Chris Miller » apple

Adding non-Apple format movies to iTunes

Chris — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:46:53 +0000

I’ve been having a bit of trouble adding some movies to my iTunes library this evening – in that I’d have to convert a movie to a .mov file in order to import it at all.

A few google searches away and I’d found the answer to all my problems. If you have the Apple development tools installed (and are obviously on a Mac), you can simply change the file meta-data of the movies via the terminal in order to allow you to import them. It’s very simple to do:
SetFile -t "MooV" movie.avi

Via: AVI to iTunes on MacRumors Forums

I did, however, have to change the iTunes settings so that it didn’t take it’s own copy of the files when importing them. I have a separate Movies folder for a reason thank-you-very-much iTunes.
- Chris

R.I.P. PB

Chris — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:46:23 +0000

As per my previous post, I’m getting a new machine. This is due however, to some unfortunate news: my PowerBook is dead!

The first Mac I ever owned, a PowerBook G4 which has served me very well over the past 5 or 6 years, is pretty much blitzed. My PowerBook and I visited Matt in Edinburgh on Saturday to see if we could revive it to it’s previous glory. We managed to pull all the stuff I needed from the hard disk, but that was all the good fortune we had.

It turns out the hard disk was suffering from a S.M.A.R.T. failure and locked up Matt’s computer when mounted as a target drive. We eventually managed to format the drive via Matt’s old PowerBook and everything looked good, but alas it was not to be – we received kernel panics when trying to install Mac OS X on the drive.

So it looks as if I’ll have to fork out for a replacement hard disk, which isn’t too big a deal at about Â£50 for 100Gb which would suit me. Until I manage to get one and install it my PowerBook is out of service.

/me salutes PowerBook, when my copy of the Necronomicon arrives I will bring you back!
- Chris

Mac Pro

Chris — Sun, 18 May 2008 18:30:37 +0000

I’ve recently ordered a new Mac, a Mac Pro to be precise. It is currently en route to my gleeful embrace from Apple.

The specs are as follows:

Processors: Two 2.8GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon
RAM: 2GB 800MHz DDR2 RAM
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT 512MB GDDR3
HDD: 500GB 7200-rpm Serial ATA 3Gb/s
Optical: Two 16x SuperDrives
Connectivity: AirPort Extreme Card (Wi-Fi) & Bluetooth
Peripherals: Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse & Apple Wireless Keyboard

It should arrive later in the week, I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
- Chris

Bleeding Apple

Chris — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 23:05:38 +0000

On my way out to head to University this morning, I saw something that I thought looked funny. I was then telling Matt about it and he was saying I should have taken a photo of it.

I thought no more as I was already well on my way to Uni and would have been late if I had doubled back. On my way home I passed the same scene again and this time took the opportunity to take a picture.

The image is hard to see properly because of the lighting, it is a half eaten candy apple which has sat out during the night. All the red glaze has come off and run down the road giving the impression that this apple has been cut in half and left to bleed to death in the street.

Dark images from the centre of Glasgow and perhaps a start to a new photoblogging trend on this blog?
- Chris