How to revert to iTunes 11 if you don't like iTunes 12

Some reviewers think iTunes 12 is "Apple's worst software ever" because of the visually incoherent way it presents information on your media collection - in particular, the complete lack of the sidebar, where media were listed by category.

I agree - but luckily, if you have accepted the iTunes 12 "upgrade" you can fairly easily go back to iTunes 11. Here are very clear instructions, from MacWorld repeated on the LifeHacker blog.

First off, download copies of AppZapper and Pacifist , backup your computer, then create an installer with Pacifist. (Pacifist allows you to unpack .dmg installation packages and extract individual files and folders. Not something one needs to do every day! but in this case it's just the job.)

1. Quit iTunes 12 and launch AppZapper
2. Open AppZapper's preferences and uncheck"Keep Apple Applications Safe"
3. Drag the iTunes 12 icon from the Application folder to AppZapper and click the "Zap!" button
4. Download iTunes 11 - from the Apple support site
5. Open up Pacifist and drag the iTunes 11 DMG file into it. 
6. Select "Contents of Install iTunes" and then click "Install"
7. Navigate to your iTunes folder. Within that find the iTunes library and then find the iTunes LIbrary.itl file. Drag it to your desktop or to the trash.
8. Launch iTunes 11.

Done.
- Actually, not quite! Where is my iTunes music and media? Apple support gives the following instructions for retrieving it:

Re-creating the iTunes Library file

Note: After re-creating your library, any devices that you sync with iTunes (Apple TV, iPod, iPhone, iPad) will see your iTunes library as a new library and will completely resync. The next sync with such a device will take longer and may reset some options since your rebuilt library isn't familiar to the device.

1. Quit iTunes.
2. Locate your iTunes folder (this is the folder that contains the iTunes Library and iTunes Library.xml files).

Operating System	Default location of iTunes Folder
Mac OS X	/Users/[your username]/Music
Microsoft Windows XP	\Documents and Settings\[your username]\My Documents\My Music\
Microsoft Windows Vista	\Users\[your username]\Music\
Microsoft Windows 7	\Users\[your username]\My Music\

3. Open your iTunes folder.
4. Drag the "iTunes Library.xml" or "iTunes Music Library.xml" file to the Desktop. If neither is available, learn how to add files back to the Library (because the XML file is not available, playlists and other information will not be available).
5. Drag the following file from your iTunes folder to the Trash:

Mac OS X	"iTunes Library" or "iTunes Library.itl"
Microsoft Windows	"iTunes Library.itl"

6. Open iTunes.
Important: Do not add any content into iTunes at this point (such as by purchasing something from the iTunes Store).
7. Choose File > Library > Import Playlist.
8. Navigate to the "iTunes Library.xml" file on the Desktop.

• Mac users: Click Choose.
• Windows users: Click Open.

If your Podcasts list in iTunes is empty after following these steps, learn how to add them back into iTunes.

Hooray, it's all back.

Doubtless Apple will try to "upgrade" you to iTunes 12 with every software update. Click Details instead of automatically accepting and you'll be able to avoid the horrid thing.

Locked out after Mac OS update

Every time I update Mountain Lion and restart my MacBook Air it refuses to recognise my password.

If this happens there is a long way round to get it to open up and a quick, short way. Yes, guess which I tried first:
1. Boot in Recovery system. Press and hold the Command and R keys while you start or restart.
2. When restarted, click Utilities in the top menu bar and select Terminal from the dropdown menu.
3. When Terminal starts, type
resetpassword
and press Return.
4. Then respond to the dialogue boxes to reset your password. You can use the one you had before if you can remember it.

Okay, what's the easy way?

Try to Restart using the restart button in the usual way.

When you get the choice of user identities click on yours and enter your password. If it's refused three times you'll be offered the chance to reset it using your Apple identity. Easy!

Sound lost on iMac

This iMac is not very new! So when it ceased to emit sound other than the startup chord I wondered if something had died inside it.
I have a pair of external speakers plugged in, so first I tried unplugging those. For a while, music flowed out of the tinny internal speakers, but next day - silence reigned again.
So,

1. tried restarting the computer - no change. Opened System Preferences > Sound, nothing appeared wrong.
2. Okay next most simple answer - unplug and replug. When I'd unplugged and replugged the audio speaker jack in the headphone socket a couple of times - Yes! Fixed!
3. En route to this happy result, I also checked System Preferences > Sound again and found that the Mute button at the bottom of the window had got ticked. Well, unticking that doubtless helped.

Ebooks - best prices or free

I just discovered two fantastically useful applications / apps, invaluable if you read ebooks.

