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Transoding Workflow Actions for iTunes

Status

On the backburner until I get tired of manually managing the transcoding using the Lossless to AAC workflow.

Goal

Create a distributable automator workflow to synchronize an iTunes library and iPod while transcoding lossless songs to a lower bitrate alternative.

Summary

This project will consist of writing a few actions for automator to provide the needed functionality to accomplish the goal. The additional actions that will be required are:

• Find Differences
  • This action will compare all songs on the iPod to the iTunes library and return the differences.
  • Will look for expected transcoded files on iPod from lossless master library using set encoder.
• Set Encoder
  • This action will set the encoder (iTunes import preferences)
• Reset Encoder
  • This action will undo the set encoder action and restore the preferences to their original value
• Convert Tracks
  • This action will convert an input song to the preset encoder settings
• Copy Tracks to iPod
  • This action will copy itunes tracks to an iPod
• Delete Tracks
  • This action will delete specified iTunes tracks (primarily temporary AAC files)

iTunes Transcoding Lossless to AAC Workflow

My iTunes library is massive (when compared to the capacity of an 80GB iPod). Nearly all of my songs are in Apple Lossless so as you can imagine, it is not hard to have more songs than my iPod will hold in the lossless format. Being familiar with other media managers, I expected to be able to transcode my files on-the-fly to a lower bitrate version with iTunes however I was let down by the lack of support in this area. I also detested the idea of maintaining two different libraries, a lossless master and the other for my iPod.

After countless hours scouring Google I finally found a solution that will bring a limited implementation of this to iTunes: the Lossless to AAC workflow by Doug Adams. This neat little applescript will integrate with Read more

Stock photography

Now I know at first glance of this web site you may be thinking, “How unoriginal! He’s using stock photography for his header image, how sad.” But that’s just not true! I actually took that picture while riding the MoPac trail out to Walton.

So fear not! I still have some original creativity left after my classes are done

How To: Install Tomcat on Mac OS X

I recently had to install Tomcat for Web Technologies class where we are exploring the world of Servlets and JSPs. I performed the following steps to setup Tomcat 5.5 on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).

1. Download the core binary distribution of Tomcat from http://tomcat.apache.org in zip or tar.gz format.
2. Unzip the download and rename it to Tomcat.
3. Move the folder to the /Library directory.
4. Create a file named tomcat in your favorite text editor, copy the startup script from below, and save the file in /usr/bin.

Startup Script

#!/bin/bash

case $1 in
  start)
    sh /Library/Tomcat/bin/startup.sh
  ;;
  stop)
    sh /Library/Tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh
  ;;
  restart)
    sh /Library/Tomcat/bin/shutdown.sh
    sh /Library/Tomcat/bin/startup.sh
  ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: start|stop|restart"
  ;;
esac

exit 0