Ordinary Superhero » hint

Podcast Novel Ordering Solution

Brian Sargent — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 13:37:14 +0000

I’ve been listening to lots of podcasts recently and particularly enjoying the Solar Clipper series. My main problem has been that the iPod Touch defaults to playing the newest podcast first, so that I always have to skip backwards to get to the next episode. I found a neat little solution for this that I thought I should share. It only really works for completed podcasts, or podcast novels though.

I downloaded all of the podcasts to iTunes, then selected the podcast and selected “Get Info” from the right-click menu. I then changed the content type form Podcast to Audiobook. This moves the completed podcast into the audiobook section and gives you correct ordering – sweet!

Solution: Mail Sync failing on G1

Brian Sargent — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:16:16 +0000

Fail Road by Fireflythegreat

I’ve had a problem with my G1 for the past week or two and today I found a solution. My Gmail wouldn’t sync with the device in the same way that it had before. It seemed to be stuck in the past and I couldn’t send or receive any new email using the Gmail app. There was always a big button at the end of my inbox saying “No Conection” with a “Retry” button that didn’t seem to help.

Today I found the solution for the problem on the Google help pages, via the androidcommunity site, and it simply involves clearing the app’s storage.

iPod Hint: Quick Playback Access With a Double-Click

Brian Sargent — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:40:11 +0000

The DoubleClick Menu

Okay, so I’m probably the last person to find this (and it’s probably in the manual which I’ve never bothered to read) but I’ve discovered that a doubleclick on the iPod’s circular button brings up a little control panel for the music settings, allowing you to resume listening, skip forwards and backward and adjust the volume. I find it particularly useless when battling with apps which won’t let you listen to what you’d like to listen to.

Itunes Hint: locate your Library on an External Drive

Brian Sargent — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:02:15 +0000

Having finally submitted to the march of the iPod (after loving my iriver and i-audio x5) I’ve had to come to terms with iTunes.

I’m no iTunes fan – never have been – but it’s actually not as bad as I thought it would be. It’s picky and clunky in parts (and i won’t get started on my obsession with album art) but I’m learning to live with it, if not love it.

My main problem is that I keep my iTunes library on an external drive, my laptop not having enough space. This usually works okay but sometimes iTunes forgets where the library is, re-sets the location to my local disk, and I lose the ability to play all of my tunes. Every time I try to play something I get the error

I scouted around on the internet for a script or something to re-associate the files until I found a very simple solution – tell iTunes where the library is. In the settings for Itunes you can specify where the music is located and, once I do that, it finds all of my tracks again. Some things are so simple I have to be told what to do.