Just why?
Why does iTunes have to suck so loud?
To get to the crux of this question we have to travel back just a bit:
Back in November I picked out 2 MP3 players and put them on Megan's Amazon Wishlist. The shiny new 8GB Ipod 4th Generation Nano in a gorgeous purple and the more economical but almost equally as nice Sony 4GB Walkman Video/MP3 player in a pretty pink. Megan wanted that iPod, but I gave the grandparents options and she would be cool either way. So she got the Walkman, and it's great. Honestly it is fantastic. Even better than it being more in the price range of what I think she needs at this age - it also is very Cindy friendly. Which is of course uber-important.
You plug it into your computer. It loads itself. You drag and drop songs, albums, pictures, videos - heck, whatever you want without any other needed software into the the pre-layed out folders in the MP3 player. Then when you turn the thing on, you go into 'Music' and there are your albums and songs all in the nice little packages you dropped them in. Neat. Then you go into 'Pictures' and see your sub-albums you already created there with all your pictures neatly arranged just like they were on your computer. Same thing with the videos too. Sounds awesome doesn't it?
If you are just having your first experience with an iPod or iTunes I bet you really think that sounds super swell. How do I know? Well, Megan's first cousin Summer (on my ex's side - her and Megan are 4 months apart and best friends) got the exact iPod Nano Megan wanted for Christmas. So they call me Sunday from the grandparents house and ask me if I could load some songs onto Summer's iPod she got for Christmas because her mom couldn't figure it out. No sweat. I'm super-duper computer girl don't you know? Plus I'm awesome at life. So I say "Absolutely! It will be a snap just like Megan's!"
I was so very naive. And wrong. So very, very wrong.
How hard could it be? I mean it seems over half of the worlds population which I feel quite sure I'm surely as intellegent as at least do this every single day. Right?
So I come to work and download iTunes Monday and put the application on my zip drive to take home and load onto my laptop. I also go on some tutorial type things I Googled and they made it sound like old hat - so my confidence is still up and running on the whole situation. I get the iPod Monday evening when they bring Megan home, she goes back this weekend and Summer can't do anything with it completely empty anyway so it's all good. I really don't have time to mess with it until last night though and that is when the real fun began. At first I stupidly thought that it would keep my files in some kind of cohesive order the way Megan's did. Totally wrong. It was a mess.
In the end I ended up deleting all of the music in my entire new iTunes library and then going in and manually having to add all of the age appropriate albums and songs ONLY and then transfering/syncing the entire library to the ipod. Because if I hadn't I would have had to have picked threw the entire album adding song by song and that was just - well, no. Next I was going to add a few of the Harry Potter audio books since she had so much space on the 8GB drive. But then realized when I started that they would be lumped with all the music - because I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get them in the audiobook section of the iPod. As it stood it appeared to me that the chapters would be lumped in with the music - since it never asks you were on the iPod you want to put anything. And this famous 'shuffle' - would the audio book chapters shuffle with the music? I mean, WTF?
It made my eye twitch. It humbled me. And it almost beat me.
I HATE when something that is 'OMG! So easy' runs me threw the rack. It makes me feel like a huge loser and makes my eye twitch.
So yeah. Finally got just some music added. A little over 1GB worth. No audio books, no neat folders, no pictures. All in all it took me about 2 hours to 'figure it out' and that is just wrong. So very wrong. And I was wrong. I'm glad Megan didn't get the shiny super neato iPod that is THE THING to have. Because it and iTunes are massive pains in my ass and I'm so glad that I don't have to deal with it over and over again. My 'favor' is done. I'm writing instructions (HA!) to Susan (Summer's mom, my ex-SIL) on how to add your music with iTunes into the thing and hopefully I'll never have to touch it again. *spits*
That is all. Meltdown over.
I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and has a SAFE and Happy New Years. I'll be in my nest on the couch watching TV and reading fanfic and putting this whole drama far behind me.
