
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frigg
04/11/09

@Soliq: Somewhere, a dark dusty room full of SACD's and DVD-A's await 192/24 Blu Ray audio discs, like WALL-E awaiting EVE.
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Soliq
04/11/09

@frigg: Sadly hi-res audio will always be a niche market until storage becomes incredibly abundant at any size

I'm worried about lossy downloads taking over and not being able to purchase lossless PCM anyhwere, even at 44.1/16
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frigg
04/11/09

@Soliq: Yeah... there's like a disconnect between the death of the CD and a sufficiently fast internet to support distribution of a replacement format that's at least as good. There could be an audio "middle ages" during which albums will be released only as lossy downloads.

Ultimately, high-res audio formats are inevitable. It's just a matter of when internet speed and storage make them as convenient as MP3s, so they become commonplace and not "fussy."
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Bodie1550
04/11/09

In reply to How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
The picture of the guy being blasted by the speaker, what was that advertising? I remember it from late 80's or early 90's. Was it Bose?

Oh... Thanks for the other info. :)
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bosskev
04/11/09

@Bodie1550:

It's a still capture from the original TV commercial:

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citizen024
04/11/09

In reply to How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
you forgot to mention Linux!!!! FLAC support out of the box

I use Rhythmbox for my music (well over 70k tracks), and not only did it load the library really fast, its also extremely snappy at handling the collection, i don't remember iTunes having anywhere near that stability and performance.
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madog
04/11/09

@citizen024: That'll help the 10 people out there......

:oD
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General Halfshaftery
04/11/09

In reply to How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
Save the Earth, encode at 64kbps!
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bosskev
04/11/09

@General Halfshaftery: Even better, don't even encode. Only make your own music by banging with twigs on tree trunks.
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k2snowboards88
04/11/09

In reply to How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
If you use xld or most other third party converters to alac you will run onto problems with iTunes library sharing with medium to large files. Try will skip of stop part way through. Reencode them to alac using iTunes to fix that. Just a tip because I spent a few days trying to find out why I couldn't get my alac files to play on my MacBook from my mac mini's library.
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madog
04/11/09

@k2snowboards88: I use Max. It's a nice free converter for the Mac OS. Not sure of the rest of it's formats as I tend to end up converting to a hugh MP3 bitrate for my car's cd-MP3 player.
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rolfo87
04/11/09

In reply to How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
where can i find the original picture?! man i've been looking for it all over the place!!
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bosskev
04/11/09

@rolfo87: See my reply to the comment by Bodie1550 at 1:07 pm for the original Maxell TV commercial.
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Doughbelly
04/11/09

In reply to How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
What's next, a Giz guide on how to turn on your TV with a remote?

If you're going the ALAC route on your Mac, XLD is a seamless solution. Can't use coverfow with Fluke, so why bother?

If you're really going to cover this instead of making a filler story, you should cover wavpacks and APE files as well.
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John Mahoney
04/11/09

@Doughbelly: @rockrabbit: There is a right way and a wrong way to suggest other methods or tools not covered in this guide. Thanks so much, rockrabbit, for not being a dick about it.

I like Fluke because if you don't want to convert out of FLAC, you don't have to, which is nice. But XLD looks great too, thanks for the tip.
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madog
04/11/09

@John Mahoney: Not being able to add album artwork is an instant killer fir my iTunes OCD complex. In fact I added some for a few dozens more albums today :/
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Pete Stoneman
04/11/09

In reply to How To: Manage An All-Lossless Music Library With iTunes
I had most of my music in ALAC, but I could fit so few onto my iPod it wasn't worth it. And I don't have the patience to spend time making separate libraries within iTunes, one for lossy, one for lossless.
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bosskev
04/11/09

@Pete Stoneman: What's that file format called again? ALAC? FLAC?

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something_unique_and_descriptive
04/04/09

In reply to How To: Remote Control Your Home Computer From Anywhere With VNC
Aaaand congratulations, you've just opened up a massive security hole.

VNC communications are sent in plaintext, so anyone sniffing is going to be able to read your log ins just like they were sitting over your shoulder... actually a bit easier.

If you're going to use VNC you're also going to need a secure VPN, SSH tunnel, or, if you're too lazy to do either of those, at the very least a Hamachi connection.

You'll also want to make sure that your home system requires a log in, might be a bit annoying but it's an extra level of security.
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bjarnia
04/04/09

In reply to How To: Remote Control Your Home Computer From Anywhere With VNC
Knowing how you guys love Windows 7, do you know if any VNC servers/clients that work well with it? I have heard not-so-good reports.
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something_unique_and_descriptive
04/04/09

@bjarnia: Tight VNC works fine on 7 as a client, haven't tried serving from it.
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ScottRose
04/04/09

In reply to How To: Remote Control Your Home Computer From Anywhere With VNC
I use three words: Vee Pee Enn.

Followed by RDP or SSH, or file shares.

I have a persistent firewalled VPN between work & home in addition to client-based VPN server daemons. VPN is done at the routers using OpenVPN on Ubuntu 8.04 with iptables for firewall and ip route/rule for traffic balancing between cable and DSL.

I find that this is the easiest and bestest way, and highly recommend it.
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