Thursday, January 17, 2013

iTunes

I recently got a new computer because my old one is about to die. I was afraid to lose my iTunes again (yes, it happened before) so one of the first things I did on the new one was to install iTunes. When I did this, I discovered something. Did you know you can have the same library on up to five devices at the same IP address? Well, it was news to me. Apparently there is something called home sharing which, when you turn it on, syncs two or more computers iTunes libraries to each other using iCloud. I thought that was awesome. It would save me from having to go through the very long and complicated process of moving my library from the old computer to the new one that I went through last time. So, hubby set it all up for me (I'm kinda computer-stupid.) and we started the syncing process. I am a hoarder and have around 18,000 songs in my library. You can view and listen the music you sync on the new device but in order to edit, update, etc. you have to import each song through iCloud. This takes awhile. Especially when there are 18,000 songs. Now, in hindsight, I should have done it in separate batches. But I did not do that. Hubby started the syncing process when we went to bed and we figured overnight should be fine.
Alas, since the computer was sitting idle, it went into hibernation mode. The process was interrupted. When he woke up in the morning, he restarted the process again. Everything seemed to be fine. But appearances are deceiving. It turns out, at least 10% on my music "cannot be found" anymore. On either computer. Crap. Luckily, being a hoarder, I have mostly everything backed up on cds. So yesterday I started the process of finding out what's missing and re-adding it to my library. Pain. In. The. Ass.
However, one thing that is lost and cannot be retrieved is anything that is in the "lyrics" or "artwork" tab. As I said, I am a hoarder. And I feel ill at ease when things are imcomplete. So, when I add something to my iTunes, I am very precise in the way I label everything. And if it's something I listen to a lot, I include the album artwork and lyrics. And if it's Twilight related, it's even more detailed. I'll explain. The soundtracks themselves don't all have album artwork. Most of the songs have pictures that come from the scene where the song played. The Stephenie Meyer Inspiration Playlist was the most complex. Each song had not only the song lyrics but also the passage from the books that Stephenie referred to in The Official Illustrated Guide. And, OF COURSE, the entire playlist (116 songs, btw) was part of the missing files. So... I went to re-upload the back up discs I made, but all of that info, as well as the album titles and track numbers and the song's position within the playlist is lost. I have to individually go through the whole list again and add all that.
Which brings me to my point.
I'm making this blog more for my own use. In case this ever happens again or something else goes wrong. It's a long process to find all the lyrics online (and correct their mistakes) and all the artist information and album artwork. It's an even longer process to write out the passages from the books. So, I'm adding it all here so I can just copy and paste if it happens again. (This is my sickness. Feel free to scoff.)
Of course, you are more than welcome to enjoy the information here. Each post will be one song. They will be in the order Stephenie has them in the illustrated guide (a must-have for all hardcore Twilight fans). The posts will include everything I mentioned that I have in my iTunes. I may occasionally add a picture or two from the corresponding point in the movies as well, but maybe not, since this is book stuff.
Enjoy. Or not. I don't care.

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