iTunes Questions from a Newbie

[Jason Dunn]

I decided to install iTunes and take it for a spin, to really use it, and see how it works. Initial installation was fast and simple, though the download size of 30 MB was a bit surprising (Quicktime is in there as well though). I declined to have it search for my music initially. After it loaded, I was impressed when I saw my network attached storage, a Maxtor Shared Storage drive, appearing in the list. I knew I had enabled the iTunes server functionality on it, so when I clicked on it in iTunes I was expecting to see a list of music. Instead, iTunes says "Loading LANDrive Music Jukebox" for several seconds (LANdrive is the name I gave it) then it simply pops back to the root library. I tried it several times, made sure that the NAS drive was configured properly, but no dive. I did a Google search and couldn't find any suggestions on what to try. Has anyone else seen a similar problem?

Giving up on the easy approach, I used the "Add Folder To Library" function to import music from the NAS drive manually over the network. It took perhaps 5-6 hours before it was finished indexing the songs, finding album art, and generating gapless playback profiles (I think that's what it said it was doing). What I didn't like was how during the initial scan (which took a couple of hours) the scanning window was locked - I couldn't use iTunes at all. Windows Media Player 11 is much smoother in this regard. Here's another problem I'm having: I've added music via the "Add Folder", but it doesn't seem to monitor that folder for new music. I added a new CD to the NAS drive, but it's been 30 minutes now and iTunes hasn't picked it up. I can find no option or setting related to folder monitoring - and in fact the help file has no mention of the word monitoring as it related to folders. So what am I missing here? How do you use iTunes with a NAS drive and have it scan for new music that you add?

The iTunes store is quite easy to use, though I haven't purchased any tracks yet - but how do you listen to samples from an entire album at once? So far it seems I have to double-click on each track one at a time, and there's no right-click functionality other than Copy. I don't know if it's a local problem with my ISP (my speed tests came back ok), but I'm also finding using the iTunes store very slow today - it's taking 20-30 seconds for every request to process and load a new page. Does the iTunes store have good days and bad days in terms of performance?

[Felix Torres]

Here's another problem I'm having: I've added music via the "Add Folder", but it doesn't seem to monitor that folder for new music. I added a new CD to the NAS drive, but it's been 30 minutes now and iTunes hasn't picked it up. I can find no option or setting related to folder monitoring - and in fact the help file has no mention of the word monitoring as it related to folders. So what am I missing here? How do you use iTunes with a NAS drive and have it scan for new music that you add?


From what I've heard, iTunes doesn't monitor anything.
It assumes all music originates with it so why should it have to monitor anything? 8)

You're not using it way god and mr Jobs intended it to be used, you naughty boy.
Mend your ways and you shall find happiness. :wink:

[Vincent Ferrari]

In the interest of not being as snarky as fellow reviewer Felix (j/k), the true reason is that you're meant to manage your library with iTunes, not manage it with Explorer and monitor it with iTunes, that's why you don't see anything about monitoring; it's not the way iTunes works.

As for iTunes...

Go to preferences, sharing, and just make sure Look for Shared Libraries is checked. Other than that, there's really nothing you can do... Usually sharing in iTunes is as complicated as having two machines on the same subnet with iTunes running at the same time; the beauty of Bonjour.

[Phronetix]

Jason,

First, regarding the iTMS, it is snappy for me from my iMac at home in Cochrane, using Shaw xTreme cable.

Second, with respect to configuring your music library on another disk, this (http://www.tuaw.com/2006/09/19/how-to-keep-your-itunes-library-on-an-external-hard-drive/) should help. It is from TUAW, The Unoffical Apple Weblog - one of my favorite places, and it goes into enough detail I believe. The assumption I am making is that your NAS drive will in fact work with iTunes.

