What annoyed you today?

[anglefire]

I went to Fairford the other week - but not in the actual show - but the farmers field behind. Which was muddy to be fair, but everyone got in ok, as long as you kept going. You parked up and got out of the car and watched the show, no walking unless you wanted to, had loo's and food if needed too.

And was £15 not £35.

But I do feel for you and the wife - not good.

[Hinfrance]

WAMT, my very kind wife bought me tickets for the local air show, red arrows etc so far so good. It took an hour and a half to get in, drove for half an hour at 1 mile an hour to find a parking place only to be pointed into a muddy field, I just said to the guy, where is the way out, and came home. I would have had to walk the entire length of the muddy field in shoes, helping my wife who is due for two knee replacements, then after a day standing about face the return hike, we just gave a sigh and headed home what a waste of time.

Sorry to hear that; it's not very considerate of them not have some nearer spaces for people who are suffering from reduced mobility.

A few years back we went to a local show with a good friend of mine who had managed to smash one of his legs in a motorcycle accident. Even though we didn't have a disabled badge the steward saw the leg in plaster and crutches as he dipped his head towards the car to give us parking instructions, and sent us to a space right next to the entrance gate. We all thought that was very kind of him.

[donoreo]

Today is the first day of my vacation.  Three out of four of us are sick.  One daughter is fine and bored the other has a sore throat and a fever.  My wife has a fever and something bothering her digestive system (spending time in the small room in the house ).  I have the same minus the fever.   

[Hinfrance]

Our current visitors, lovely people but hopeless fanbois, have bought my daughter an iPod shuffle. 'Kin 'eck, don't Apple make life difficult? Unlike the player she currently has, a Sansa which is only marginally larger, has 4 times the internal memory, has a SD card slot for expansion, a track display, and which only has to be connected to the PC to add music, the bl**dy iPod will only work with iTunes (which along with Norton AV is awful pervasive software and is the first thing to be removed from every computer I buy). There is no way I am paying Apple for music we already have.

So the question is, for those of you who exist in Apple's cloistered overbearing control freak world, is there any way of actually getting an iPod to work like a real music player?

[hevans]

howard, if the music is in mp3 format, them it can be included in the itunes library and then copied across to the ipod. All the music in our itunes library is from our ripped CD collection. Haven't bought anything significant from itunes. Usually it's cheaper to buy the cd than the drm restricted apple version.

[Alfonso_Frisk]

Have a look around this site
http://www.copytrans.net/support.php?action=GoToCategory&data=74/all/position/0/10

I'm sure I did something within that site which may be of use to you 

[Hinfrance]

So the short answer is 'no', but there is a work around. Thanks Hugh, Alf. I'm really not happy with iTunes being on my PC, but for the girl I'll live with it, although I know I'll never be able to get it out of the system now.

It'll only be a few days before she goes back to using the Sansa, it's better in every way.

Later: iTunes eventually installed - first impressions - horrible, control freak software. Wouldn't let me choose the location of my music files, imported some random rubbish from the 'home' folder. So I stopped it doing that and pointed it at the drive with the music on, started adding it to the library. It then decided that what I really wanted was for it to play some random tracks while the cataloging was taking place. It seems to have added the files OK, but I can't work out how to get the smaller subset of music onto the iPod. It seems to be all or nothing, but I'm sure the controls must be hidden somewhere.

[Alfonso_Frisk]

I just normally drag and drop the files from the libary to the ipod.
I also turn off auto synch

[Jonathan]

iTunes is horrid (though if it's any consolation the PC one appears better than the Mac).

Try Foobar instead - makes an iPod work like an MP3 player.... http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/24473/how-to-use-your-ipod-with-foobar2000/

[Hinfrance]

I think the drivers for the iPod must be in the iTunes package, because now Windows Media player is trying to sync to it as well.

Thanks for all the tips gentlemen, I'm sure I'll get there in the end. It just seems so unnecessarily complicated when all I want to do is drag and drop a few files.

[Hinfrance]

Cheers Jonathan, Foobar works! Nothing else did.

[spinner]

Before I switched to Mac, I used Media Monkey with great success. Thinks may have changed by now of course. 

[Hinfrance]

DVD player packed up. I mean, what are you are they thinking, it cost almost £20 and it's only 3 years old?

Ah well. bought a new one which will replace the TNT (DTTV in English I think), our knackered HD recorder and the dead player.

And to think that I bunked up my whuffie this morning by letting a fawning 12 year old have a sit in my 'vette. Karma, my *rs*. 

[Hinfrance]

Lightroom - again.

Normally I use Qimage to print, but I needed a quick copy of a picture and as I was in Lightroom I went to the print module. The only print option was 'Adobe PDF' even though there are two REAL printers connected to the PC. It's just rubbish.

I went through every option on the printer panel and gave up, opened Picasa and did a print from that, in about 5 seconds.

[ABERS]

Howard. I know nothing about Quimage??.

When in L/Room go to File and select Print Settings and you should be presented with the print setup panel which has a further drop down of the printers connected to your computer Select one from there. That printer remains the default one unless you change it

That's what happens in my L/room.