Luzme

First, Luzme.com, you can search for ebooks by title, author, ISBN etc and compare the prices. You can instantly buy the book, or add it to a watch list to get an email notice if the price changes. It turns out there huge differences between online bookstores. You see a little chart of price changes for each ebook store, too.

BitLit

Second, BitLit - from Canada - allows you to purchase an ebook version of a book you already own, free or at a reduced price. Smartphones only for this one. You scan the cover at a set angle, and then the copyright page to which you have added your name. BitLit is signing up publishers fast so your particular book may not yet be available.

Apple's iTunes Books

Luzme revealed that Apple (iTunes) was the least expensive source of one or two ebooks. I haven't tried Apple before as a source, but I duly did. However, iTunes warns you that you can only read your downloaded book on an iOS device, not even on your desktop Mac.

After initial optimism I found this is true, so far, for paid-for books. I cautiously acquired a couple of free ebooks from the iTunes Store - these are fine, you can transfer them around and read them on whatever device. Your book gets downloaded into your iTunes music library (under books) as an Adobe Digital Editions epub file.

Reassured, then I paid for one. The ebook seemed to open in Adobe Digital Editions and transferred into Calibre and on to my Kobo but alas, it is blank. The DeDRM tools don't work on it. So least expensive, yes, but so far very restricted use unless it's a free book.

Calibre ebook library and software

Just to remind you about the superb Calibre -

To manage your ebooks library and reader content using Calibre

Calibre is a generic ebooks management application, very handy, search to download it for free (be fair, do donate). Using Calibre you can:

• manage the books on your ereader
• assemble all your ebooks from whatever source in one folder
• read them on your desktop 
• automatically convert books from different formats for your own ereader, whatever that is

and much much more besides which I haven't tried out.

To set up Calibre to automatically convert books for upload

1. Downloaded and instal Calibre
2. Install the DeDRM plugins that you have already obtained
   - Go to Calibre's Preferences (under Calibre in the top menu)
   - Under Advanced, click Plugins
   - Select Load plugin from file
   - Navigate to the downloaded folder of Tools
   - In the sub folder inside that, Calibre plugins, click and load each of the zip files in turn
   - Click the green Apply tick, top left
3. Repeat until all are installed. Restart Calibre.

Then, Calibre's menus are self explanatory. You can just add the book file to the Calibre library and upload it to your device - select Autoconvert and it will do the conversion as part of the process, as long as the DeDRM plugins are installed.

Replace standard icons with custom ones

I like to waste time ornamenting my desktop and other icons - don't you?

First just to note that CandyBar is available free of charge for now, it seems they've given up the struggle to keep up with evolving Mac Os's. CandyBar is a convenient way to replace Mac icons.

As I'm sure you know, to replace an individual icon you do the following:

• Click to highlight a folder or a file or an app.
• Get Info about it - cmd-i, or right click and select
• Highlight and Copy (cmd-c) the icon you want to use
• Highlight the folder icon, top left in the Info panel, and Paste (cmd-v) your new one.

That's it! If you want to revert to the original standard Mac one, just call up Info again, and click and delete (cmd-x) the icon you pasted in.

Show the new icon in the Dock

Now, let's drag the pretty new icon into the dock ... Oh! there's just the boring old plain one in the Dock! To have the new one show, here's a workaround.

See in the screenshot above two icons for Downloads (click the image to enlarge it)? The second one is an alias.

• Click to highlight the original
• Right click and do Make Alias
• To tidy up the folder name, you can just delete the word Alias and leave a space at the end of the folder name.
• Then, you can drag your alias into the dock and there's the nice new icon.

An additional advantage is that when you click that dock icon you get just your preferred view of that folder, List for example.

Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks - install or wait?

It's always tempting to have a go with the latest software, specially if it's free as Mavericks is, from the App Store. Might be best to think about this one, though. A lot of people are identifying quite a few problems with Mavericks. There's a long list on the Apple discussion forums.

How to revert from Mavericks if you don't like it

Don't just rush and install it - I did :(  If you want to revert to your previous OS, the only way is to entirely erase the disk holding Mavericks and reinstall your previous operating system. So -

Before you install Mavericks -

• Back up your system and files - preferably use Time Machine.
• Make sure you've got a bootable install copy of your previous operating system. If you downloaded it it should be available in the Apple store > Purchases. But you'll still have to make a bootable install disk on a USB memory stick or on a disk partition.