Cheers,
Dennis

[Jason Dunn]

From what I've heard, iTunes doesn't monitor anything.
It assumes all music originates with it so why should it have to monitor anything? 8)

That's what I was afraid of, but I was hoping that it wasn't as lame as I was thinking it was... :cry:

[Vincent Ferrari]

That's not lame, it's just a different philosophy... :)

[Jason Dunn]

...is that you're meant to manage your library with iTunes, not manage it with Explorer and monitor it with iTunes, that's why you don't see anything about monitoring; it's not the way iTunes works.

<takes a deep breath> Ok, I'm going to NOT say all the harsh things that come to my mind about why Apple would do this, and instead ask a simple question: you mean to tell me that, in the Apple world, no one has a music collection that's too big for the hard drive in their Mac? Or no one ever wanted to centralize their music so that other computers can access it - what do you do if your music is on a Mac laptop, and you leave carrying that laptop - no other computers in the house can listen to music? Doesn't that strike you as, uh, a bit...limited?

I think it IS possible somehow, because the Maxtor NAS drive is, I believe, supposed to show up in iTunes - it's a music server or something. That fact that it DID show up is promising, I just can't figure out why when I click on it nothing happens and it pops me back to my root library. Why is there no error or message? That's bad software design.

Go to preferences, sharing, and just make sure Look for Shared Libraries is checked. Other than that, there's really nothing you can do...

Yeah, that's checked off. Interestingly enough, when I un-check it and restart iTunes, my NAS drive no longer shows up. When I re-check the box, the NAS drive shows up again. So I think I can see what's SUPPOSED to happen here - and it's pretty cool - but some glitch is stopping it from working...

[Jason Dunn]

Second, with respect to configuring your music library on another disk, this (http://www.tuaw.com/2006/09/19/how-to-keep-your-itunes-library-on-an-external-hard-drive/) should help.

Hrm. That's not exactly what I was looking for - I'm fine with the database, XML files, and album art being on the hard drive of this laptop. What I don't want is all the music to be on it. What I want is to leave all the music on a big, centralized hard drive and have iTunes simply too to it for music. That doesn't seem to be possible at this point.

I tried changing the location of the iTunes library - specifying the NAS drive - and it's in the process of "Updating iTunes Library"...we'll see what happens when that's done. I can think of a very convoluted way of making this work, but it's so ugly I'd want to avoid it.

[Vincent Ferrari]

<my turn to take a deeper breath>
Ok, I'm going to NOT say all the harsh things that come to my mind about why Apple would do this, and instead ask a simple question: you mean to tell me that, in the Apple world, no one has a music collection that's too big for the hard drive in their Mac?

Assuming you don't literally mean "no one" I would say sure there are others with similar problems. One way to work around it is to set iTunes to not copy the music to your iTunes folder when you add it to the library. Then media can exist on everything under the sun and you would just connect to it.

Or no one ever wanted to centralize their music so that other computers can access it - what do you do if your music is on a Mac laptop, and you leave carrying that laptop - no other computers in the house can listen to music? Doesn't that strike you as, uh, a bit...limited?

Every bit of music I own is on my iPod and it's only half full. Every bit of music my wife owns is on her iPod. Whether or not it's on some computer that happens to not be present is utterly irrelevant to both of us, and I'm sure there are plenty of others who have similar arrangements, so now, I don't find it limiting.

I would find it more limiting to have a song I really like, take my laptop out of town, only to find out it's on a shared drive at home.

[Jason Dunn]

That's not lame, it's just a different philosophy... :)

Come on man, take off your fanboy hat for a moment and be critical of Apple for once. :twisted:

[Jason Dunn]

I've also noticed that iTunes is much slower to start streaming music off my NAS drive than WMP11 is.

Is there ANYONE using iTunes with a NAS drive? Speak up please. 8)

[Vincent Ferrari]

As soon as you take off your "Apple does it the wrong way" shirt. :D

[Vincent Ferrari]

Weird. I stream my music to my office over Hamachi from my iMac at home to my desktop at the office and it's pretty damned quick considering it's over teh internets and all... :?

