Re: Songbird...

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008 12:06:55 +0000, thewildrover@xxxxxx (Andy Hewitt)
wrote:

T i m <news@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[..]
Well......Picassa and iPhoto act as browsers for your files, viewers
for your files and also as limited editors for your files if you so
wish.

Ok, but ignoring any manipulation of the data here, are they not
exactly the same as iTunes can be (if you tell it to leave the files
where they were and just present them to you)? Simply a package that
does (for display and presentation purposes) 'gather up' all your data
and present it to you, potentially in one scrollable screen (<<I'm
thinking of Picassa here as it's the only one I've seen in any detain
(on someone else's PC)).

Certainly for iTunes, iPhoto and Aperture, you can choose whether to
leave files in their original location, or let the software fully manage
the files in its own structure.

There are of course pros and cons for either system.

Of course. One pro for me is not having to have any extra software to
do the collation bit. These means I'm not reliant on anything to keen
my data in order. That means it's also very portable. So, say I had
all my music and photos on one external drive I could plug it into
anyone's computer, running XP, OSX or Linux and as long as they had
the basic tools to look / play the files that's what I could do. I
don't have to install anything extra to manage them because I don't
rely on anything normally. (Incidentally that's sort of what I do
here. My PC has 2 x 250G HD's, both on removable trays. OS on the 1st,
data on the second. If I replace the OS drive with <anything else> I
can still see and access my data (hence why there is little under 'My
Documents' on my normal XP drive). If I was to allow my data system
not to be easily 'Man readable' it wouldn't be so easy for me to do
the above (without installing and configuring iTunes / whatever on all
systems etc).

If you want to listen to your Quo collection, type "Quo" and all your
Quo tracks will be listed. If you want to filter furter start typing
the album name....

Ok. (and I'm not trying to be akward here) but I haven't listened to a
whole album since I was a kid [1] and even then it was a rare moment.
In fact I rarely listen to a complete track unless it really catches
me or is on the radio while I'm driving etc.

That's what the playlists are for.

I'm sure they are. No point in this case though (can a playlist
contain two tracls. It would be just as easy for me to choose 'Play
All') ;-)

For sure, a bit of effort is required to start with, but once you have a
well thought out set of playlists, it becomes very easy.

Ah, 'well though out' ... too much effort in for the tiny use out for
me.

For example, in my iTunes I have nearly 4000 items, amounting to 12 full
days of listening. I have these structured in nested playlists in the
left pane under genre and album.

Structured and nested by you (and your time)?

I found this a little more reliable
than the 'Browser' feature, as that sometimes breaks albums where it may
have been compiled from different original albums.

Ok ..

I cannot possibly see any way that doing this another way could be
easier. Certainly using the Finder system would mean having to select
tracks for playing every time I wanted too. With a media manager
(ignoring platform dependence for now), such as iTunes, you gain the
benefits of search criteria you can get elsewhere.

Understood, if you have anything resembling 'a collection' and you
want to access said often and in a particular way (or ways).

I also have some 16000 photos, and I did start off with a Finder folder
structure, but it soon became clear that finding a particular image was
getting harder as the collection grew. Using a media manager, such as
iPhoto, is really the only way to manage any size of collections.

Ok. I only have half your collection but aren't having any issues
(yet). ;-)

But then I really do use many of the features of iPhoto and MobileMe. In
iPhoto I can manage my web galleries, and organise my media used in
other apps, such as iWeb and Pages.

Ok, well I don't have any of that so probably also why it would be
overkill and less flexible for me.

[..]

Of course if your needs are modest, and you don't have a huge collection
of photos, or music, then it's quite possibly you won't need such
software.

Indeed! ;-)

Cheers, T i m

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Songbird...
    ... still get to the files stored in the iPhoto library without iPhoto. ... whole album since I was a kid and even then it was a rare moment. ... That's what the playlists are for. ... days of listening. ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
  • Re: Songbird...
    ... Ok, but ignoring any manipulation of the data here, are they not ... Certainly for iTunes, iPhoto and Aperture, you can choose whether to ... whole album since I was a kid and even then it was a rare moment. ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
  • Re: If you ever wanted more reason not to use Microsoft products.
    ... way to be 100% sure of having a full album is to make a separate ... iTunes will play only the tracks from the album shown in the ... There's a difference between the data that Aperture an iTunes work ... searched on, and use Smart Playlists. ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
  • Re: If you ever wanted more reason not to use Microsoft products.
    ... you can only burn playlists. ... But I can't select an album and then choose to burn it directly, ... iTunes will play only the tracks from the album shown in the ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
  • Re: If you ever wanted more reason not to use Microsoft products.
    ... album off the stack. ... Play, iTunes will play only the tracks from the album shown in the ... searched on, and use Smart Playlists. ...
    (uk.comp.sys.mac)
Loading