08.20.05
Bookmarking Tracks on an iPod
For some reason I can’t seem to leave comments on Jim’s blog, so instead I’ll comment on his iPod bookmarking travails here. There are two ways to bookmark files in iTunes and on an iPod, and which you choose depends largely on how you get your tracks into iTunes in the first place.
For podcasts, as long as you’re using iTunes 4.9 (the latest version, as of this writing) even MP3 files should be bookmarkable with no modification whatsoever—but in order for iTunes to know that the track is supposed to be a podcast, you have to use the built-in RSS reader. In other words, as long as the podcast is coming in via the built-in “Podcasts” section in iTunes, and appears in a dedicated “Podcasts” category on the iPod (separate from the rest of your music files), it should just work.
If it doesn’t, or if you need to get the files into your iTunes library by some other means (like NetNewsWire or the like), converting the files to AAC is a good first step. But AAC files aren’t bookmarked by default, because for most music files that would just be annoying—most of the time when you stop listening to a song before it’s over, you don’t want to pick up where you left off next time; you just want to listen to the song again from the beginning. But if you change the file’s extension from .m4a to .m4b, iTunes and the iPod will see the track as an audiobook, and will insert a bookmark whenever you stop playback. You can change the file extension manually, or via a handy Applescript.
Jim Said:
August 26, 2005 at 7:14 am
Hey Nicholas,
Thanks for the info! I was trying to bookmark using the Select button—I assumed it would just be another screen that you cycled through, like the rating. It never crossed my mind that Pause would set a bookmark.
Sorry about the comment problem, I’ll have to look into that. Can you tell me what sort of trouble you were having? I’m guessing this might have something to do with my spam blocker, so as a first step I’ll turn that off.
Jim
Nicholas Said:
August 26, 2005 at 10:12 am
Well, when I attempted to leave a comment, it just reloaded the page without my comment on it. No error message or anything—just the original page.
I do have one clue (and I meant to bring this up Wednesday, actually, but forgot): when I looked at one of your posts on a Windows machine a few days ago, I noticed a question in the comments form that was presumably put there by your spam blocker (something about a flower that rhymes with ‘nose,’ I think). That question never displayed on my PowerBook, looking at your page in Safari. So I’m guessing that when I submitted my comment without the answer to the security question, your spam blocker ignored it. What I don’t know, however, is why the question didn’t display on my PowerBook. Might be some sort of JavaScript/DOM issue.
Out of curiosity, which spam blocker are you using? I’ve been using Spam Karma 2 and have had excellent results from it.
Jim Said:
August 26, 2005 at 9:17 pm
Until today, I was using WP-Gatekeeper, but I disabled it about the time I made my first comment on this post. I’m going to go check out Spam Karma, but for tonight I will leave my spam defenses down.
I’ve noticed several problems with Safari in the past. I pretty much stick with Firefox (and Camino to a lesser extent) because of it. I’m not enough of a web guru to know if the fault is Safari’s or WordPress’s or something in between.
SonicChicken weblog » Blog Archive » Spam Karma 2 installed Said:
August 26, 2005 at 10:22 pm
[...] I read a post today on Nicholas’ blog which indicated that he was having trouble commenting on my site. I’ve had other commenting problems (1, 2) in the past which have been traced to my spam-blocker, WP-Gatekeeper. I haven’t spent any effort on the current problem, I’m just assuming that gatekeeper is at fault, so I disabled this plugin and installed Spam Karma 2 since Nicholas seems to be getting good results with it. I’m not sure what Joseph is using nowadays, but gatekeeper may be doing the trick for him–I found out a few days ago that he hand-rolled his crisp minimalist theme, and perhaps gatekeeper plays well with such a setup. [...]