[Jason Eaton]

I was going to chime in later when I could get home and check out my setup but I see this is already causing a ruckus.

The big question is, where do you want to store your music? If the answer is 'All in one spot' then you can use a NAS. There are a couple ways to do it naturally but the big part is to go under Preferences, then Advanced pane, and click on the General tab. In there press change to tell it where your music library is stored. Poof. Select the NAS as its location and it will play anything in the iTunes folder there.

Then just do the same for any other iTunes account that access the NAS and authorize the computer and your good.

You can also do it by dropping a shortcut or alias to the NAS location in the original iTunes folder and skip the preferrence part.

Multiple Libraries... sorta
With iTunes 7 you can now also have multiple libraries that are seperate from each other, just in case you wanted to... press shift (windows) or option (OS X) when launching iTunes and it will ask which library you want....

Anyhoots, let me go re-read the original thread inbetween meetings and running around never helps.

[Janak Parekh]

After it loaded, I was impressed when I saw my network attached storage, a Maxtor Shared Storage drive, appearing in the list. I knew I had enabled the iTunes server functionality on it, so when I clicked on it in iTunes I was expecting to see a list of music. Instead, iTunes says "Loading LANDrive Music Jukebox" for several seconds (LANdrive is the name I gave it) then it simply pops back to the root library. I tried it several times, made sure that the NAS drive was configured properly, but no dive. I did a Google search and couldn't find any suggestions on what to try. Has anyone else seen a similar problem?
Nope, never used a NAS for my music. I would contact Maxtor. <shrug>

Giving up on the easy approach, I used the "Add Folder To Library" function to import music from the NAS drive manually over the network. It took perhaps 5-6 hours before it was finished indexing the songs, finding album art, and generating gapless playback profiles (I think that's what it said it was doing). What I didn't like was how during the initial scan (which took a couple of hours) the scanning window was locked - I couldn't use iTunes at all.
Wow, that's long. :( If you add files from a local hard drive, it usually takes a few minutes.

I can find no option or setting related to folder monitoring - and in fact the help file has no mention of the word monitoring as it related to folders. So what am I missing here? How do you use iTunes with a NAS drive and have it scan for new music that you add?
As Vinnie said, you use iTunes to manage music. The fundamental philosophy here is that an "average end-user" doesn't want to have to worry about filesystems, folders, and files; instead, they work with iTunes, rip music straight into it, buy tracks straight into it, burn CDs with it, and copy tracks to the iPod from it. Does this always accommodate the power user? Not necessarily. For me, though, it's more than sufficient. I prefer it than the complex folder monitoring model that WMP11 uses, and with which I've had trouble in the past.

The iTunes store is quite easy to use, though I haven't purchased any tracks yet - but how do you listen to samples from an entire album at once? So far it seems I have to double-click on each track one at a time, and there's no right-click functionality other than Copy.
I don't think there's a way to listen to small clips of every track automatically.

I don't know if it's a local problem with my ISP (my speed tests came back ok), but I'm also finding using the iTunes store very slow today - it's taking 20-30 seconds for every request to process and load a new page. Does the iTunes store have good days and bad days in terms of performance?
In general, it's got decent response time. The only time I notice significant slowdowns is when Apple does/announces something major.

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

That's not lame, it's just a different philosophy... :)
Come on man, take off your fanboy hat for a moment and be critical of Apple for once. :twisted:
Vinnie gave an appropriately tongue-in-cheek response, but for a more literal one: I don't see anything wrong with Apple's philosophy. I used to manage music by hand, and I personally hated it. <shrug>

--janak

[Janak Parekh]

you mean to tell me that, in the Apple world, no one has a music collection that's too big for the hard drive in their Mac? Or no one ever wanted to centralize their music so that other computers can access it - what do you do if your music is on a Mac laptop, and you leave carrying that laptop - no other computers in the house can listen to music? Doesn't that strike you as, uh, a bit...limited?
Well, the solution is to have a server on which iTunes Music Sharing is enabled. Between PCs/Macs, iTunes Music Sharing is extremely reliable. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if market research suggested people keep very different music collections, even in the same family.

