momusradar

I recently changed my smart playlists to make use of the nested conditionals function added to iTunes 9. One smart playlist lists all music files from my Library and all episodes from the KEXP Song of the Day podcast. Another smart playlist lists the most recent podcasts that are not from KEXP.

I noticed these same smart playlists viewed on my iPod did not list any of the podcast episodes. Fortunately iLounge Forums user Code Monkey notes the reason for this seemingly odd behavior under the topic iTunes 9: Podcasts in playlist don’t show up on iPod?:

I believe I’ve figured it out: on the podcasts tab, there is now a playlist selection check box tree thingee like what has been under the music tab for a while. I noticed in my case that all of my podcast playlists happened to be automatically and correctly sussed out by the update process and put here as if they were special “podcast playlists”.

So I did some tests. I made a list with some podcasts and some music, checked it off only under the music tab and there was the missing podcast items like people are describing in this thread. I checked it off under both the music tab and the podcast tab and both the music and podcasts showed up. Then I checked it off on only the podcast tab, and now the music items are missing.

From what I can see, regardless of what you put on the list, if you check it off only under the music tab, that’s all that shows up on your iPod, if you check it off only under the podcast tab, that’s all that shows up on your iPod, if you check it off under both tabs, everything shows up.

Following his prescription did get the “missing” podcasts to reappear in my iPod’s smart playlists. This new arrangement for the iPod settings strikes me as being more complicated than it needs to. But I can see this as providing incredible flexibility for the iPod power user.

Giles Turnbull pokes holes in the genius of iTunes Genius:

Using “Fingertips” as my source results in a mix full of more They Might Be Giants songs. Some R.E.M. Some B-52s. Pixies. Devo. They Might Be Giants. Jonathan Coulton. Elvis Costello. So dull.

I am triumphant, because my point is proven. Genius isn’t a genius at all, merely a regurgitator of other people’s opinions. And too many people who listen to They Might Be Giants also listen to that other lot.

That’s no mix. A mix considers the songs themselves, not just the genre. It listens to the possible combinations, it has moments of drama and moments of peace, and it has two very precise end points. The end of side one, and the end of side two. iTunes Genius provides none of these.

Spot on.

Michael Reichmann posted an interesting video revealing some of Leica’s quality control and assembly practices. To bad the audio doesn’t match that of Leica’s technical standards. Also, I’m fairly certain the camera being assembled is the M8.

Apple Inc.’s latest iPod nano has the capability to record H.264 VGA video, which is ideal for the YouTube & video on Flickr crowds. Cisco Systems, your Flip is on notice.

It appears the recent rumors proceeding today’s Rock & Roll event didn’t see this coming. Such speculation reminds me of the only time I entertained the idea of making an Apple event prediction. In February of 2006, I wrote:

But if it does turns out to be a revamped iPod then I can only hope that it’s a real Photo iPod. Think of it: iPod with a built in iSight. They’ve already made the iSight ridiculously small, the iPod can already display images, and the scroll wheel has been dying to be used for something other than simply sifting through menus. By adding iSight to the iPod you can not only carry a ton of pictures with it, you would be able to take them too. It’s a feature that most users would actually use, definitely more useful than watching a movie on a two inch screen.

At the time YouTube was only a year old & video sharing was something with which I was not interested. In hindsight, it was not such a bad forecast.

CNET reports:

Nintendo Wii owners who wanted to browse the Web from their consoles have previously been forced to purchase the Wii Internet Channel application from the Wii Shop Channel for 500 Wii Points (that’s $5.00 to the rest of us). Nintendo has now made the app free for all Wii users, saying, “Effective immediately, people who want to browse the Internet using their Wii consoles will be able to do so at no added cost.”

More important, Internet Channel now supports Flash Lite 3.1.

Just by coincidence the N.Y. Times’ Dot Earth presented a fantastic photograph of a real snow leopard on the very same day Apple Inc. started selling its Snow Leopard:

Dot Earth likes a good animal photo as much as the next blog, particularly when the animal is beautiful and endangered. So we’re pleased to present a photograph of a snow leopard, taken by a camera trap in the Wakhan Corridor in northeastern Afghanistan.

InDesign Secrets’ comment on Adobe’s open letter:

I do have one niggling complaint. The PDF was created with Microsoft Word, not InDesign. What gives?

Right. Nor was it distilled with Acrobat Pro. Perhaps Adobe should apologize for this as well.

News Junkie Post covers a compelling study that should be read by all:

Senator Ted Kennedy’s brain cancer could have been prevented if he had not used his cell phone so much. At least that is the argument being raised by health advocates who released a new study that concludes that too much cell phone use could lead to brain cancer.

The study, “Cellphones and Brain Tumors: 15 Reasons for Concern, Science, Spin and the Truth Behind Interphone” was released by the International EMF Collaborative this week to counter another study funded by cell phone industry giants (The Interphone study), which minimizes the risk of cell phone use.

Scum dots are small points of ink (typically cyan) that appear in areas of a print that should be completely white. These imps can manifest themselves during image compression within the creation of a PDF file.

In Adobe Creative Suite (CS through CS3—I can’t speak for CS4 as I have yet to use it) the default image compression, for both color & grayscale images to be included in a PDF, are set to JPEG. This seems to be where the problem lies.

JPEG is a lossy compression scheme. If you compress a raster graphic that contains a large area of white using JPEG, it can introduce small artifacts into those areas that are not visible to the eye. When a PDF containing JPEG images is sent to a printer, the file is translated by a RIP into data that the printing device can output. The humanly imperceptible artifacts are quite obvious to the RIP and, depending on how it is configured, can be sent to ink resulting in scum dots. To be fair, many printers set their RIPs to hold back such artifacts to prevent scum dots, but there may be one day that you have to work with one that hasn’t taken such precaution.

Fortunately, changing the image compression for both the color & grayscale images to be included in the PDF to None will help you from falling prey to this problem. Simply put, None will not compress the images at all; at least not any more than they have been already (You are using uncompressed images to make your print-ready PDFs, right?).

As for compressing monochrome images, the CCITT, Run Length & ZIP options are all safe since monochrome by definition is only one color; although I also set it to None for consistency’s sake.

addendum July 10, 2009

I should emphasize that the suggestions noted above will only minimize scum dots; not eliminate them completely. In order to do that you need to disable dithering in the conversion options of your application’s color settings. The caveat with leaving this option turned off is that images with gradients could then suffer from banding.

The new Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 7970 gear-shifter sounds great for real racing cyclists. I can’t help but be concerned, though, that it will be the new rage with the roadie posers that litter the roads here in Northern New Jersey.