Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

iTunes 9 + Smart Playlist + Live Updating + iPhone = WIN (kinda)

Published on February 2, 2010 in Technology and Uncategorized. 3 Comments

Four months later and it appears we kinda have working Smart Playlists on the ol’ iPhone. No more workaround!

After updating to iPhone firmware 3.1.3 and iTunes 9.0.3 it appears that changes to the status of smart playlists on the iPhone sync back to iTunes. No need to add ‘Playlist is Music’ to get the playlists to update!

*Note: According to new discussion on Apple’s support site changes on the iPhone aren’t reflected on the iPhone. Which means it’s not totally kosher.

I hope this is true for other folks as well.

iTunes 9 + Smart Playlist + Live Updating + iPhone = FAIL

Published on September 27, 2009 in Media, Technology, Uncategorized and music. 58 Comments

itunes

Update #2: New updates that came out kinda fix this problem. Read more here.

I noticed the other day that Smart Playlists were not syncing correctly to both my wife and my own iPhone.

I found one fix that allowed the sort order to be correct, but disabled the Live updating function of the Smart Playlists. Which meant that every time an attribute of the playlist was updated (Such as rating a new song for my ‘5 Stars’ playlist) nothing was updated upon syncing with my iPhone.

This totally defeats the purpose of a playlist that automagically updates my iPhone with the last 100 added, or top rated songs. ARGH!

Alas, after following a suggestion from this discussion thread (Thanks Dave Jelfs!) we now have a solution. In fact there’s even a bonus side effect for those who only want to sync music, and not video within your playlists.

Update: Joel S points out that this is not totally accurate. “In my own testing, these playlists will still include Music Videos.”

First find your Smart Playlist in the sidebar.

Screen shot 2009-09-27 at 8.11.22 PMCtrl + Click on the playlist and select “Edit Smart Playlist”

Screen shot 2009-09-27 at 8.27.49 PMA new window will appear with all the settings for that particular playlist. Add a new rule  of ‘Playlist is Music’

Screen shot 2009-09-27 at 8.11.39 PM

Click to view

You’ll notice ‘Live updating’ is still on.

Now sync your playlist with your phone. TaDa!

While is is a workaround it does allow for the playlist to be synced, auto updated and appear sorted as you wish on the iPhone.

Like my previous troubleshooting articles I hope this post will be quickly updated when Apple roles out a fix. Until then, happy Smart Playlist syncing!

As with everything YMMV. I was using the following setup.

Macbook Pro 1.83 Ghz
Snow Leopard 10.6.1
iTunes 9.0.1
iPhone OS 3.1

If you have an improvement please leave a comment.


Bad Horse is Bad

Published on August 23, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

BAD HORSE

Taken out at Suson Park.

The Culprit

Published on June 27, 2009 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments

Found out what was eating our chickens. Add this to the list of things we’ve seen in our yard.

A Side of Lent

Published on April 24, 2009 in Design, Technology, Uncategorized and Work. 0 Comments

Part of my job is developing a web strategy for the division of Mission & Ministry at SLU. Recently we completed a project that pivoted around a site for the Lenten activities on campus this  year. On short notice we got something up and running using Google Sites and I was able to train a few non-web folk to keep it up-to-date.

They kept the site running for all of Lent with over 5,000 visitors and daily updates. The project was a success and something that I’m proud of.

As it was nearing it’s end I started studying the analytics and noticed a trend.  It quickly became apparent that the length of time on the site was exceptionally long due to the type of content being written.  The average time on site was over four and a half minutes. Longer than any other site I’ve maintained.

I thought to myself, “Wow, these daily reflections would be about a page and a half if printed.”

And in fact I was correct.

lent-book

Interested in brushing up my InDesign skills* I looked into self-publishing options and found Lulu.

Learning a bit about how to format my document, page numeration, margins and all the other fun elements of layout I created a 91 page soft cover edition of the Lent website.  All 45 daily reflections seperated by the approprate weekly reflections. The end of the book even contains a list of all the Lenten pledeges that users submitted to the website.

I printed off 4 of these at about $6 a pop. Having enjoyed the professionalism and dedication during this project I gave them as gifts to the key members involved. I think they all liked them – as much as I did while creating it.

*The last time I used InDesign it was called Pagemaker. :-)