Epistles to the Corkonians

Long time no post!
I recently updated to iTunes 8.2 on my Mac and discovered that more than 5000 of my MP3 files no longer had album artwork. Gone, missing, disappeared. Worse, some of the files no longer had album/artist/song information associated with them. Given that I’d been using iTunes - and its predecessor SoundJam - to maintain all this info, this came as somewhat of a surprise, but many of my MP3 files date from the late 90s so perhaps a bit of bitrot was to be expected. I should probably re-rip and re-encode my CDs too, but who has time for that?

FinderPop could see the embedded album artwork in these files, but neither iTunes 8.2 nor the 10.5.7 Finder could. Investigating, it seems that iTunes 8.2 wants the “image/jpeg” or “image/png” MIME description in the ID3 frame for said artwork. Likewise, while some of my MP3 files had ID3v2 album art, their album/artist/song info came from ancient and deprecated ID3v1 tags. So the info was there, but not in a format usable by the new iTunes.

Nothing for it but to write a once-off program to fix these problems! While I was there, I added an option to tag the album artwork as “FRONT_COVER”, which means that my Nokia N85 can finally display album artwork.

Rather than rolling-my-own ID3 I/O routines, I searched the web for ID3 tag libraries. I finally settled upon id3lib which it unfortunately turns out is old, orphaned, and buggy. Also it only handles ID3v2 2.3 tags, but that was fine by me. I discovered that id3lib screwed up writing Unicode titles etc, but a quick google pointed me at someone else’s fix for this, so I applied a patch to id3lib, then rebuilt and installed the shared library.

The attached quick-and-dirty source code (fixmp3s.cpp) grovels around inside MP3 files and cleans them up enough to work with my iTunes 8.2 setup and my N85. As the Americans say, Your Mileage May Vary. Always ensure that you have backups of your music - I am not responsible if this program eats your music!

Example usage:
    find . -name \*.mp3 -type f -print0 | xargs -0 fixmp3s --cover=1 --update

Some of the options:
    --dump         textually dump the ID3 tags found in each file specified
    --[no]v1tov2   [don't] convert ID3V1 tags to V2 if no V2 tags present
    --[no]mime     [don't] fixup album art MIME type
    --[no]cover    [don't] set album art type to 3 (FRONT COVER)
    --[no]cover=N  [don't] set Nth embedded image as FRONT_COVER
    --[no]update   [don't] write back changes
    --warn-no-art  scan file for album art and warn if none present
         NOTE: no fixes will be applied until you specify --update

Build instructions on OS X and Unix:
Download id3lib, apply Unicode writing patch to id3lib, then configure, make and finally sudo make install for the library. Then build the attached fixmp3s.cpp file using:

    c++ fixmp3s.cpp -O -Wall -Werror -lid3 -lz -o ./fixmp3s

Unfortunately I cannot build this statically for some reason, so I can’t supply binaries… this is a source-code-only post. Use the Source, Luke!

Enjoy

Further to a previous post about Heineken’s takeover of Beamish, well, the game is now being played out as I thought it would. Heineken have just announced that Beamish will no longer be available outside of Ireland.

Mark my words - in three to five years’ time, Beamish will be completely dead, killed by Heineken purely for marketing reasons (it will be something like “Unfortunately, it doesn’t fit with our brand image.”) I’m pretty sure the Heineken Marketing Manual has a chapter titled Killing the Competition: how to bury a prospering local brewery and how to justify it. Bah.

Update 31-Mar: Heineken to sell Cork Beamish site - As expected

Support your local brewery - while you still can! Avoid the big boys whose beer is insipid and whose main interest is marketing…

Happened to read Twenty Major’s recent rant on Eircom, the Irish phone monopoly, this morning - see Eircom, what a bunch of… - warning: contains strong language, but understandable considering the subject matter. By coincidence, shortly afterwards I received an email from a friend of mine who had recently emigrated to the US.

Some of ye already know that when I requested that Eircom to cancel my phone subscription in what at the time was 2 weeks into the future, they told me they couldn’t do it “as it could get lost in the system.”
So I waited until the day I was moving and rang them. Asked them to cancel my subscription and they said “Can’t do it for 2 days as the system is on the blink.”
I said, OK, please do it in 2 days, and by the way, please address all future correspondence to my parents’ house so that all my bills etc would go to my parents.

What do Eircom do? Well, instead of cancelling my phone service they cancelled my parents’ broadband service as we now had the same address.

What a bunch of useless incompetent [epithet removed]

Oddly enough, Eircon had similar mysterious “systems problems” when I tried to get rid of my landline back in 2004, it took me an extra 2 weeks of ringing every 2-3 days (and an extra month’s line rental which is what I suspect they were really after.) It made me determined to never deal with the shower of useless tossers ever again.