I think it IS possible somehow, because the Maxtor NAS drive is, I believe, supposed to show up in iTunes - it's a music server or something. That fact that it DID show up is promising, I just can't figure out why when I click on it nothing happens and it pops me back to my root library. Why is there no error or message? That's bad software design.
If it's an iTunes bug, then yes, it is. However, how do we know that Maxtor isn't properly advertising the music to iTunes, and is instead just advertising an empty library?

--janak

[Vincent Ferrari]

That's not lame, it's just a different philosophy... :)
Come on man, take off your fanboy hat for a moment and be critical of Apple for once. :twisted:
Vinnie gave an appropriately tongue-in-cheek response, but for a more literal one: I don't see anything wrong with Apple's philosophy. I used to manage music by hand, and I personally hated it. <shrug>

--janak

I never realized how much I hated it until I stopped doing it.

[Jason Eaton]

(return of the babbling idiot)

Making some quick assumptions, the music on the NAS drive is from a pervious collection, the folder structure is probably something like 'Music/devo/whipit.mp3'.

Can you open iTunes, go to preferences, change library storage location to the NAS drive through the browse function, insert the Devo cd and rip a song with iTunes, then use explorer to view the NAS drive?

I am not sure what the maxtor NAS iTunes features are doing, but I have a hunch it isn't anything fancier then making the drive look like an external drive (alibet over a network router instead of attached to the local machine).

If that is the case iTunes sees the NAS as a drive, but because it doesn't know any files that are stored on it and treats it as blank. (shows up in iTunes but nothing happens or shows.)

If all rings true to here, you would then need to add a folder of music (the NAS drive), let it make its xml file that points to all your music then it should know what its on the drive (but it would be aware of only the music at the time nothing new added)

.....(debates erasing and just writing when he has more time).....

[Jason Dunn]

One way to work around it is to set iTunes to not copy the music to your iTunes folder when you add it to the library. Then media can exist on everything under the sun and you would just connect to it.

Right, that's what I did. And that worked quite well - except because iTunes doesn't ever look at that folder for new music, there's no way to ever get new music into iTunes that have been dropped into that NAS drive...unless every time I add new music I go back into iTunes and ask it to re-import the contents of that folder. I don't think what I'm asking for is so crazy - Windows Media Player does it (albeit a bit poorly).

I think it's *hilarious* that you're defending the lack of a very simple feature that iTunes lacks - it's like it's not a good idea until Jobs tells you so or something. :lol:

[Jason Dunn]

As soon as you take off your "Apple does it the wrong way" shirt.

But I think you're misunderstanding me - I quite like much of iTunes, I'm simply pointing out that it doesn't seem to allow something very simple that Windows Media Player, Yahoo Music, and almost every other music software out there does: "Hey, look in folder XYZ for new music now and then."

iTunes allows you to pull in music from an external source, even on a network. That's cool. But they didn't finish the feature by polling that source for new music every now and then.

It's not rocket science people.

I betcha' if Apple sold a NAS product this would work better. :roll:

[Vincent Ferrari]

Dude, when you use Photoshop, do you bitch about it not being able to do vector graphics? No. Why? Because Photoshop was designed to do bitmap graphics.

Same thing here. iTunes was designed to play, manage, and use your media independent of the operating system it's running on. It's the way it's designed. You can't bitch about a tool not doing what you want if it was never designed to do what you want it to do.

That's the way iTunes works. No Apple fanboyism. No Steve Jobs worship.

But I guess if you want to keep pounding on this lack of a feature the program doesn't need because it doesn't work that way, I won't stand in your way. Pound away! But please stop chalking it up to some blind Apple fanboyism, because for all intents and purposes you're putting Janak in that same boat and I don't think he's an Apple fanboy.

