Using Spotify to sync music to iPod from GNU/Linux
Just a very quick tip for Linux users with iPods – you can use Spotify to sync music between your desktop and the iPod.
The reason I mention this is that my wife’s well-meaning parents got her an iPod for Xmas, and we quickly discovered that it’s not possible to plug a new iPod into a GNU/Linux computer and have it ‘just work’ (libimobiledevice, which sorts out syncing of older iPods, doesn’t yet have music syncing for iOS5, and nor does it have it planned for the next release). And while Apple have their iCloud thing which allows you to store stuff on their servers and then access it from an iOS device or web browser, to *upload* music to their cloud you need to use their proprietary software which doesn’t work on GNU/Linux.
We could, of course, run iTunes in WINE – except that downloading iTunes requires some Windows-only hackery that means you can’t do it from a browser running on GNU/Linux as far as I can tell.
This sort of thing is why I normally avoid both closed devices and non-free software, and why I have a loathing for Apple and all its workings that sends me into a blood-boiling rage whenever the name of Steve Jobs is mentioned. But happily, I have a single piece of non-free software installed on my machine, and that software provides a solution.
If you have a Spotify premium account (and it is *well* worth it if you don’t and you love music – unfortunately new accounts require a Facebook account (older ones didn’t), but there’s nothing to stop you creating a FB account with a disposable email address and never using it again if you don’t want an account there) and wireless internet you can do the following.
First, allow Spotify to see the local files you want to sync. You do this by going to edit->preferences and then clicking “Add source” under “Local Files”.
Next, create a playlist of those files.
Now connect your iOS device to the same wireless router your GNU/Linux box is connected to, and from the App store, download Spotify. Log onto Spotify with the same ID you use on the GNU/Linux machine. Within a few seconds, your iOS device should show up under ‘devices’. Click on it.
It will show a list of all your Spotify playlists, with a checkbox in the top left hand corner of each. Check the playlist you have created of your MP3s, and they will be copied across to your iOS device, where you can play them in Spotify (you can’t play them in iTunes this way, but you can play them).
While Spotify won’t let the same user play streaming music on multiple devices simultaneously, it *will* let the same user play *local* files on as many devices as you want, so this can be used for multiple iOS devices.
Unfortunately, for those of you who want to watch video, I know of no way to sync video between iOS devices and GNU/Linux computers, but this way works very well for MP3s.
(For those of you running OpenSolaris, one of the BSDs or some other odd OS, Spotify works extremely well in WINE on Debian, and I imagine it will work equally well on any OS on which WINE is supported)
More Helpful Answers To Lost Searchers
Being the second in an occasional series for people who’ve got here looking for things I haven’t yet helped them with. Here are search terms that have arrived here in the last week, and my advice to them:
what film should i watch?
Doctor Strangelove. It’s very funny, and directed by Kubrick, and Peter Sellers is great in it. If you’re following the Bechdel rule, then I’d suggest Ghost World.
song that goes i am i am i am super man
MANY people have searched for this or something similar. The song you’re after is Superman, originally recorded by 60s band The Clique, but you’re probably after the cover version by REM from the album Lifes Rich Pageant.
“foskett first worked with brian wilson”
Jeff Foskett joined the touring Beach Boys in 1981, replacing Carl Wilson who had quit the band for a while at the time, so that will have been the first time he worked with Wilson. He remained with the band until 1990, and joined Brian Wilson’s touring band in 1999.
how wealthy is bruce wayne
Currently Bruce Wayne is stuck on prehistoric Earth with nothing but his wits to get by. When he gets back to our time, he will be one of the two or three wealthiest men in the world again.
batman after final crisis
The situation with Batman is currently up in the air, as about a thousand useless miniseries are coming out, but Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely will be doing a Batman And Robin series in May, which will presumably be the one you need to read if you want to follow the threads from Morrison’s Final Crisis.
will the real smile album ever be releas
I’m sorry to take it out on you, anonymous searcher, but I get sick of Beach Boys fans saying they want ‘the real Smile album’ to come out. What, exactly, do you want? The Beach Boys put out an album, Smiley Smile, based on that material, in 1967, and it was a great album. Then on the Good Vibrations box set in 1993 a compilation of Smile recordings that was about as long as a typical 60s album came out, and it was pretty good. Then in 2004 Brian Wilson released a finished, complete piece rerecording of the whole thing from start to finish, and it was an absolute masterpiece.
By my count that’s *three* ‘real smile albums’ that have come out – and any *one* of them can stand with the best music ever released. But that’s not good enough for you, is it? Your sense of entitlement is so huge you want to keep bothering a sick man to revisit one of the most painful periods of his life – a period he’s repeatedly stated he hates thinking about – and you’ll never, ever, let him move past that. No matter what the poor man does, it’ll never be good enough for you because you want an imaginary perfect album rather than anything that can ever exist in reality.
