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Yeah, so yesterday I finally gave in to the urge to buy another iPod. It was a pretty quick decision but I have to say it seems like a good one. I’ve been trying to coap with a simpleton mp3 player, a Sony NW-E005 which carries a very basic 2gb of flash based memory so doesn’t really fit a whole lot on it. Further more it insists on you using SonicStage to put music on and from my experience its a pretty buggy app.
So anyways, that thing’s been annoying me as its so awkward to get music on so i’ve been listening to the same stuff for ages. Couldn’t handle it anymore, so i stopped off at Currys on the way home… well not really on the way home, got the bus into town instead of walking the usual way… and i picked up a nice new 80gb Silver iPod Classic. I’ve always had a pretty mixed opinion about apple stuff, don’t get me wrong I don’t dislike them, after all I’ve just bought my second iPod, its just I have a few little annoyances. But i don’t want to rant about apple prices or reliability…
Anyway its pretty much all so far, so good. Had a problem with importing quite a few files though. I recently ’sorted out’ my entire music collection using PicardQT which sets all ID3 tags (new version and old), re-arranges folder structure into Artist > Album and also will attach album art via a plugin which scans Amazon for the covers. Getting this all finished was a fantastic moment - everything looked perfect!
So I came to try and import all my music into my iTunes library last night and I thought I’d start with my Rap/Hip-Hop which has 2 Pac as the first artist… So I went for the drag and drop option between Win explorer and iTunes and only 1 track popped up in the library - wtf? Thats a pretty major fail if you ask me. My first attempt to import music and it doesn’t even try - about 8 albums with only 1 song being imported!?! Anyway, I got most things imported and all album covers attached so Cover Flow looks sexeh on my PC.
I looked up on the interwebs today as to what might cause the problem with failed imports and a few places said maybe the files aren’t mp3s or the ID3 tags are corrupt/invalid. Now wtf!?! i spent hours tagging all my music using PickardQT - that doesn’t write invalid ID3 tags, and it writes in the latest version and the older version just to be on the safe side. And they’re mp3 files according to my Windows Media Player library which has no problems with anything.
Why the hell does every ‘new’ thing I do in computing never work first time?!

Oh, and when I used my iPod this morning on the way to work for the first time, i pulled up Cover Flow only to find it wasn’t arranged perfectly like on my PC, there were still some rogue tracks from some of my dance CDs that weren’t included with the correct albums and therefore missing cover art! Now I don’t know why… its all arranged fine in iTunes, I’ve sync’d my iPod then ejected it, but its not actually sync’d if it doesn’t look the same is it!?!?

Ah well - hopefully I’ll figure something out this weekend. I found a link to an app that says it will ‘fix’ your iTunes library last night. Looks like it will scan a dir, compare it to the library xml file and then add anything thats not been added already and probably a few other things that I missed…
If anybody passing knows anything that might help with the sync and failed import problems I’d greatly appreciate if you would leave a comment or send me an email - mark [at] marksweb [dot] co [dot] uk

Now the Digg story linked through to a YouTube video, and as you might expect, it had been removed due to it being ‘copyright of the Church of Scientology’

Thankfully you can always rely on Digg comments to save the day, and they did indeed to that! They also provided a fantastic link!
http://tubemall.net/
On tubemall they’ve devised a fantastic tool which can stream ‘removed’ YouTube videos because:

Removed videos from Youtube are not immediately deleted from their servers so if you are fast you may be able to watch and download them using UndeleTube.

So, if you grab the YouTube ID and head over to UndeleTube you might still be able to catch that video that someone doesn’t want you to see. There is also a tool on tubemall.net that allows you to download youtube videos - well worth checking out.

*Update*
The Daily Mail have even written an article on this latest video from Cruise as he is reportedly unhappy that it has been put on the internet and was supposidly for the eyes of Scientologists only.

Its currently in Beta but looks pretty cool for all gamers out there!

It is basically ‘youtube for gamers’ - you can watch videos and upload your own videos of whatever you might of been doing in game. This could work out great if you have found anything ‘hidden’ or get a bit stuck, you could go check out how to get things done!

Check it out on Tech Crunch

So yesterday i went into hospital for my left sided endoscopic polypectomy and left sided functional endoscopic sinus surgery.
I was there longer than expected after being told i was booked into surgery at 13.30 but finally went in at 15.30 for the hour long procedure

The general anaesthetic was a little odd, and having never been to hospital before I can at least say the experience was a plesant one and knowing it wasn’t anything to do with the NHS kept all nerves away

So surgery went well and a nurse showed me my polyp in a little pot just after i’d woken up andi couldn’t believe this thing had come out of my nose!!! OMG it was huge!! It took about an hour to get over the anaesthetic, then I ordered some food, watched some more TV in my room and eventually went home half way through holyoaks.

I’ve now got a sea water nasal spray, steriod drops, steriod nasal spray and some codeine and paracetamol pain killers (which i unfortunately don’t need so far!!) So all is well and after my final visit to my consultant I’ll hopefully get the final photos from during the op and also the results of my CAT scan so plan on puting that one online

as you’d expect its been a highly productive afternoon at work - i’ve found how to change the standby message on our HP printers from ‘READY’ to whatever the hell I want

http://www.hackszine.com/blog/archive/2007/10/change_the_message_on_hp_print.html

A lesser-known feature of the HP Printer Job Language (HPPJL) command set is that you can change the ready message” from “READY” to whatever you like. Yaakov wrote a Perl script that will change the message for you, and he also came up with the clever “INSERT COIN” replacement. Very nice.

You can think up your own funny, confusing or scary messages. My personal favorite is “INSERT COIN” which fits perfectly on the small LCDs. You can even sit in sight of the printer and change the message while watching the reaction of your victim. Don’t be surprised, though, if a large fraction don’t even notice. I was quite surprised myself but, it appears, some people don’t look at what is in front of them.

I haven’t been able to test yet (no HP printer here), but if I’m reading the code right, you can actually do this right from the command line using telnet. Just telnet to port 9100 and type in the following:

\e%-12345X\@PJL JOB
\@PJL RDYMSG DISPLAY=”MESSAGE HERE”
\@PJL EOJ
\e%-12345X

I’m having a Left sided endoscopic nasal polypectomy and left sided Functional Endoscopic Sinus Surgery on 14th November!

So i’ve been having a look around for some information and can’t say I was all that excited to see the following -

DO NOT eat or drink anything beginning at midnight the night before surgery. If you are taking medications, ask during your presurgical evaluation if these can be taken on the morning of surgery.

Now, having never really been into hospital before, things like that havent cropped up before further more I’m not going to have the op until the evening so that is nearly 24 hours without food! AHHHHH i’m gonna be close to death by the time I get into hospital!

and incase you’ve forgotten, or just don’t understand how good this is then watch this -

In other news i’ve completed Halo 3 within the first week like most people and then stranglehold in 2 hours

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