20
Jan
I was bumming around on last.fm today and started to wonderin’ about a couple issues involved in organizing large music collections and I thought I’d pose some questions to my three readers. I am up in the air about these three questions so following in each question is my current thoughts and dilemma.
1. How do you handle tagging multi-artist albums?
For instance I have a bunch of split albums and the artists don’t necessarily collaborate on the songs. So I think I should put which artist did the recording in the Artist tag but then sorting by artist ends up with a bunch of weird half albums but I am not sure that matters. And then there’s the question of songs that have other artists on them like Billy Joe Shaver’s “Get Thee Behind Me Satan” with John Michael Montgomery. If I add in John Michael’s name then I have a new “Artist” with one song and not an accurate Artist to boot. So I am thinking that the Comments field might be the place for this sort of information but I don’t know. And then there’s compilation albums. Maybe the answer to my question is to sort by Album but so many music players don’t allow a tag for compilation anywhere and I end up with seventeen albums with the same name and one song each.
2. How anal retentive are you about genre tags?
Another one I am torn on. Do I care about the difference between Red Dirt, Texas Country, Outlaw Country, Country, Classic Country, Alt Country, and probably a few more that I haven’t even thought to include? I do use the Genre tag in sorting and sometimes in smart playlists but how granular should I be? And are genres arbitrary or is it easier than I am making it? Is Tim Barry Alt Country, Americana, Folk, Rock, or some other sub-genre I missed. And what is the difference between Americana and Folk, and can a Canadian artist be Americana?
3. If you use Linux what do you use for your music player/organizer?
I am currently using gmusicbrowser and miss Amarok but the new version sucks balls. No player since has matched the smart capability, the options, and the sheer usability of the old Amarok. I think gmusicbrowser could catch up as it’s a young project and the maintainer is active and considers suggestions but it lacks some of my favorite features. So if you have a suggestion that’s not Amarok, Banshee, or Rhythmbox then please let me know. On a side note I think I’ll review gmusicbrowser this week, like with screenshots and everything. Oh and if you use Windows or Mac and get an urge to suggest iTunes for organizing a large music collection then I reserve the right to mock you for iTunes and for using Windows.
So there you have it. If any of the three you want to weigh in I would appreciate it. Meanwhile I’ll suffer through inaccurate tag information as best I can.
Yesterday was a whirlwind. Work then as quick a drive as one can make from I-10 and Hwy 6 over to WIllowbrook Mall from there to Plantersville for a poker tournament. So my Life Management post slipped my mind even though I already had a topic picked out. I figure it’s better late than never so here it is.
I have already posted on using Google Calendar’s multiple calendar feature to compartmentalize your life to cut down on chaos and I am still using the methods I mentioned in that post but I have added to them based on screwing up my budget once again. So my suggestion today is simple. Put anything outside of your normal budget into a Google Calendar on the day you intend to spend the money. Since I am married we use the invite system to approve expenditures. For instance if my wife wants to buy a new washing machine she puts it into the calendar on the day she wants to buy it and sends me an invite. I can then look at the item and if I accept the invite then we don’t have to talk about the purchase. If we just plain can’t afford it then I can decline the invite or if we need to talk about it I can say Maybe to the invite. Using this system you can add up all your non-normal expenditures for each month and put them into your budget to see if your are crazy or if you can afford everything you want to do. Using this system also eliminates the “I didn’t know you were going to do that” issues that some couples struggle with.
In the end this is an easy system to combine with You Need A Budget which is the next item on the Life Management post series. I don’t know if these posts are helping anyone but I enjoy writing them so they will keep coming.
I feel an apology is in order. For the first time since I started the three posts a week schedule I have completely blown it. But I have done so for good reasons. Monday was spent finishing the MixWidget Back End, Wednesday’s politics was pre-empted by actual interesting work and today’s life management post has been set aside due to managing some family medical needs. Well that last bit really isn’t accurate. This is the Friday life management post but it won’t be the in-depth analysis I usually try to produce. You see I am sitting in Doctor Edmunson’s office watching Seamus try his very best to sit still for an EEG. Which brings me to my life management advice for today.
