Backing up purchased music

I have manually burned CDs of the music that we have purchased on the iTunes Music Store, but I wanted another backup, so I looked to Backup 3 to do this.  Backup has a "QuickPick" that is supposed to allow you to easily backup all purchased music.  This doesn't work for me.

I have moved my iTunes Music library out of my home directory.  I did this originally when I was using FileVault, as encrypting all of my music took too long.  But even though I am not using FileVault, I still like having the music outside of my home directory, as every user on my laptop can access regardless who is logged in.

Presto Digital Delivery Service

About a week ago, Presto Services Inc. announced their Digital Delivery Service.  There are two parts to this.

1. A photo printer that has a phone jack.  The printer will dial a service and download and print pictures that are waiting in a queue.


2. A online service where photos can be sent to be printed by the device.  Also other device maintence can be performed on the web site.  (i.e. Checking the paper and ink quantity in the printer.)

This is intended to be used when the person who has the device doesn't have broadband access, or where the person doesn't want to manually receive an email containing the photos and print them out.

I personally am not interested in this for myself, but I could see buying one for family members that don't have a computer.  For example, we like sending photos to my Dad, and now we print them out and have them sent to him.  With this device, essentially from my computer, I can "print" the photos directly to his house.

[via Digital Experience Podcast]

Technorati Tags: Digital Delivery Service, Presto

htaccess tools

The atmaspheric | endervors' page on del.icio.us, has a couple of links to pages that have some good information on htaccess files.

The first is a cheat sheet on various directives that can be used in the htaccess files.  (I have a hard time remembering all of the directives.)

The second is a htaccess generator

Technorati Tags: htaccess

Google's cache as a service

I have been working on this blog for over two years, and I know that there are many links that are dead.  This may be because the host is not available, or the file on the the web server was moved/removed.

I was thinking that Google's cache could help solve the problems of the dead links.  This could be useful in one of two ways:

1. A web server could have the page that is displayed on 404 errors, have a link to the url in Google's cache.


2. On the host with the outgoing links, setup a process that walks all of the outgoing links, and when a 404 error is returned, replace the url with the url from Google's cache.

Technorati Tags: Google, cache

follow up on retractable iPod cable

A while ago, I got a retractable iPod cable made by Macsense.  I mentioned that I thought that the moving part would make it more likely to break than the regular USB cable.

The cable has recently stopped being able to be only partially expanded.  It remains expanded if I stretch it out completely.

Technorati Tags: iPod, USB

Jonathan Coulton in iTunes

I really enjoy Jonathon Coulton's music.  I just saw that a couple of his albums are on the iTunes Music store.

He also hosts a podcast for Popular Science magazine

Technorati Tags: iTunes, Jonathan Coulton

Wiretracks

I saw this post on the Home Theater blog about Wiretracks.  Wiretracks are mounting brackets for crown moulding, which also allows you to conceal wires behind the moulding.

I am going to order a set of these.  When we moved into our house, I mounted the surround speakers near the ceiling, but the wires are not concealed.  This will finish the work that is needed in this room.

Technorati Tags: Wiretracks