MP3 Tracks Galore

I've been working over the previous few days on my various MP3 tracks. Recall, I started the process a few days ago. I spend a little time each day, and now, I'm almost finished. I also grabbed all of our CDs, and ripped some of those songs as well. Right now, I've got about 900 MP3 files, all catgorized by genre, all properly tagged, and all properly named with the artist and song. Awesome! The collection now takes up about 3.5 GB, of which about 600 are my absolute all time favorite songs. Honestly, I can't imagine having a collection with thousands and thousands of songs, but I know they exist. I'm sure some people out there have collections of every song ever recorded.

Christmas Light Envy

Well, I decided that I'd better get my Christmas lights up before the colder weather sets in. We've had several nice, warm days this past week, but those are about to end. By the middle of next week, highs will only be reaching the 20s. Yikes. So, today, I started the process of untangling the lights. I really don't go all out like some people, but I do string lights in the bushes, in the tree in the front yard, and this year, I also plan to hang some icicle lights from the eaves. I sorted through the lights from last year, and decided that I needed to make a mad dash for the store to get more, as the bushes are bigger this year than last. Wow, the stores were crazy. Dozens of people clammering in the holiday isle for every last box of lights, and every last extension cord. I did manage to snag what I needed though, but had to visit a few more stores to get enough extension cords. Oh well. By the time I got home, sunset was approaching. I didn't quite have time to get it finished, but will put up the last few strings tomorrow. I'll take a picture when I'm done. It should look pretty good, about 2500 lights altogether. Again, a small display by comparison, but good enough for me.

Huskers Win the Big 12 North

The Huskers played Colorado today. We have already clinched the Big 12 North, so this game wasn't all that important, but still we were playing Colorado, one of our sworn rivals. It was a great game, and we really put it to Colorado in the second half. It was the last game of the regular season. We still have to play in the Big 12 Championship game. If we win that, we'll be playing in a BCS game, otherwise, it will be another smaller bowl game. Woohoo!

Sorting Through MP3 Tracks

I recently decided to organize my various MP3 tracks that I have scattered throughout my hard drive. A couple of years ago, I received an Ipod Shuffle for my birthday, and tried to organize the tracks then, with varied success. I was able to get a compilation of my favorite songs into Itunes, but that was about as far as I went.

I'm looking at getting another MP3 player, and thus have decided to begin organizing my files so I can use the player properly. However, another problem I have, a lot of my MP3 files have inconsistent naming schemes, no MP3 tags, etc. I discovered a database application called MediaMonkey which essentially manages the MP3 files, and takes care a lot of the tasks for you. For example, it will automatically retrieve MP3 tags from Amazon.com based on the filename, etc. It will also rename and move files as necessary to organize your collection.

So, I've begun the somewhat daunting task of going through every MP3 file I have, assigning tags, renaming with a consistent scheme, and organizing into folders. It's not an easy process, but one that is necessary. Last night, I categorized about 300 songs. I still have about 500 songs to go. These are really just my all-time favorites. Now I know this isn't a huge collection, but it's good enough for me. We do have 40 or 50 CDs that I'd like to rip a few songs from too. Ideally, I don't think I'll rip every song from every CD, but just my favorites.

After getting everything organized, perhaps a new MP3 player is in store. Just another toy. Ha.

Good Experience with Dell Tech Support

My wife and I each have a Dell 600m laptop. She uses her's for her job. I use mine for play. Unfortunately, my wife's laptop has been acting up lately, but thankfully, I purchased the Complete Care Dell Warranty option for her machine. Essentially, if anything breaks, it's covered for a 3 year period, a typical lifespan for a laptop. We've already used the coverage once, when a key broke on her keyboard. They sent a new keyboard right away. Lately, the laptop has been shorting out whenever you move it. This is not good. It's a laptop after all, it's supposed to be mobile. I originally thought it was a bad battery, but that doesn't seem to be the case. There's likely a short where her power adapter plugs into the case. So, I contacted Dell Tech support to see how to fix the problem. After a quick 10 minutes using their chat service, a new motherboard was ordered, and a tech will come to our house to fix it when the part arrives. Wow. I'm very impressed right now with Dell Tech Support, especially after hearing horror stories from other folks. Hopefully the install goes smoothly, but right now, I'd say the Complete Care Dell Warranty was the best thing I've purchased in a long time. Although, time will tell, perhaps we'll be trading one problem for another with a new (or potentially factory refurbished) motherboard.