Free Robby

If you’re an iTunes user who doesn’t let iTunes manage your music collection, you’ll find that iTunes isn’t very cooperative when it comes to moving your music around. For example, if you decide you want to move your music from your internal drive to an external drive, you’ll find that you have to re-import your music, costing you all of your playcounts, playlists and library statistics.

There’s a better, easier way.

Here’s what this how-to guide assumes:

1. You’re a Mac user.
2. You want to move your music from one location to another.
3. The directory structure in which your music resides will not change, but rather you will be moving all of it under some top-level folder.
4. You want to keep your iTunes library as it currently exists.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Quit iTunes
2. Make note of the top-level directory under which your music currently resides. For example, since I am moving my music from my user’s Music folder, my directory is “/Users/robby/Music”.
3. Move your music from your old location to your new location.
4. Make note of the new top-level directory under which you’ve put your music. For example, since I moved my music to an external hard drive called “Music”, my new directory is “/Volumes/Music”.
5. Open up Finder and navigate to your “iTunes” directory (by default, this is in your user’s “Music” directory).
6. You should see a file called “iTunes Music Library.xml”. Open it up with your favorite text editor.
7. Open said text editor’s find/replace dialog.
8. In the “Find” field, type “file://localhost/<old directory name here>”
9. In the “Replace field, type “file://localhost/<new directory name here>”
10. Select “Replace All”.
11. Save the file to disk.
12. Go back to the Finder box. Drag the file named “iTunes Library” to your desktop. If you see files named “iTunes Library Extras.itdb” and “iTunes Library Genius.itdb”, do the same with those files.
13. Open iTunes. (Don’t panic, your library should be empty).
14. Select File > Library > Import Playlist…
15. Select the iTunes Music Library.xml file that you edited and click Open.
16. iTunes will import your library with your new folder locations.
17. The import will create duplicates of the iTunes default playlists, so you may want to delete those copies.
18. If all goes well, you can delete the iTunes Library files from your desktop.

It came as no surprise that I found myself in need of a new laptop. My Compaq Presario M2000, purchased in 2005, was becoming less sufficient by the day. What was adequate for web development three years ago is no longer usable for such light tasks as web browsing or document writing. I stalled and I stalled, but this past week I found myself blessed with a hard drive crash, and by syllogism, a new laptop.

The surprise was that I chose a MacBook.
Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re like I am and just installed WDM Bluetooth drivers, you’ll find a new icon is on your desktop. Unlike the others you’ve got, however, this one won’t allow you to delete it. This definitely gets filed in the “unnecessary annoyance” category. Luckily we can remove it with a bit of subterfuge:

1. Right click anywhere on your desktop (not on an icon), click “Properties”
2. Click the “Desktop” tab.
3. Click the “Customize Desktop…” button.
4. Click the “Clean Desktop Now” button.
5. Click the “Next >” button.
6. Check the “My Bluetooth Places” checkbox if it is not already checked.
7. Click the “Next >” button.
8. Click the “Finish” button.
9. Click the “OK” button.
10. Click the “OK” button.

Wallah!

Update (2/9/2007): User “Oscar” has generously weighed in with these Windows Vista-specific instructions:

1. Run regedit
2. Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
   \Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\explorer\desktop\NameSpace
3. Delete 32B4C379-4AC0-45F2-939C-D4E7ADA56DC5 or just check which one is “My Bluetooth Places” and delete it.