iTunes 9 home sharing is mediocre

There's a longstanding issue with iTunes, one that I've been writing about since at least 2005.

Suppose you have have 3 family members with iPhones. Do they all sync to one user account? Our do they each sync to their own account?

If the former everyone shares music and apps (up to five devices), but they also share playlists, address books, iTunes accounts, and calendars (unless they sync via Exchange Server to Google). If the latter then everyone has their own stuff, but they also need to have their own movie, music library and app library.

This is a longstanding pain in the butt.

So when I read that iTunes - 9 did something about music sharing decided to install it on a non-media machine.

Turns out, it does what Apple says:

... With Home Sharing, you can browse the iTunes libraries of up to five authorized computers in your house, import what you like...

Emphasis on IMPORT. If you add a tune to a playlist you COPY the file, even when iTunes is running in multiple user sessions on the same machine.

So everything is duplicated.

It's a lot like old-style iTunes sharing, except now you can copy.

Not interesting. The old problem remains.

See also:

• Working around iTunes lack of multi-user support
• Sync iTunes Libraries Between Two Macs
• Sharing an iTunes library between multiple users

Update 9/10/09: A friend tells me he syncs his wife's iPod twice. Once to the account that holds iTunes, a second time to her personal account. The iTunes settings on each machine control what gets synched. This is an intermediate solution with both advantages and obvious disadvantages (double sync, no personal playlist, no personal ratings, etc, etc). Also if you are sharing your iTunes Library the update may reset permissions.

Update 9/24/09: I upgraded my main library to 9.01 and paid more attention to the language of Home Sharing such as "is for personal use". Note that Home Sharing is for all persons who share the same iTunes account -- which is, in theory, only one person. Apple is walking a fine DRM line here, as they have for many years. They don't target multiple accounts on a single Mac because that represents multiple users, and Home Sharing is really for one user on multiple machines.

twitterfeed: tweet the feed

twitterfeed is takes any kind of public feed and turns it into tweets.

It works with OpenID and uses oauth to talk to Twitter, so it passes my initial screening tests. You don't enter your Twitter credentials and you don't have to remember yet another un/pw.

Now all I need is for Google to provide a Google Reader shared-item-with-note feed that would provide the item name/link and my Google Reader Note. I'd be able to use Google Reader to generate tweets with notes on the things I'm interested in.

Alas, we're waiting for Google to take the next step here ...

Life Hacker - living with Google Voice

Great orientation: How to Ease Your Transition to Google Voice - Google Voice - Lifehacker.

It's one thing to get a list of features, another to learn how to make them work. See also Pogue's brief summary.

Google also recommends Tech Crunch on the Android and Blackberry GV apps (alas, not iPhone - cures you Steve Jobs!).

Setting up Google Voice accounts for Google Apps users

I'm a big fan of Google Voice (boo Apple!), it's saved me about saved me about $1,000 over the past year or so. I'm also a fan of Google Apps for our family through which I've reached the nerdvana of unified calendaring.

So as our eldest moves into junior high I decided it was time to get him his lifelong unique identifier phone number. A number that's under my control -- for now.

Getting an 'invite' to participate is easy, Google is handing out GV numbers on demand now (US only). The tricky part is unifying this with his Google Apps family account.

It turns out you can't really do this. Google Voice is tied to a Google account, you can't log in using Google Apps credentials. In the Google World it's fine to have a Google Apps account, but everyone needs a personal Google Account as well (which makes sense if you think about it long and hard enough).

Here's what I did for my Google Apps users who now also have Google Voice numbers:

1. Request the GV number.
2. Click on the link in the GV invite.
3. Don't bother trying to login with your Google Apps credentials. Click new account.
4. For user name provide your Google Apps user name.
5. For password provide your Google Apps password.

With this setup the GV number feels like it's bound to the Google Apps account, but this is a convenient illusion. It's bound to a completely separate Google account that happens to have the same user name as the Google Apps account.

Very slow 10.5.8 updates on some PPC machines

It's been over a month, so I figured I might as well install 10.5.8. Since my photo work now lives on the Intel MacBook, I did the update first on my G5 iMac.

As usual I did a safe boot first to clear out caches and the like. I disconnected my firewire drive then I rebooted. I installed from the Combo Update. I didn't "repair permissions" because, as near as I can tell, that's bogus.

The install proceeded normally until it got to the "2 minute" mark. Then the update appeared to hang. The progress bar was frozen, displaying "Install time remaining: About 2 minutes".

Ok. This is Apple after all. We have to expect things not to work properly. I was only mildly suprised.

Happily, I found a most useful reference while I waited ...

...Apple - Support - Discussions - OS 10.5.8 update failure ...

I'm getting the same thing where the installer is stuck at 2 mins.

BUT.

I know it's doing something.

If you bring up the installer log by going Command - L ... and then select 'Show Errors Only' and change it to 'Show All Logs' you'll see it's writing some metadata into the Receipts folder....