To get to the crux of this question we have to travel back just a bit:
Back in November I picked out 2 MP3 players and put them on Megan's Amazon Wishlist. The shiny new 8GB Ipod 4th Generation Nano in a gorgeous purple and the more economical but almost equally as nice Sony 4GB Walkman Video/MP3 player in a pretty pink. Megan wanted that iPod, but I gave the grandparents options and she would be cool either way. So she got the Walkman, and it's great. Honestly it is fantastic. Even better than it being more in the price range of what I think she needs at this age - it also is very Cindy friendly. Which is of course uber-important.
You plug it into your computer. It loads itself. You drag and drop songs, albums, pictures, videos - heck, whatever you want without any other needed software into the the pre-layed out folders in the MP3 player. Then when you turn the thing on, you go into 'Music' and there are your albums and songs all in the nice little packages you dropped them in. Neat. Then you go into 'Pictures' and see your sub-albums you already created there with all your pictures neatly arranged just like they were on your computer. Same thing with the videos too. Sounds awesome doesn't it?
If you are just having your first experience with an iPod or iTunes I bet you really think that sounds super swell. How do I know? Well, Megan's first cousin Summer (on my ex's side - her and Megan are 4 months apart and best friends) got the exact iPod Nano Megan wanted for Christmas. So they call me Sunday from the grandparents house and ask me if I could load some songs onto Summer's iPod she got for Christmas because her mom couldn't figure it out. No sweat. I'm super-duper computer girl don't you know? Plus I'm awesome at life. So I say "Absolutely! It will be a snap just like Megan's!"
I was so very naive. And wrong. So very, very wrong.
How hard could it be? I mean it seems over half of the worlds population which I feel quite sure I'm surely as intellegent as at least do this every single day. Right?
So I come to work and download iTunes Monday and put the application on my zip drive to take home and load onto my laptop. I also go on some tutorial type things I Googled and they made it sound like old hat - so my confidence is still up and running on the whole situation. I get the iPod Monday evening when they bring Megan home, she goes back this weekend and Summer can't do anything with it completely empty anyway so it's all good. I really don't have time to mess with it until last night though and that is when the real fun began. At first I stupidly thought that it would keep my files in some kind of cohesive order the way Megan's did. Totally wrong. It was a mess.
In the end I ended up deleting all of the music in my entire new iTunes library and then going in and manually having to add all of the age appropriate albums and songs ONLY and then transfering/syncing the entire library to the ipod. Because if I hadn't I would have had to have picked threw the entire album adding song by song and that was just - well, no. Next I was going to add a few of the Harry Potter audio books since she had so much space on the 8GB drive. But then realized when I started that they would be lumped with all the music - because I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get them in the audiobook section of the iPod. As it stood it appeared to me that the chapters would be lumped in with the music - since it never asks you were on the iPod you want to put anything. And this famous 'shuffle' - would the audio book chapters shuffle with the music? I mean, WTF?
It made my eye twitch. It humbled me. And it almost beat me.
I HATE when something that is 'OMG! So easy' runs me threw the rack. It makes me feel like a huge loser and makes my eye twitch.
So yeah. Finally got just some music added. A little over 1GB worth. No audio books, no neat folders, no pictures. All in all it took me about 2 hours to 'figure it out' and that is just wrong. So very wrong. And I was wrong. I'm glad Megan didn't get the shiny super neato iPod that is THE THING to have. Because it and iTunes are massive pains in my ass and I'm so glad that I don't have to deal with it over and over again. My 'favor' is done. I'm writing instructions (HA!) to Susan (Summer's mom, my ex-SIL) on how to add your music with iTunes into the thing and hopefully I'll never have to touch it again. *spits*
That is all. Meltdown over.
I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and has a SAFE and Happy New Years. I'll be in my nest on the couch watching TV and reading fanfic and putting this whole drama far behind me.