The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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ATM: iTunes help needed

by 14 Comments

Don’t just say”use something else”. Here is the issue: I have my music loaded on to an old laptop using iTunes. I have this library, together with loads of playlists, synced with Apple Music (via iCloud). This has worked reasonably well over the years, meaning I can play my music on my iPad and also over my Sonos speakers. Now, my ancient laptop is on its last legs, so I thought that I’d copy the music files over to my slightly newer laptop via an external hard drive. This was completed eventually. After syncing this ‘new’ iTunes with iCloud, I eventually got all the music, and playlists, visible – and the tracks play when selected. The issue is that all the entries for the music show the ‘download’ icon. As the files are present on the laptop I would have thought that they were already downloaded, so I fear that I may not have set up the new library correctly. I had copied the files to ‘Music’ in the ‘iTunes Media’ folder. So, the questions are: a) does anyone know where I should have moved the files to, and b) how would I download the marked files anyway, other than » Continue Reading.

Best songs of the current century?

by 106 Comments

Wife has asked me to come up with a playlist of the best songs of this century. There should be none of what I’d call “young people’s music”, though what was known as the “pop” genre in the 60s would qualify- if you know what I mean (mainstream hits, I suppose). As most readers here are of a similar age, I’m sure you can come up with some suggestions that would satisfy. I can think of some, but without lots of research cannot remember whether they are last century or not. Definitely no hippity-hop, rap, boy bands, K-pop, so-called r’n’b etc. There must be loads of classics just evading my gnarled old brain. Perhaps some of you will be able to jog my memory?

ATM: Old CD-ROMs

by 6 Comments

I’ve found a stash of old CD-ROMs that say they require at least Windows 3.1, and some say Win 95. My laptop is running Win 10, and won’t run any of these, even when I try compatibility mode W95. Is there any way to run these on Win 10, or are they destined for the bin? Is it likely that any geeks would want these? There are a few games – Tomb Raider, Discworld, Worms and some football manager-type discs, as well as things like Encarta etc. I would imagine that these would only interest someone who had missed the low-tech era due to being born too late. I’m sure there is no value to them, but it would be a shame to bin them. Any ideas?

Piano/keyboard solos in popular music

by 95 Comments

I need to find some decent videos of piano or keyboard solos in popular music. Maximum length of track is around 5 minutes, so most prog is ruled out – I suspect most tracks will be from chart singles, but I’m struggling a bit. Obviously I’ve already got Lieutenant Pigeon. Any suggestions?

ATM: Amazon Prime Video help

by 4 Comments

On the grand scale of things, this is a very 21st century problem. I signed up for a free trial with Prime video, once I found out that I could’ve get it through Sky Q, mainly for the footie. In the meantime I’ve watched a few things and have recently found that it doesn’t seem to remember where I’ve got to in a series – I’m sure it used to, but not now. I cannot find anywhere that I can tell it to resume from where I left off. Anyone else had this issue, and, more importantly, know how to fix it? I haven’t seen anyone bring this up on help forums etc on Amazon or Sky, or Google itself. Also, I get foreign sub-titles pop up whenever there is a sign in the background – languages vary! I’m currently watching Bosch, where both issues prevail. Quite enjoying it apart from these issues.

Weird or what?

by 2 Comments

Yesterday was my birthday. I was updating some info on my iTunes, as it had somehow decided that all my Beatles albums were disc 2 of 2, and I am a stickler for accuracy. I had got to Let it Be, I think, and suddenly the laptop started playing a track from Sgt Pepper, an album I hadn’t yet got to in my updating (I wasn’t actually listening to anything at the time). The track was When I’m Sixty Four and yes, I am now 64! Anyone else had iTunes getting a bit too personal?

Am I Old?

by 28 Comments

OK, I’m 63 and a quarter (nearly) and have been retired for over 4 years, but have never felt “old”, though am unfit, overweight and drink too much.Today I went to see the touring ‘musical’ Let It Be – I probably don’t need to tell you the gist of this – and I quite enjoyed it, though it wasn’t as good as the Bootleg Beatles doing Sgt Pepper last year. However, on my way home I began to reflect on why I felt let down; then it came to me – a vast proportion of the audience seemed to be older than me. These people shouldn’t like the same music as me. What happened to the generation gap? I suppose that I am of the first generation when the “gap” was invented – but it seems to have moved, and I’m not sure how I feel about that. I have no kids of my own, so I am not used to so-called generation gaps further down the line – I like what I like, and don’t care what youngsters like, but I do take exception to oldies liking the same as me. I realise that I am being extremely unreasonable » Continue Reading.

ATM: Big iTunes, small hard drive

by 16 Comments

I have recently noticed that some tracks are missing from my iTunes. My laptop has very little storage left (about 6Gb) and it won’t update windows 10 anymore, or even let me defrag ( it says over 60% fragmented). I subscribe to Apple Music, so the library should be in the cloud. My question is: if I copy all my mp3s to an external drive, then delete them from my laptop, followed by iTunes, then clean up the laptop, and re-install all music + iTunes, will all my playlists still be there on the latest iTunes? Is it possible to put a bigger hard drive in a laptop?

Anyone use a Taste or Gourmet Society card when dining out?

by 7 Comments

We have a Gourmet Society card which is a perk of the bank account, so we don’t pay a fee as such. My question is really about use of the card, rather than the auto-renewal, which seems to be the usual complaint (e.g. following a cheap/free trial period). Nearly all restaurants in the scheme require that you inform them in advance of your intention to use the card to get a discount. I was just wondering why this is necessary; my cynical view is that the quality etc of the meal is ‘adjusted’ if they know that you are going to make use of an offer (same would apply if a printed voucher was being used). Am I justified in such a view, or am I just being mean-spirited? I suspect that I already know what the views of the massive are, but wondered if anyone could put my mind at rest?

ATM: Anyone got one of these smart energy meters fitted?

by 3 Comments

My energy supplier is pestering me to get one of these new-fangled smart meters fitted, but I’m a bit wary of doing so as I believe they are still fairly new and likely to become more efficient after several months of use (by other customers) has ironed out bugs etc. I don’t want to end up with an ‘old’ one when the new updated ones come in (as they surely will). Has anyone had any experiences with these meters, good or bad? Am not really sure whether to ignore them for the time being. Thanks for reading this non-music-related post. Cheers.