Great tip, I didn't know about the installer log. I'm also seeing leisurely, updates to Receipts folder metadata. (Quite a few entries in the error list too!)

Another response speculates that there's some "code signing" going on. Some PPC updates are said to take hours to complete.

Update pending.

Update: It concluded properly. Here are the final log results ...

Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: **** Summary Information ****
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: Operation Elapsed time
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: -----------------------------
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: script 2441.19 seconds
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: zero 0.36 seconds
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: install 2992.16 seconds
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: validate 32.83 seconds
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: os 0.00 seconds
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: extract 464.22 seconds
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: receipt 4.49 seconds
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: disk 1.08 seconds
Sep 5 21:21:39 BigMac Installer[302]: config 49.33 seconds

It took about 90 minutes to complete the update, most of which was spent on those very slow metadata writes.

Here are the results for an Intel MacBook:

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: **** Summary Information ****

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: Operation Elapsed time

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: -----------------------------

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: script 381.73 seconds

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: zero 0.08 seconds

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: install 744.83 seconds

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: validate 17.36 seconds

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: os 0.00 seconds

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: extract 311.78 seconds

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: receipt 0.91 seconds

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: disk 1.01 seconds

Sep 5 23:54:56 Stanford-MacBook-2 Installer[197]: config 33.04 seconds

On the Intel machine the install took about 20 minutes -- so about 1/4 to 1/5 the time.

Update b: I went to do a scan and my Epson Scan software died. I don't know if this was the update, but I'm suspicious. Epson put out a new version a few days ago that's supposed to cover 10.6 too:

Scanner Driver and EPSON Scan Utility v3.28
Intel-based Macs with OS X (v10.4.4 - v10.6.x), PowerPC Macs with OS X (v10.3.9 - v10.5.x)
epson13224.dmg - 18.6MB - posted on 09/01/09

The installation didn't change my problem, but it resolved away after a reboot. I suspect it was unrelated to the update; I've not used the scanner for a bit.

The new Epson scan utility does cure a few old bugs however.

How to restore a lost iPhoto '09 facebook connection

Every so often I like to go through my Facebook Application settings. Sometimes I see things like 'Ads and Pages' that I don't recall authorizing, or I find apps I no longer use.

For example, I found an Aperture export app. I'd tried using export to Facebook from Aperture, but it didn't work for me (buggy?). So I deleted it. Funny thing is, I don't remember anything about a FB app, that was an OS X app...

[Ok, I'll cheat. As you'll see below, I later realize that when you use a Facebook "feature" on the desktop, there's a companion Facebook "app".]

That's how I came across some funky iPhoto Uploader app without any author or profile information to speak of, but with mediocre reviews. I don't need that shoddy app I thought, I've been using the built-in function that comes with iPhoto '09. So I deleted it.

Then a thought occurred to me.

Yes, I returned to iPhoto, and now when I clicked on the albums that sort-of-synchronize with my FB albums I got an error message saying the upload had failed ...

... authentication with server failed. Please check your login and password information...

Oopsie.

Clearly that mysterious iPhoto Uploader app was the 'companion' to iPhoto '09 (I wonder if it's a real "app" or just some kind of authentication framework shoehorned into the "app" slot.)

So how could I restore it? Apple doesn't provide any documentation on this sort of thing -- that would be against their religion. I played around briefly, here's what worked

1. select any old picture
2. click the facebook button to upload it to FB
3. you'll see the upload button is grayed out. Click the "change account" button. You'll now be able to reenter your un/pw credentials.

After you reenter credentials you can sync your FB albums again, and the iPhoto Uploader "app" will reappear in your Facebook app settings page.

Loopt: don't be fooled by their iPhone location feature

Nobody has ever signed up for the service, but for $15 a month AT&T will provide location tracking for any phone. It's hard to imagine how crummy this must be, which is why you'll only find out about this if you study your phone options.

By contrast MobileMe will track your iPhone using the built in GPS device supplemented by WiFi location sniffing and cell tower triangulation.

If you aren't a slave to Apple you may have a phone that works properly with Latitude, enabling free location tracking.

Which brings us to Loopt ...

Daring Fireball Linked List: Loopt Now Optionally Updates Your Location Continually

... Via a deal with AT&T, Loopt — a location-based social networking service — can now track and update the location of your iPhone even when the Loopt app isn’t running.

... This is a server-to-server system between Loopt and AT&T. ... it’s a $4 per month addition to your AT&T bill.

It looks like AT&T is enabling Loopt to do for $4/month what AT&T wants $15/month for. Seems like a steep discount, but AT&T isn't doing any of the app development or support and nobody was buying AT&T's product anyway.

In addition to costing about $50 a year (MobileMe is about the same price) the Loopt service can't use the phone's GPS -- it's relying on cell tower triangulation. So the accuracy will be good in dense urban areas, poor in areas with fewer towers.

MobileMe seems like the better option, except, bizarrely but typically, Apple doesn't provide any location sharing option with MobileMe.

Sucks.

FCC, please continue to pummel Apple.