Kool Aid Served Daily

Okay, I got an iPod Nano right before I left NetApp. I sucked in all of my music (and started garbage collection right away).

What really got to me though was that the iPod/iTunes combo does not support having a home machine, a laptop, and a work machine. I'd really like to have the same library on each and keep updated stats on all of them. I keep on returning to my AI roots and want to write some hack to determine if I like X, then I'll really like Y.

I found I couldn't do that - the iPod wanted to be married to one box and it was very monogamous. When I left NetApp, I left behind my desktop and my laptop. Sniff, I miss that laptop. But not the desktop (IBM Think Center), I don't miss it at all.

That also meant I didn't have day to day access to a box capable of running iTunes. So, rather than spend another day or two ripping my bought and paid for CDs, I backed my content off to an USB HD.

I just got my own laptop and I pulled my content onto it. I'm very happy to say that all of my stats were there and I was able to update the stats from the disconnected iPod.

I know the reason why Apple is doing this, it is digital rights management. But having an iPod is evil - I want to be able to add to it and keep track of stuff on it. And Apple has tied me to iTunes, which in turn has tied me to WinXP and OS X.

Okay, I could maybe learn to to like OS X, it does natively offer up a shell. I really would like it to run on Linux, FreeBSD, or best of all, OpenSolaris.

Anyway, I googled on DRM and Apple. I found the following: Convert from Apple iTunes Format. Have fun reading it.

Technorati Tag: iTunes iPod Music