The Net Gate

The Squeezebox Radio can playback MP3, FLAC, WAV, AIFF, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, Apple Lossless audio. Built into the Squeezebox Radio is an 802.11G antenna which supports WPA Personal, WPA2-AES, and 64/128-bit WEP encryption. However, your wi-fi connection must have the SSID broadcast enabled. Alternatively, you can connect through the Ethernet connection, which is a 10/100 Mbps version.

Like the Squeezebox Classic, you can control this device through a web interface over the Internet.

iTunes 9 may not start after a clean install and display the error “Apple Application Support was not found”.

This module can be separately installed.

Download the latest iTunes version.

Use a file decompression programme (such as winzip or winrar) to extract the module from ‘iTunesSetup.exe’.

Copy the file ‘AppleApplicationSupport.msi’ on your local drive and run it. Once the installation is succesfully completed, iTunes should work.

Related articles on installation files can be found on the Apple Support Pages

iTunes 9 may not start properly in a Windows environment and display the error message

“iTunes was not installed properly. Please re-install iTunes. (Error 7).”

This is not only related to Windows 7 or Vista but may also occur on Windows XP.

To fix this error you may need to repair the Microsoft.NET Framework.

Please refer to the apple support page.

Squeezebox iTunes integration

Squeezebox Server supports iTunes libraries and playlists. It can fully integrate the music library, without scanning the music folders.

To make this work correctly, enter the location of the iTunes library. You can do this by following these steps (make sure the Squeezebox Server is running):

1) Click on the Squeezebox Server icon in the system tray and choose ‘Open Web Control’

2) Click on the ‘Settings’ button (at the bottom right) of the Squeezebox Server Web Control page

This will open the Server Settings web page.

3) Click on the ‘iTunes’ tab and enter the iTunes library (library.xml) location

Then press the ‘Apply’ button to save the settings.

At the next scan the iTunes library and all playlists will become available on your Squeezebox. You can manually rescan the library under the ‘Basic Settings’ tab (Rescan Music Library).

Squeezebox

This streamer offers superb playback audio quality on hi-fi systems. Besides support of iTunes playlists, it performs very well for Internet radio streams.

The Squeezebox Classic is a streamer with a Remote Control.

you need to setup an account to manage your Internet radio streams

Squeezebox Server is the software that you need to manage the music streams.

Squeezeslave is a lightweight Windows Player for the Squeezebox Server.

Load this programme to playback on a pc (typically on the pc where Squeezebox Server is running).

Control of the playback is through the browser interface of the Squeezebox Server:

This system works fine for me with iTunes 9 installed on a Windows XP (SP3) system. The Squeezebox is connected to my wi-fi router.

How to cleanup orphan itunes library entries.

iTunes libraries will flag orphan entries with an exclamation mark!

These entries can be cleaned in two ways:

A) Create a new library:

Start iTunes by holding the shift key (keep the shift key pressed, while you select and start iTunes). iTunes will prompt you to create a new library (or choose an existing one).

B) Use a 3rd party tool:

iTunes Library Updater is a free utility to synchronize the iTunes database with your media collection. I run it with the ‘Clean orphaned entries’ option only:

note that .NET Framework must be installed to run this programme

iTunes 9 – settings

These settings I have applied on my iTunes 9 software to get the best performance on my Windows system. Some of these tasks (like 1 and 2) may need to be re-run after an iTunes upgrade. This environment work fine for all my iPods (shuffle, nano and classic).

1) Remove the help executables in the windows startup file:

Run ‘msconfig’ and disable (untag) the two lines in the startup file:

2) Disable the Apple Mobile Device (since I do not have such a device)

Run ‘services.msc’ – stop the service and disable this service (right-click on the item and choose modify)

3) Reboot and start iTunes

On the top menu, select Edit, Preferences and review the settings in each of the tabs:

Songbird is a good alternative music player for iTunes.

Songbird for Windows can play protected AAC, m4a and m4p (protected FairPlay) audio files, provided that:

• you  have installed the QuickTime Playback add-on and
• you have installed the QuickTime codecs (e.g. QT Lite)

Burn an Audio CD with iTunes (version 9.x)

Follow these steps to burn an Audio CD that can be played in any CD player.

1. Create a playlist with the songs that you want on the Audio CD

2. Select the playlist with the songs to be burned on the Audio CD

3. Select ‘Burn Disc’ at the bottom right of the screen

4. Select Disc Format: Audio CD and hit the ‘Burn’ button

Tutorial for video files converted with iStudio, Videora and iTunes to play on a 5G iPod:

Step 1: convert the video file to an iPod format

Video File Properties

This step takes the most resources (CPU, disk space, etc.) and time to process (count at least one hour for a DivX movie). Run this task during your computer idle time (i.e. when you don’t use it for other tasks).

Although iTunes has some embedded conversion capabilities, I do not recommend it to use to convert your files to MPEG-4 format.

Videora iPod Converter is freeware and works fine for most of my files.

If the images are ‘stretched’ (i.e. taler than wide), then you will need to tweak the profile by manually adjusting the video setting: enter the image resolution values (height x width) from the file properties (‘Eigenschappen’ – see picture).

I recommend to instal the (default) English version because the Dutch one has some flaws.

iStudio (Easy Computing) is a basic commercial software and easy to use.

The 5G iPod’s resolution is fixed to 320×240. In iStudio, you may select ’480 x 360′ resolution and ‘Best’ quality for for a crisper image.

Both tools create an MPEG-4 file in an iPod compatible format.

Step 2: add the file to my iTunes library

This step allows you to add additional information to the MPEG tags.

The ‘display Video’ option in the iTunes preferences must be enabled:

iTunes Preferences

Check also my other iTunes settings.

Select the Video’s library and add the MPEG-4 file (in an iPod compatible format – see step 1):

either through the ‘File’ menu with the ‘Add file to library’ option (Ctrl-O)

or by dragging the file from the its folder to the Video library.

iTunes will copy the file and add it to the library.

Now you can add additional information to better manage the file in iTunes and on your iPod.

Select the ‘Info tonen’ (Show Info) option from the ‘File’ menu (Ctrl-I):

Show Info - Ctrl-I

The ‘Album’ name and the ‘Genre’ allows you to retrieve the video files on your iPod (when navigating through iTunes).

Enter the same ‘Album’ name for your movies and tagging the ‘Deel van verzameling‘ (Part of compilation) keeps the files in the same folder of your iTunes directory on your hard drive.

Video Type & Play position

The ‘Soort video’ (Video type) determines in which video list this file will show on your iPod.

Tag the ‘Afspeelpositie onthouden’ (Play position) if you like to resume the playback on your iPod.

Step 3: copy the file to my iPod

This is the step to copy your file from the iTunes library to your iPod.

drag the file to your iPod

Make sure your iPod is docked and shows in the iTunes ‘Bron’ (Source) bar on the left.

Open the Video’s library in iTunes and drag the video file(s) to your iPod.

The file(s) will be copied and will show in the video list on your iPod.

Check also the Videora ‘Video File to Device Conversion‘ guide.