Just sayin'. :wink:

[Jason Dunn]

The big question is, where do you want to store your music? If the answer is 'All in one spot' then you can use a NAS. There are a couple ways to do it naturally but the big part is to go under Preferences, then Advanced pane, and click on the General tab. In there press change to tell it where your music library is stored. Poof. Select the NAS as its location and it will play anything in the iTunes folder there.

Yes, that seems to be one solution. I've told iTunes that my library is here:

\\LANDRIVE\Music\My Music

It's working...kinda'. I added some new music to the NAS, an album, but only one song is showing up. Very odd. All are 256 kbps MP3s, nothing special.

So this is sort of working. Anyone have any idea as to why iTunes would show me one MP3 and not the rest?

[Vincent Ferrari]

How did you add the album?

[Jason Dunn]

Wow, that's long. :( If you add files from a local hard drive, it usually takes a few minutes.

Really? It can do all that with 10,000 songs in a few minutes? I know NAS makes things slower, but I would have thought even locally it would take an hour or two. Doesn't bother me too much, it's a one-time thing that can run overnight.

As Vinnie said, you use iTunes to manage music. The fundamental philosophy here is that an "average end-user" doesn't want to have to worry about filesystems, folders, and files; instead, they work with iTunes, rip music straight into it, buy tracks straight into it, burn CDs with it, and copy tracks to the iPod from it.

Sure, that's where some chaffing is happening - I use a freeware CD ripper that has massive error correction, bit by bit verification, and reports nicely back to me if it had any trouble reading the CD. I've used all sorts of different rippers over the years, and as a result it's SO frustrating to listen to a CD I ripped a year ago and hear popping/skipping, etc. So I need to use a program that will confirm for me, 100% of the time, that I have a perfect rip.

I certainly acknowledge that 99.999% of the people out there aren't going to do what I'm doing, and that using iTunes to rip CDs is much easier. But that explains why I can't do it the "easy" way this time. ;-)

[Jason Dunn]

Well, the solution is to have a server on which iTunes Music Sharing is enabled. Between PCs/Macs, iTunes Music Sharing is extremely reliable.

A server? Like a dedicated PC running iTunes? I can do that I suppose, but a NAS is a much more elegant solution - I never have to reboot it, it doesn't crash, etc. A PC is a more "vulnerable" solution.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if market research suggested people keep very different music collections, even in the same family.

Exactly! Which is why the NAS approach is becoming more common and more vital. The old way of having all your music, photos, and videos on your local hard drive is dying off - that's just not a practical method to manage large amounts of data. It gets even harder when you have some desktop PCs, some laptop PCs, and all of them have different bits of data you want to access. Centralizing is the answer. Slap all the media on a NAS with RAID for backup purposes, and every laptop, every PC, every Xbox, every digital device can access the content.

But as I pointed out earlier, since Apple has no NAS product, they don't think it's a good idea yet, and thus neither does any other Mac user in this thread. ;-)

If it's an iTunes bug, then yes, it is. However, how do we know that Maxtor isn't properly advertising the music to iTunes, and is instead just advertising an empty library?

Sure, anything is possible and I'll be contacting Maxtor about it. But even if it's an empty library, why would iTunes not just display an empty library? At the very least it should stay on the selection so I know "Hey, there's nothing there", or give me an error of some sort. The fault might be all Maxtor's, but I'd like to see iTunes be more helpful than doing the mystery jump.

[Jason Eaton]

...so there was this one time when my cat lept out of the fireplace carrying a burning twig in its mouth that I was trying to use as kindling...

... but what your talking about brings up odd memories of my mp3 phone days and windows media. I tried a high bit rate rip once or twice and ended up with non-standard mp3 files. They would play in windows media player but not show up with either my Sony PSP, LG vx8100, or iTunes. Somehow the file was an mp3 but not a standard one. Go figure. I re-ripped them as an mp3 with media monkey and things went better.

