Hey everybody,

My GF just got a new laptop for her writing. I had suggested she strongly consider a powerbook. She really liked their design and the feel of the OS, so she just bought a 12" Powerbook running Tiger. Now the fun starts... I've tried to get this working well on my network and I have some questions for you guys. I really appreciate any advice you can give me.

iTunes

iTunes is incredibly cool. So cool, in fact, that my GF is now helping me retag my entire mp3 library, which is stored on a linux machine and available on the network via Samba. This is a long-overdue project. Having her help me is a boon, and worth the price of the laptop! Here are some iTunes questions that I haven't been able to find answers for:

1. Exactly which tags does iTunes use? Is there a technical paper describing the workings of iTunes? Does it, for example, use a "Composer" tag? How should the tags be formatted to handle compilation CDs? Since we're retagging everything, we can tag in a way most compatible with iTunes -- I just need to know what that is!

2. I found how to keep iTunes from modifying files on the file server (or attempting to), and also how to keep it from downloading a local copy. What we'd like is a mixed use case: most files left on the fileserver (no local copy), but some files stored locally so that they are available for iTunes to play when the laptop is out of the house. Is iTunes smart enough to know that files are unavailable if you aren't connected to the share? How does one make some files locally available and the rest on the server? How can you change this, if you want to remove some local files and replace them with others? The goal is two conditions: A. on the network, all files available; B. offline or on another network, local files available. Can it be set up so this is seamless?

3. For classical CDs, if I put the performer in "Artist" and the composer name in "Composer", will iTunes handle this? How? What is the recommended approach? How about Soundtrack and Various Artist compilations?

4. Is the Comment tag used? How? Other tags?

5. Will iTunes make use of Album cover art in any way? If so, what are the requirements?

6. If the mp3 files were added to the iTunes library by dragging & dropping from a Samba mount, will iTunes be able to play those files if I switch to NFS for sharing to the powerbook, or will it be looking using some kind of smb:\\server type of method, ignoring the fact that a share of the same name is mounted via NFS?

7. Any other iTunes hints, limitations or gotchas I should keep in mind?

Networking

1. The Powerbook takes forever to connect to the Samba share from within a Finder window. It is much faster when using the "Go" menu option "Connect To Server...". Why is this? How can I fix it? It's outrageous to me. I click on Network->Domain->Servername and then it says "To see the available shares for server "Servername", click Connect. It then hangs the Finder for several minutes. Sometimes it connects, other times it won't. The Go->Connect to Server... takes about 1.5 to 2 seconds to complete in comparison.

2. How can I have the powerbook automatically mount network shares when joining that network? I know the alias trick, but I'd like the shares to mount automagically as soon as the network connection is enabled. However, I don't want to have to wait forever for it to time out if I'm connected to another network. Ideally, when at home on my wireless network (WLAN), it should mount the shares, but not even attempt when I'm on a different wireless network, in a coffee shop, or wherever.

On a related note, if I have nothing mounted and fire up iTunes, will it automatically try to mount the music share? How can I make it do this? I guess it won't be necessary if I can get the machine to automatically mount the shares.

3. Is Samba the best solution here? My GF has a Windows PC, so she'll be connecting to her documents on that machine via SMB. What about the linux machine? I could install netatalk, but it seems there are issues getting it to behave nicely with Samba. Netatalk also requires a bunch of directories for Apple metadata. What about nfs? I already export the share via nfs so I can mount it on my other UNIX machines, how about mounting it on the powerbook that way? Can I do this conditionally, as I described in my question above (so that the automounter won't hold things up by attempting to connect when the machine is on another network)?

4. If I'm plugged-in to the ethernet, and then disconnect, is there any way to make the wireless just take over the connection? Do network shares need to be remounted? Here is the ideal situation: on the desk, plugged in, playing a song which resides on the server. Unplug to go sit out on the porch. Wireless comes on, and the music keeps right on playing. Is this possible? I can't make it work. Are the shares bound to a particular interface? Any ideas here?

General

1. Do you guys have some favorite sites or forums for OS X technical information?

2. We're retagging using Mp3TagStudio on the PCs. Does having the powerbook open up any alternatives that are more powerful than this? I'm pleased with Mp3TS, but if there is a really great option for the Mac, we can use it now...

3. How do you guys get cover art for your albums? ISTR there was an application which would grab it for you automatically. Since I'm retagging anyway...

Thanks a ton. I really appreciate anyone who takes the time to read this whole thing.

Best,

Jim

Ok, this is a lot to answer, but I'll do my best on what I know.

Quote:
Is iTunes smart enough to know that files are unavailable if you aren't connected to the share? How does one make some files locally available and the rest on the server?

iTunes checks for the existance of the file only when it tries to play. So, if you add in all the network stuff, and have some local music, all the files show in the iTunes interface when away from the file server. When it attempts to play a file that is not there, it will mark it with an exclaimation point and move on to another file. Once the network is reconnected, trying to play the exclaimation files will cause iTunes to try again and remove the mark. Easiest way to probably work with this would be to drag the music into the lefthand side playlist area and thus have a new playlist created with all the network music. Or, if you have a PC somewhere on your network always on, run iTunes on it, add all the network files, and use the iTunes sharing feature to then access it on the Powerbook. Since you said you have a Linux server, mt-daapd is worth a look. It will let the Linux server share using the iTunes protocal.