Well, fuck you. If your idea of fun is to pester people with severe mental illnesses and never let them get on with their lives, fuck you. If three fantastic albums aren’t good enough for you, fuck you, you selfish, whinging, entitled prick. I hope all your Sea Of Tunes and Vigotone and Project Smile CDs get burned in a fire and the only Beach Boys music you have left is a copy of Looking Back With Love.
word finishing in ence
Evidence. Hope that helps.
blue beetle theological implications
Well, I’m no theologian, but the only thing in Blue Beetle that appears to have any theological implications to me is the confirmation in one of the later issues that the DC Universe behaves according to an implicate order version of quantum mechanics, a la the theories of David Bohm. The implicate order interpretations, which assume an underlying order behind the apparent randomness in quantum behaviour, are much favoured by more mystical religious people, and there’s even a branch of study called quantum theology, which you might want to look into, though it looks like utter piffle to me.
guardian national salary leak
I presume you’re referring to this – the tax-scrounging scum Barclays taking taxpayers’ money and then using it to prevent the Grauniad reporting their tax avoidance. Don’t let the bastards get away with it. Link this from your own blog.
why didnt the beach boys release soulful
The released version of Soulful Old Man Sunshine is actually a composite of several takes that were never put together properly while the band were still together. The official reason it was never released was because Carl Wilson was unhappy with his vocal, especially when he slurs “shoulful old man shunshine”, but I suspect it’s just because no-one in the Beach Boys seems to have heard of the concept of ‘quality control’, with all their releases since about 1970 essentially being put together at random (“let’s not release Fourth Of July, but put Take A Load Off Your Feet on the album instead”, “No, let’s not put out Still I Dream Of It – Hey Little Tomboy is clearly the song to keep from these sessions”)
jack nitzsche lost that lovin feeling
Actually, that’s one of the few Spector records that Nitzsche didn’t work on. Gene Page arranged it, in an imitation of Nitzsche’s style.
which strips great outdoor fight book?
The Great Outdoor Fight starts here.
Nicola Bryant wank
Oh, go away.
In Which Your Problems Are Solved…
One good thing about using wordpress is that you get to see what people are searching for when they land on your page. It’s quite instructive to see what things you’re writing are actually drawing in readers (a quite staggering number of people get here looking for information about Glenn Tilbrook, who I’ve only written one post about, for example).
However, there are some people who appear to be looking for things which I won’t have helped them with, and some where I honestly can’t imagine how they got here. However, wishing to always be helpful, I will try to answer as many of the queries of these poor lost wanderers as possible:
“maumamayama”
It’s a made up word. Honestly. No matter how many times you search for it (and some of you are searching a lot) you won’t find anything that isn’t related to the Brian Wilson album. It’s not any kind of secret sanskrit chant or anything – just mouth noises.
“grant morrison music”
Never heard any myself, but try doing a search for “The Fauves”.
“wall street village day- four seasons ly”
They’re not out there on the internet (I’ve looked), but if you’re not naughty and actually buy the album rather than downloading the MP3s (unlike, er, myself – but I do have the excuse that it was out of print at the time) they’re printed on the cover.
“dvd recorder picture wobbles only on itv”
Try unplugging the SCART lead then plugging it back in.
“woody allen final crisis grant morrison”
That’s not actually Woody Allen, it’s a character called Merryman from an old parody superhero team called The Inferior Five. Morrison also used him in Animal Man.
“porno very old nanoman”
I don’t even want to think about whatever it is you’re looking for, I’m afraid.
“mental health comics”
Depends what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for comics *about* mental health issues, then I highly recommend Chester Brown’s autobiographical “My Mother Was A Schizophrenic” (reprinted in The Little Man: Short Strips 1980 – 1995 ) – there’s definitely a version floating around on the net too, but I can’t find it. However, I’d warn you not to just accept the stuff he says about R.D. Laing uncritically – Brown’s both quite a dogmatic libertarian and someone who’s had to come to terms with his mother’s mental illness, and his support of Laing’s ideas seems more based around those two things than the merits of Laing’s views.
If you’re looking for comics created by someone with mental health issues, then get hold of Cerebus by Dave Sim, who is both the greatest comic creator ever and quite seriously mentally ill.
“torrent wondermints”
I would not advocate downloading bittorrents of any of the Wondermints’ official releases – they’re not exactly multi-millionaires, and they probably need the money from legitimate sales. However, the wonderful Power Pop Criminals blog did upload a compilation of their early demo cassettes, which should still be downloadable here (clicking the title on that page will take you to a rapidshare site with a .rar file of the CDs).
“”now people” century love affair”
If you want a copy of The Last Great Twentieth Century Love Affair by the Now People, I suggest you try Amazon. If you just want to read a review of it, it’s on my to-do list. It’s a very good album, though.
“christian music”
I suggest Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring by Bach, Brian Wilson’s version of Joy To The World, any of Al Green’s gospel albums, Handel’s Messiah, anything by the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, and anything by the Staples Singers.
‘”inform 7″ errors’
These should be reported to Graham Nelson using the form at http://inform-fiction.org
“timmy mallet descendant of the queen”
Either someone has been keeping a *very* juicy scandal from me, or you’re not going to get very far looking for this.
“nicola bryant cleavage”
Try the DVD of The Two Doctors, although personally I’m more interested in Ms Bryant’s acting than in her cleavage. I can’t be of any help for the person who searched for “nicola bryant spandex” though…
And some I can’t be of any help with at all:
“guignol prostitute omega”
“circle jerk stories”
“best blog post ever”
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