Maybe a bad rip and iTunes can't read it?

... anyways so I am chasing a cat, the fire is growing because of the added wind and the cat is running faster!...

...Okay it is offical. Work is now cutting into my web surfing habit... sigh...

[Jason Dunn]

Dude, when you use Photoshop, do you bitch about it not being able to do vector graphics? No. Why? Because Photoshop was designed to do bitmap graphics.

To use your example, it would be like Photoshop having a vector tool, but lacking something simple and obvious like a way to define new pivot points or something...iTunes allows me to add music from a network resource (cool!) but doesn't ever check that network resource for new music (not cool!). That's all I'm saying. It's not like I'm trashing iTunes as a whole - I'm been quite impressed with it.

But please stop chalking it up to some blind Apple fanboyism, because for all intents and purposes you're putting Janak in that same boat and I don't think he's an Apple fanboy.

Thing is, when it comes right down to it, you and everyone else in this thread defending Apple are telling me that iTunes should NOT have the ability to scan a remote folder for new music. I haven't heard a rational reason why what I'm asking for is a BAD idea, so yeah, that does look like fanboyism. Sorry guys, that's what I'm seeing here. Would having a check box for "Scan remote folder for new music every hour" on the pop-up folder selector window REALLY be a bad idea? Would it really confuse basic iTunes users?

It's like if I were to defend the "X" button not closing on the Pocket PC, just because Microsoft didn't design it that way - sometimes companies make bad design decisions and omit features that the product should have.

Why do you take this so personally? It's not like I'm calling your cat ugly. :D

[Jason Dunn]

How did you add the album?

I didn't add it using iTunes. I dragged and dropped the folder into my NAS music folder, which is now the folder iTunes is using now as it's root folder. The fact that it can see one song tells me that it's working properly in terms of the source path for music, etc.

[Jason Dunn]

...so there was this one time when my cat lept out of the fireplace carrying a burning twig in its mouth that I was trying to use as kindling... anyways so I am chasing a cat, the fire is growing because of the added wind and the cat is running faster!...

If you're saying that this minor spark of an issue has been fanned into a roaring flame, you're right, it has. All I want is iTunes to look at remote folders for new music - not such a big deal.

Maybe a bad rip and iTunes can't read it?

Possible...but they're just MP3s encoded with LAME, 256 kbps, CBR. Very basic stuff. The program I use does all sorts of verification, and the rip came up clean. The one track that does show up plays ok.

[tries something else]

Ok, I did a manual ADD FOLDER TO LIBRARY and after quite a while, it added it ok and now I can see all the songs and they play fine. So I don't think a bad rip was the issue...maybe just some random iTunes bug.

[Jason Eaton]

If you're saying that this minor spark of an issue has been fanned into a roaring flame, you're right, it has.

Si, Senior.

Here is the magic phrase, 'Is there a way outside of iTunes that will let iTunes monitor a folder?'

It is bailing wire and bubblegum but it gets the job done.

Click me for Leet Batch File Skills (http://lifehacker.com/software/itunes/hack-attack-automatically-sync-itunes-to-any-folders-175161.php)

Just being glib, or attempting to be, before the knives come out. I could tell you the script function but you don't run an Apple. :wink:

[Tim Williamson]

I've resorted to verifying the tags, file names, and album art on any new CD's I've ripped with MediaMonkey. Then I copy the files to the iTunes library folder and drag the new folder into my iTunes window to add the music to my library.

This method forces me to keep on top of my MP3 tags and helps me stay organized, but it can be a pain sometimes. I wish iTunes would just have monitored folders.