Quote:
Will iTunes make use of Album cover art in any way? If so, what are the requirements?

Album art must be in the tag in the proper id2.2 or higher format. To see the album art in iTunes, click the button on the bottom left area that has a bar and a triangle pointing up. That reveals the album art viewer. Clicking the words "Now Playing" will toggle to "Selected Song" and vice versa. Selected song does not work with the shared iTunes music protocal, but now playing does.

Quote:
2. How can I have the powerbook automatically mount network shares when joining that network?

Once the share is mounted, open the Accounts system preference, and go to Startup Items. Drag the network share there.

Quote:
I don't want to have to wait forever for it to time out if I'm connected to another network.

I believe it will try and connect, but not block startup when it can't find the server. I use netatalk 2.0 personally for my Powerbook shares, as for some reason my samba server and Powerbook don't like each other very much, giving odd errors like the filename is too long, even with a 1.1 filename. It's only my server, and ones else work fine, so It's not the Powerbook.

Quote:
If I'm plugged-in to the ethernet, and then disconnect, is there any way to make the wireless just take over the connection?

This is one thing I really wish Windows would do. The Mac will seamlessly transition between wireless and wired as long as both interfaces have the same IP. Either create a new network location and set static IPs for both, or tell your DHCP server to assign the same IP to both the wireless and wired MAC address. I do this all the time at home. If I do anything like a big file transfer, I'll start it while on wireless, then find the cable, plug it in, and watch the Mac choose the faster wired interface.

Quote:
Do you guys have some favorite sites or forums for OS X technical information?

www.MacNN.com for news, www.MacOSXHints.com for some nice tips. www.versiontracker.com is good for software. Album Art wise, Clutter might be worth a look. While I find it's displaying of album art on the desktop pointless, it does also offer a feature to grab album art from Amazon.com if the current track in iTunes is missing it. Tagging wise, I haven't done a bunch in iTunes, but the interface seems nice enough. Most of my tagging was done so long ago, I did it with tools on the PC.

Some really good answers, and welcome to the mac side of the fence

I'll just throw a little side info on here... instead of mounting your music share via samba, install mt-daapd on the linux box that contains the music store.

mt-daapd is a streaming music server that speaks iTunes protocol. It will automatically show up as a music source in the left pane of your iTunes window when she's connected to the network (provided she has the option selected to "automatically look for shared music").

Then, whatever music she wants available locally have her just copy the mp3's and import them directly into iTunes via drag and drop. That way all the music she sees is music she has with her. When she's out and about, she selects her own library and sees all her music. When she's connected to the network, she selects the music share and it shows her all that instead.

The added benefit to this is that mt-daapd can be configured to stream unsupoorted formats. That means you have access to normally unsupported formats (such as Ogg Vorbis) transparently within iTunes.

It's a great piece of software. I use it at home to stream to my mac and to my Roku Soundbridge.

-- Gary F.

I struggle with the issue of having a mix of local and network music. The problem with sharing is that you can't copy the music to an iPod and you can't rate it. They have to be in your local library for those functions. I make extensive use of ratings and smart playlists to fill my iPod so this is critical to me.

I don't have a great solution. I end up constantly toggling the copy to local checkbox in the prefs depending on where I want the music to reside.

My biggest complaint about iTunes is that it can't monitor a directory tree for new files and automatically add them. Like everything Apple, it's all or nothing. If you use their workflow then things work brilliantly. If you don't then you are probably going to be repeating a bunch of annoying steps to accomplish a routine process. Oh yeah, I also find it really annoying that it can't recognize you're adding a duplicate song with identical tags that happens to reside in a different location.

The only really good album art proggy I've found is Windows only. It correctly filled in about 80% of my library with no user intervention. All the Mac based ones I've found are either one album at a time or choose bad search strings or choke on non-english characters.

I switched to the Mac about 6 months ago for my primary personal machine. I love the hardware. I like the OS. I tolerate the iLife suite. (But don't get me started on iPhoto. Oh how I miss Picasa and ACDSee.)


Edit: Check out XvsXP.com for a detailed overview of the differences in the OS'es. I find the number ratings silly because they are so dependent on your personal needs, but the content is excellent.

Hey, hope you're having fun with the Mac.

Something else you might like to know Album Art wise is mt-daapd can show that too. In my setup at home, my music is on my Gentoo machine shared using mt-daapd, and each album has a folder.jpg file in there. mt-daapd is told to look for that in the conf file and it will show in iTunes when it is set to show the art for the 'Currently Playing Song' instead of 'Currently Selected Song'. A nice side effect of calling it folder.jpg means if you happen to be viewing the albums in Windows using 'Thumbnail View' in explorer, they appear too. Of course, if you have a modified Xbox with XBMC installed, you get them there as well.

Slick, no?