Don’t sweat the medium stuff! What I mean by that is don’t let things like I did this week make you feel like your life is out of control. I made a commitment to myself to post three times a week and on specific topics. This week that didn’t happen and while I wish that it had I am alright with prevented it from happening. Sometimes life happens and you will just have to roll with it. I rolled with it this week and will when it happens again. I don’t say “if” because I have met me and I know it will. Make sure to acknowledge that life will throw you curve balls and don’t allow you happiness to rely on perfection because you ain’t perfect and don’t know anyone who is.
Since I am writing this on my cell phone I am going to end this missive here so I don’t get thumb cramps. I’ll toss up some pics of Seamus hooked into the EEG later on. Have a great weekend y’all.
I have been thinking about life management in broader terms than most people would considering the term. There is more to managing your life than keeping notebooks or using Google’s tools to keep up with your commitments. I include personal relationships in the broad spectrum of managing my life and I got to thinking about forgiveness while writing about my views on torture. I talk about forgiveness in the closing paragraphs and had one of those epiphany moments.
Before I talk about my epiphany I am going to make an admission here that I have never made in public before. It is apropos to the topic at hand but very hard for me to type out and have here for everyone to see and pass judgement on me for my actions. I cheated on my wife. I had never cheated on anyone I had even dated when this happened. I had been what a good friend of my called a serial monogamist. I won’t go into the details because they don’t matter. Suffice to say that shortly after we were married I broke my vows to her. It goes without saying that I didn’t handle the situation well from start to finish and it culminated with me doing something I had sworn I would never do. When all was said and done I went home and confessed my sin to my wife and prepared for the worst. I expected yelling and screaming and even possibly having to find a new place to sleep for a while. What I got was forgiveness. It was instant and without second thought. There was no yelling, no banning me from our apartment. She simply and completely forgave me and has never once held it against me. Her forgiveness tore my heart out and made me feel worse than any other thing she could have done. Now this was not her intent but it’s the truth of the matter. It was hard and took me much longer to accept that she had forgiven me than it did for her to do so.
What brought this to my mind was typing out my explanation of how prosecuting people that tacitly approved torture are looked the other way would provide them absolution whereas forgiving them and letting them deal with their conscience could provide a harsher punishment in the long term. I realized, over the past couple of days thinking about it, that human beings have a need to be punished for our crimes or sins so that we feel we can accept forgiveness. It is hard for us to accept that we can just be forgiven for something we have done that hurt someone, broke someone’s trust, and so on. We don’t feel worthy of being forgiven without some of retribution being meted our upon us. Sure we can logically accept forgiveness as offered and once accepted we may even believe the forgiving party has truly let go of our slight against them but we tend not to forgive ourselves for the slight even after forgiveness is offered by the offended party.
In the season premier of House we watched Dr. House struggle to tell someone who was injured by reckless decision that he was sorry. This was not the standard Dr. House diagnostic mistake but rather a completely different situation that you’ll have to watch the episode to see. In the dialog with Dr. House and his shrink we saw that the root of the problem was not that Dr. House did not want to apologize out of arrogance but rather out of guilt. He did not believe he had any right to let go of his mistake and move on. He did want forgiveness but rather wanted to mentally flagellate himself over his mistake. An apology, even without forgiveness, allows us a chance to move past our mistakes. Once offered and if offered in earnest an apology places the onus on the slighted party. If forgiveness is refused then we must, morally, move past our mistake while taking care to not repeat whatever thing we did. I say that we have a moral imperative to move on because if we don’t then allow other’s to place baggage in our life that is not ours to bear.
Now I must tread carefully here because a simple “I’m sorry” is not enough for many situations. An apology should fit the circumstances and must be offered in earnest. If we wreck a friend’s car and leave them without transportation while their car is fixes then a simple verbal apology may be a slap in the face that requires it’s own apology later. When we apologize we seek forgiveness and as such we must be prepared to make restitution and if we are not then our apology is not worth acceptance. I do not advocate allowing apologies not given in earnest or not fitting the situation to give us permission to walk away from someone we have slighted.
Offering a true apology befitting the situation and doing so with earnest places us in a position where we can forgive ourselves for our mistakes. And that is the hardest part of forgiveness. Forgiving yourself. Human beings are not well equipped to forgive ourselves and, as mentioned earlier, feel a need for some horror to be dealt to us that is worse than whatever we have done to another. This what we must move past in our lives. We must learn to forgive ourselves. I don’t have any words of wisdom on how to accomplish this task but merely know that we must.