The main reason I've stuck with iTunes for the last few months is because the synchronization with my iPod is flawless and the Smart Playlists are an AWESOME feature. I wish scrolling through my library would be a little smoother in iTunes (I have a 3 GHz PC so I don't know why it scrolls so slow). If it could be as smooth as Picasa scrolling that would be great! :)

[Jason Dunn]

I wish iTunes would just have monitored folders

Ok, so I'm not the only one! :lol:

[cptpoland]

I don't understand why this is such a big deal. My iTunes library is sitting on my NAS drive. When I rip a cd using a 3rd party program, I just take the folder I ripped and drop it on iTunes. iTunes then imports it into the library and puts it nicely into a folder named by the artist. If there are more albums of that artists, they are all organized inside the artist folder. All done by iTunes itself. I don't have to worry about folders being all over the place. Too boot the main folder that iTunes uses, is being shared by my media center pc. Everything, and everybody is happy.
Trust me it is not a big deal.

Mac

[Vincent Ferrari]

To use your example, it would be like Photoshop having a vector tool, but lacking something simple and obvious like a way to define new pivot points or something...iTunes allows me to add music from a network resource (cool!) but doesn't ever check that network resource for new music (not cool!). That's all I'm saying. It's not like I'm trashing iTunes as a whole - I'm been quite impressed with it.

It doesn't check the resource because you aren't supposed to put stuff directly on the resource; you're supposed to put them in through iTunes. You're thinking in terms of another player and wondering why iTunes doesn't work the same way.

Thing is, when it comes right down to it, you and everyone else in this thread defending Apple are telling me that iTunes should NOT have the ability to scan a remote folder for new music. I haven't heard a rational reason why what I'm asking for is a BAD idea, so yeah, that does look like fanboyism. Sorry guys, that's what I'm seeing here. Would having a check box for "Scan remote folder for new music every hour" on the pop-up folder selector window REALLY be a bad idea? Would it really confuse basic iTunes users?

Never said it was; it just wasn't meant to work that way. It also wouldn't be a bad idea if you could save the stuff you share from one computer to another. Doesn't do that either. Fanboyism would be "Apple's doing this way, so it's great." Not one person here said that. It's more like "Apple does it this way whether you like it or not." No fanboyism. I'm not cheerleading it. I'm just telling it like it is. Apple designed iTunes to manage your library, not to read your pre-managed library. Maybe some guy had it in for file managers. Who knows. The point is, that's the way it is, and that's why it doesn't monitor folders.

It's like if I were to defend the "X" button not closing on the Pocket PC, just because Microsoft didn't design it that way - sometimes companies make bad design decisions and omit features that the product should have.

Agreed. But when the software is intended as an all-encompassing media manager and is designed to keep people from twiddling around with folder structure (conjecture on my part, but the evidence is clear), not having a feature that monitors a folder is not a design omission or mistake, it's part of the overall design of the product. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but the fact that it isn't there is consistent with what iTunes was meant to be. You rip your songs with it, manage the underlying folders with it, buy songs / movies / videos / games from it, and everything, but you don't screw with the underlying folders or go into them directly.

Why do you take this so personally?
Believe me I don't, I just want to make sure that criticisms of iTunes are valid ones (for instance, it won't transcode videos from one format to iPod format; that's just dumb!). It was never designed to do what you want to do which is why it doesn't have the monitor feature ;-) No personal-ness.

It's not like I'm calling your cat ugly. :D
Then we'd have a problem! :lol:

[Jason Dunn]

I don't understand why this is such a big deal. My iTunes library is sitting on my NAS drive. When I rip a cd using a 3rd party program, I just take the folder I ripped and drop it on iTunes.

Hmm - interesting. I hadn't thought of doing it that way (I'm an iTunes newbie after all!). In my case, the computer I rip the CDs on isn't running iTunes, so that wouldn't exactly work, but this is certainly one possible solution.

[Jason Dunn]

...I just want to make sure that criticisms of iTunes are valid ones...

Come on man, the site is DIGITAL MEDIA THOUGHTS. It's about personal opinions, and my original post is about my experience really sitting down to use iTunes for the first time. You might not agree with me, but to call my criticism "invalid" is just plain insulting. :? It's not like I was complaining about iTunes not cooking a potroast - THAT would be an invalid criticism.

