Tuesday, November 13, 2012

iTunes Update Messes Up iPod Synching

I tend to ignore the constant updates Apple does to iTunes. The reason is the reputation of major problems following updates. This could be solved if there was a different system in place. This is the only software I know that makes you install the entire 200 MB package all over again.

So here's what happened to me. After several months of ignoring the update, I finally installed it a couple of weeks ago. Then yesterday I bought the iTunes LP "The Resistance" by Muse. (Amazingly the extra stuff like photos, videos & lyrics took longer to download than the entire album) Fine. Then I burned a CD like I always do. The reason is to make sure I have a backup. Plus it's an audio CD I can play, so I know the download actually worked, & I can re-install it if something happens to the computer.

Again this worked fine. Then I plugged my 4th generation nano into my computer. Not so fine. It never showed up in the sidebar. So I unplugged the nano, plugged the USB cable into a different port. Still nothing. Went online, looked for info. Lots of convoluted explanations of what to do. Finally shut down iTunes & restarted it. Then it worked. Whoopee!

All I can guess is that I haven't syncronized my iPod in quite a while, & certainly not with this version. This also is not the first time this has happened. It seems to be a problem with new downloads. If I add a Cd in my collection it doesn't seem to do this. Meaning that strangely, iTunes sometimes has issues with it's own files, which doesn't seem to make sense. It should have more problems with outside devices like CD's,especially since you don't have to be logged in to upload a CD.

I still contend, although Apple would disagree, that the music store should be separate from the manager/player. Put the store online, meaning make it a website like Amazon. After all, you can download from Amazon & have the file sent directly to iTunes, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Once you do that, iTunes becomes a smaller program, with probably less need of absurdly large update files. The use of Quicktime appears to be an issue to some people. Not sure if thats my issue or not. Not popups saying it is, but I notice in the support forums that it is for a lot of people. Remove it, either use the hated Flash (I've never had an issue- all video works fine on my computer), or HTML5. Size diminishes, meaning less problems.    

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Why We Can't Vote Online

Today is election day. Like a large number of people on the west coast, I voted weeks ago by mail. In my state (California-largest in population), over 50% will vote by mail. The two neighboring states of Oregon & Washington are 100% vote by mail. Voter participation is high for this reason.

Could it be even higher? Why can't we log on to a voting website & do it that way? Because of fraud. It is well known how certain groups are good at hacking. Touch screen voting was a disaster here & other places because of software issues. Issues that included counting all votes for one candidate than who the person actually selected. Paper receipts were eventually required, but that didn't help.

The Republican Party & it's mouthpieces talk about voter fraud, but in-person voting has very little. They just don't want people to vote, especially minorities because they know they will vote Democratic. So they send out "watchdog groups" to intimidate voters. This is not democracy.

So how can we get voting to join the 21st Century? There has to be a concerted effort to make online voting possible. Mail voting still means hand counting. Meaning someone with an agenda can cook the results. Software needs to be created that can't be hacked, or at least is very hard to, so one can vote through a smartphone app, or by going to a secure website. Once that's done, we can take care of a bigger problem. The fact that only 60% of eligible voters cast a ballot.