On the flip side of that coin we should accept apologies without reservation regardless of whether or not they fit the situation. We should dole out forgiveness with ease and do so truly and completely. We should be willing to give forgiveness without any apology whatsoever. If we do not then we create emotional and spiritual baggage for ourselves that will affect all aspects of our life. I know from my own life experiences that holding a grudge or stoking hatred in your heart will leave you a shell of the person that you could, and are supposed to, be. Holding grudges can lead to your immune system functioning at lower efficiency and put you in bed sick. I won’t bother citing the studies here because I am lazy but there are plenty that show that angry people end up sick more often than happy people. So even ignoring the mental issues that refusing forgiveness brings with it there are health concerns as well.
All of this metal rumination led to me realizing that we, as humans, have a huge amount of trouble believing we can be forgiven for our sins. Even once we accept that the Gospel we still seek ways in which to be punished for our sins. I don’t doubt you heard all the Evangelical blow hards after 9/11, the major typhoon, hurricanes Ike and Katrina, or any other given disaster claiming that those events were God’s punishment because we are evil people who deserve bad things. I tell you that those blow hards have it wrong. They want those things to be true because it would mean that being forgiven comes with a price but it doesn’t. Scripture says that God disciplines his children but it never says he tosses horrors down from heaven on believers and non-believers alike. God’s forgiveness is there for the asking and he doesn’t require us to flog ourselves or wear hair shirts to get it. We just have trouble believing that we could be forgiven that easily and that’s a shame.
Even if you aren’t a Christ Follower everything above the previous paragraph is applicable to your life. I am trying to write these pieces to be applicable to everyone regardless of their religious beliefs. Forgiveness and apologies are a key part of managing our personal lives and we should work on forgiving with ease and earnest, accepting forgiveness, and perhaps most importantly forgiving ourselves. If we practice these things then we will walk through our lives with a few more smiles and be more pleasant to those around us. Let go of your grudges, forgive old boyfriends and girlfriends, let go of your spite for your mother not being perfect, and let yourself accept your failures and move past them. You might not think it will help but I promise you it can’t hurt.
To do evil for good is human corruption; to do good for good is civil retribution; but to do good for evil is Christian perfection. Though this be not the grace of nature, it is the nature of grace. – Archbishop Secker
(Title quote by Mahatma Gandhi)
I like to keep my work life and family life separate for the most part and I certainly don’t want my co-workers or boss seeing what I have scheduled at home. I do use a book for personal stuff but since it’s not the first thing I look at every morning it’s usefulness is reduced. I could use the same book for work and home but then anytime I needed to show someone my notes or had to look up something there would be the chance of showing off my home life. I certainly don’t want to use my Exchange calendar to schedule stuff for home, heck I don’t want to use my Exchange calendar at all if I am perfectly honest, for the same reasons. So I have cobbled together a set of solutions that work together to allow me to keep on top of what needs doing around the house, my engagements at work, and keep them all nice and separate.
Let’s back up just a little bit and see where this all started. Recently my company, not the oil and gas company where I work every day but the company that writes my paycheck, switched to Google Apps to email, calendering, and all that rot. I have been a GMail user for years now and love the interface. I use labs features in my email and calendar, prefer Google Reader to most other RSS apps, and so on. So this switch didn’t have any learning curve for me and in fact was sort of exciting as it meant I could easily do things that were slightly more complex using locally hosted email; things like writing email filters so I didn’t end up with hundreds of emails from my mailing lists on my mobile device every day. Now I already had three GMail addresses, although one I don’t use much these days, and this move added another G-sort-of-thing. Never having used Google Calendar for anything and not wanting to have my personal phone use the Exchange server at work I set out figuring out how to sync my Exchange calendar with my new “work” Google Calendar. As it turns out a quick search turned up Google Sync which works flawlessly with a single drawback, you have to be logged in somewhere with it running to update, that isn’t all that horrible. So now I have my corporate Exchange syncing with my Google Calendar. That’s the easy part…
So next is getting this information over to my HTC Touch Pro which is getting replaces on Oct. 11, 2009 and that replacement will solve the issues described here without the mashup I have to use now. This is also not hard and is simply another piece of Google Sync and it merely pretends to be an exchange server. Ignoring the known issues you can also only sync Calendar and Contacts. So there is no task or to-do list sync and GMail, or hosted Google Apps Mail, still is IMAP (you can use POP3 but why would you?). With those caveats the sync works great. Since I do my to-do lists in my books it doesn’t bother me one bit that it doesn’t sync to my phone. In fact I think alerts for my to-do list would probably just annoy me.