No more from me on this thread, it's gone beyond stupid.

[cptpoland]

If the "ripping"system is not running iTunes, then I would share one folder and put the rips into that folder, then map that folder on the system that has itunes on it. After the rips are done, just jump on the itunes system and drag the music from the shared folder onto itunes. Done.

:P

Mac

[Darius Wey]

The iTunes store is quite easy to use, though I haven't purchased any tracks yet - but how do you listen to samples from an entire album at once? So far it seems I have to double-click on each track one at a time, and there's no right-click functionality other than Copy.

Fruity 1.0 (http://www.liquidx.net/fruity/) - it's free, it's great, though it's for Mac OS X only.

I don't know if it's a local problem with my ISP (my speed tests came back ok), but I'm also finding using the iTunes store very slow today - it's taking 20-30 seconds for every request to process and load a new page. Does the iTunes store have good days and bad days in terms of performance?

The iTunes Store is usually fast. On my connection (8Mbps), swapping pages takes 1-2 seconds, and track previews commence instantaneously.

[Anthony Caruana]

I didn't add it using iTunes. I dragged and dropped the folder into my NAS music folder, which is now the folder iTunes is using now as it's root folder. The fact that it can see one song tells me that it's working properly in terms of the source path for music, etc.

Greetings

Great discussion topic - I don't use a NAS for my iTunes library but I reckon I have something to add.

I'm surprised that one track appeared. I'd have expected NONE to appear. After adding the folder to the NAS - did you double click the first track to play it? If you did that may be why it appeared but none of the others did.

After copying the folder with the new tracks over, drag the folder onto iTunes - that'll add the contents to the library, find the album art, etc.

FWIW - I only learned all this after the iTunes library file on my Mac become corrupted and I had to recreate my library.

Good luck

PS - iPod accessories giveaway at www.thepdaguy.com - scroll down for the iPod case review for a chance to win it!

[ptyork]

Check out http://lifehacker.com/software/itunes/hack-attack-automatically-sync-itunes-to-any-folders-175161.php

Personally, I'd go with the point-itunes-to-your-nas-and-let-itunes-manage-it solution (itunes does a great job of managing folders--very cool actually), but this looks like something interesting at least. The program is open source, so it should be easy to modify at some point to automatically monitor a folder and add a specific file each time one is added (the capability to monitor a folder without polling is built into Windows since Windows NT 3.0). Anyway, I haven't tried it, so if you do, let me know how it goes...

[Phronetix]

Well, this has been an interesting thread. Here's a few observations:

1. As a loyal Apple fanboy, I would have loved to get my feet wet, but I am far too wrapped up in my church dinner theatre.
2. I must commend Jason for giving iTunes a go. I wish you didn't have so many roadblocks with it, and I recognize that you acknowledged your use to not be typical. And let's face it, it is not typical among Apple users either, but I have been eyeing a NAS drive recently. I'm going to wait to see what the iTV turns out to be.
3. It is interesting that until the later posts I never would have considered that you didn't try to import your music via iTunes. For most longtime Apple users, this is illogical. If you want to import music, you drag your music cd icon and drop on the jukebox software (almost always iTunes) and in this way you add to library. Easy, but perhaps not in a positive way.
4. I add my vote that Apple should support NAS drives better, especially if the drives bother to support iTunes.
5. Regarding monitoring folders, I think that if you consider my point of view in number 3 above, it would not make sense for Apple to consider adding such a feature.
6. Yes, dammit, criticism of Apple is very allowed. They are not perfect, by any stretch. And because they update their OS regularly (Ahem!) their music software will also see frequent revisions, so I would suggest that Jason write his concerns to Apple, with a link to this thread.
7. Ever notice how the Apple-related threads are the juiciest? Pun intended.

Cheers all!

Dennis