Some problems people have found

I don't like to be negative but -
You can no longer sync your calendar and contacts straight onto your local computer. Instead you have to have an iCloud account and sync them via that. Many people strongly object to being required to allow Apple to store their personal information. http://bit.ly/1bsQEmg 

• Apparently, Apple have removed SyncServices from iTunes / Mavericks - permanently.
• If you want to continue syncing using iTunes in the future, it's said you should not install iTunes v 12 when it comes out (at the moment, it's 11.1.3).
• Many users are finding problems with Mail after installing Mavericks.
• Quite a few scanners and printers are no longer usable. Also, even more software than became unusable under Lion and Mountain Lion.
• Passwords seem to be forced to be saved on Keychain (I don't consciously use Keychain so I'm not sure what this entails)
• Mavericks offers finder windows that open in tabs, as in browsers. Personally, I don't like the tabs design (like Safari) and it mucks up TotalFinder, which I love using.
• Coloured Labels for files and folders have been changed to Tags - much smaller coloured disks: http://bit.ly/HSAnNk.

Altogether, best wait a bit I think.

Your Google calendar on your desktop - Sunbird

I much prefer Sunbird to iCal for synching with a Google calendar (or any other online calendar, I guess). For instance you can show not just the current month but the current 5 or 6 weeks in one view. - October 2013, I just had to check this following an upgrade to OS 10.8, Mountain Lion - it all works.

Sunbird is free, developed by Mozilla of Firefox browser and Thunderbird email client. (Similarly I prefer T-bird to Mail). They are trying to make people give up Sunbird, which is a stand alone calendar, and take to Lightening which works as part of Thunderbird. Like many others I want my calendar separate, thanks.

You can still get Sunbird and it works on Mac OS 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8 (that's Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion). Sunbird v. 1.0b1 is here (for Windows, Linux and Mac).

Once you've downloaded and installed it, you need an extra bit of software - Provider. This enables you to link to your Google calendars. Download and save it from here - Provider 0.6b1 (scroll down until you see this version, others only work with Lightening).

Then, back to Sunbird. Top menu, Tools > Extensions > Install. Then navigate to where you saved Provider and select it, confirm Install if asked.

Okay, now you're set up to communicate with Google calendar, but where are your events etc? You have to add a link to each of your calendars, one at a time.

Open a browser and go to your Google Calendar. Highlight a calendar and click the little down arrow to the right. Select Settings.

Scroll down the Settings screen and you'll see Calendar address. Click iCal and highlight and copy the code you see.

Now back to Sunbird. File > Subscribe to remote calendar > Create a new calendar - On the Network >  Google calendar - and paste in the code you copied from Google. You'll be asked for your Google account name and password. Choose a name and a colour for the calendar and you're done.

Repeat for each of your Google calendars and any public ones you want to add.

One last thing, Sunbird > Preferenced > Advanced > Encryption, make sure Use SSL 3.0 is ticked and use TLS 1.0 is not ticked.

A bit of a faff, but worth it I find.

iPhone calendar - even better, Fantastical

While we're on calendars, I thought the iCal one was fine on the iPhone until I found Fantastical (£1.99 I think). It's an app that simply provides a new calendar interface. Just install Fantastical on your iPhone and it will ask you to give it permission to use your calendars (provided you have linked to them as in the previous posts). Then they, fantastically, appear.



Dates will display across the top of the screen - pull down the tab for a monthly view. Pull down again to return to the list. Scroll around very quickly and nicely - all sorts of other refinements. Nice.

iPhone calendar - show public holidays

The previous post dealt with synching iPhone's calendar with Google calendar, but following that process you don't get public holidays showing.

Here's how to do that.

First do Stage 1 on your iPhone:
Settings> Mail, contacts, calendars > Add account > Other > only this time, select Add subscribed calendar.

Then, the server is whatever public holiday calendar you wish. I used Apple's purely because it's easy to find the server address:
ical.mac.com/ical/UK32Holidays.ics

For US public holidays, it's
ical.mac.com/ical/US32Holidays.ics

Or if you're using Google calendars anyway, here's Google's:
https://www.google.com/calendar/ical/uk__en%40holiday.calendar.google.com/public/basic.ics

Solved: Synch iPhone's calendar with Google calendar

Please see update blog, March 30th 2013

Speed up your iPhone

My iPhone 3GS slowed to a crawl for internet operations like web browsing or using apps, but like magic, it's now ... well ... bearable again. So simple.

Maybe I'm slow on the uptake, but I didn't realise that you have to close down an app. when you've done with it - not just click the Home button.

Try this: click the Home button twice (the round sunken button at the bottom). You'll see all the open apps. in the bar at the bottom of the screen. Scroll right to see the whole line-up. Yes, probably every app. you've ever used. No wonder the thing has slowed to a crawl, it only has a tiny little brain in there.

To close an app.(s), hold your fingertip on one for a bit and you get the red minus signs on them: click to close.

Or, without the red minus signs, just click on an app. to go to it and resume where you left off.

Handy, eh?