So in light of using Google Calendar I had the idea that I would set up a personal calendar on one of my other accounts to cover my home commitments, shows I want to see, and so on. I then shared this calendar with myself, on my work account, and all of a sudden I had a view where I could see all of my work and personal commitments and no-one else could see them together. On top of that I shared my personal calendar with my wife and allowed her to add and change events so she has a way to let me know what she wants and needs done without me having to remember to add it anywhere. She is also setting up a calendar and sharing it with me so I’ll know the things she wants to and places she wants to go. Of course we are moving her domain e-mail to Google Apps so everything for her will be a single login. My accounts are separate so I can use one for consulting, one for personal, and one for anything that might get me spammed. But I digress…
With all of this sharing setup I exported my contacts from my personal account, imported them to my work account, removed my old Active Sync partnership, went out to the garage to smoke, since I get no reception down here in the basement, and added my work account as my Active Sync server. About three minutes later, I have a lot of contacts, I had my work calendar and my contact list on my mobile device again. But there was a problem. It only synced the events from my “main” calendar. It didn’t pull in anything off of the calendars I was using that were shared from other accounts. This was not the solution I wanted by any stretch so research ensued. It turns out that’s the way it works, at least at the moment, and my options were to “import” the other calendars and allow everyone I shared my work calendar with to see my personal schedule or to find a third party method, if one existed, to sync my calendars. Of course I am not going use the import option because the only reason this system appeals to me is that I can compartmentalize work and home. So off I went to find a solution…
There are a few solutions out there and I haven’t tried all of them, and won’t since I go Andriod in less than a month, but the free service from NuevaSync allows you to select up to eleven calendars from a single Google Account, you are limited to one account so you still have to share calendars, and works with hosted Google Apps so I gave it a shot. There is some quirkiness in TouchFlo interface as it tells me I have no events scheduled today but if you look at the calendar it shows everything from all the calendars you select. I think this is a TouchFlo problem but since I won’t have to deal with this in less than a month I am not bothering to track down a solution. Alerts work just fine and for all calendars so I have exactly what I need. I did have to delete my Active Sync partnership with my Google account and add NuevaSync as the partnership but that was just another couple of minutes. The only annoyance is that all my contacts, over 200, are sorted first name first when I had them sorted last name first. While that is an annoyance it is not a deal breaker for me.
The end result of all of this is that I have a single screen where I and I alone can see all of my personal and work commitments, two different corporate schedules syncing, a shared space for scheduling with my wife, and total compartmentalization. The drawbacks are few but include having to have Outlook connected somewhere and Google Sync running on that machine to get updates to one of the corporate calendars, TouchFlo not working quite exactly as it should, and my contacts having their sort order swapped. In the end it’s a mashup solution to a problem a lot of people probably don’t have and there are paid solutions for the multiple calendar sync issue that look better than the free solution I ended up choosing that support things multiple Google accounts but the solution works well for me and likely will for anyone save the most anal retentive among us. However if you are looking for a solution like this, can change phones, and have a carrier that has an Andriod phone then everything I typed here is solved by going to Android. This is of course my final solution since Sprint is releasing the HTC Hero on Oct 11 and I will have one in grubby little hands before that day is over.
I highly recommend compartmentalizing your life. If you are anything like me it’s too easy for work to spill over into your home life and that only damages your family relationships, your social life, and if you are less disciplined it spills both ways and then you damage your career. Using shared calendars, regardless of whether you choose Google for the task, allows you a single point of reference while still allowing separation. Using a cloud based system like Google Apps and allowing your spouse access creates a nice alternative to having to keep everything in your head and inevitably forgetting something of importance. I can’t stress compartmentalization enough and finding a system that syncs with each part of your life to a central point can be the key to making it work long term.