From 20090207-Bennaunmore

Went for a short hike with Eddie to Bennaunmore (in Co. Kerry between the Paps and Mangerton) last time I was back in Ireland. Bit chilly, remnants of winter snows still around, and plainly visible on nearby higher peaks. Absolutely lovely day, though, and once we were out of the wind, very pleasant walking conditions. Views from the summit (460m) were quite decent, and the sight of nearby Cappagh Glen and Mangerton just whetted the appetite for further expeditions…

In short, though, it’s an easy walk (with the exception of a mad scramble at the end), there’s some spectacular scenery and I’d recommend it to anyone even vaguely ambulatory

Hey there, apologies for the downtime, my hosting company (burtonhosting.com - avoid) rather inconveniently went bust - at least I assume so, no-one answered phones or replied to emails and all their websites were incontactable for 10 days. I have moved the fnarr.net domain elsewhere and am now trying to resurrect it from backups.  Fun it wasn’t.

In case it’s happening to anyone else, here’s how to retrieve your domain name from a zombie company (fnarr.net was registered to me c/o BurtonHosting, but with them not answering emails/phones etc, it proved difficult to wrest control of my domain away from them, involving sending passport photocopies to tucows, their upstream DNS provider.)  It’s a real shame as they used to be a great host, with some excellent support staff… but the no-warning shutdown leaves a very sour taste.  What’s odd is that BH has been having problems apparently since early 2008 (!) and I never noticed…

Update: WordPress is up and mostly successfully running.  Alas I have had no such luck with importing the FinderPop Support Forum phpBB2 backup into the phpBB3 install on my new host.  For now I’ve just gotten the new Support Forum up and running, but the 100-odd ex-users of the old Support Forum will not be pleased at having to enter their info again!  Apologies :-/

Update2: Burtonhosting is apparently back online, maybe someone rebooted their servers.  However they’re still not answering emails and their support forum is still broken.  Stay away!

Update3: Looks like Mr. BurtonHosting is “taking a different direction in life and as such I have decided to transition my business to Global Net Access.” Bit late for me and the fact that this is the first piece of communication I’ve had from them for nearly six months (when they happily took my money for the next 3 years worth of hosting) means they can bugger right off. Slinks off to make voodoo doll of Mr. Burtonhosting

At long last - FinderPop 2.2 is out the door - see www.finderpop.com. The only utility with a gestation period longer than an elephant’s! Some of the features introduced since the last official FinderPop release, 2.1.2 (a whole year ago):

• Online FinderPop Support Forum available: http://www.fnarr.net/fp
  • - Beta versions have been made available there at the rate of one every 3-4 weeks since the 2.1.2 release, so if you want the latest-n-greatest, you know where to go!
• Compatibility with all Finders from 10.4.0 .. 10.5.6.
• If you select a Unix shell script file (files whose name ends in ‘.sh‘) from a FinderPop menu, the script will be executed. Any Finder selection is passed to the script as standard text arguments. Likewise, if you select a compiled AppleScript file (i.e., a file ending in ‘.scpt‘), FinderPop will execute the script.
• Use the above to add a bunch of (possibly) useful utilities in the FinderPopExtras folder - a bit like the old OS 9 FinderPoplets. These include Lock/Unlock and Touch utilities for file manipulation.
• Support for Finder Label colours! You can also sort by Finder Labels in the Appearance tab.
• Initial attempt at per-directory customisation: the .fp_info file - allows you to set per-directory sorting and text styles which overrides the settings in the FinderPop preference pane..
• Make Processes menu sorting-by-name optional. Also, for quick access to the FinderPop Preference Pane, FinderPop will add an alias to itself to the end of the Process menu.
• Add new checkbox for periodic checks for FinderPop updates (in the prefPane’s “Etc” tab.)
• Add new button to the “Move/Copy/Alias” dialog allowing you to choose a different destination folder. You can also create a new destination folder.
• More flexible positioning of FP menu items:
  • Any item ending in ‘-!!n‘ will have a submenu listing all installed PrefPanes hanging off it.
  • Any item ending in ‘-!!a‘ will have a submenu with all the apps under the Applications folder (ie, including those in the Utilties folder.)
  • Any item ending in ‘-!!d‘ will have a Desktop submenu just like the Desktop submenu you get if you check the Add Desktop Submenu in the FinderPop prefPane.
  • Similarly, any item ending in ‘-!!p‘ will have a Processes menu hanging off it.
• FinderPop now maintains a list of the items you’ve chosen from a FinderPop submenu (rather than just the single most recent item.) These can appear either inlined or in a submenu.
• The “FinderPop Items” folder can now be an alias to a folder.
  
   

With the Irish Government desperately seeking money to offset the billion-euro-a-month overrun, the Revenue have simplified the 2009 tax form:

(Thanks, Jason!)

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away…

TRADITIONAL CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell one and buy a bull.
Your herd multiplies, and the economy grows.
You sell them and retire on the income.

AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You sell one, and force the other to produce the milk of four cows.
Later, you hire a consultant to analyse why the cow has dropped dead.

ENRON VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving you with nine cows. No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.

AN ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows, but you don’t know where they are.
You decide to have lunch.

A RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You count them again and learn you have 42 cows.
You count them again and learn you have 2 cows.
You stop counting cows and open another bottle of vodka.

AN INDIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
You worship them.

A BRITISH CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Both are mad.

AN IRAQI CORPORATION
Everyone thinks you have lots of cows.
You tell them that you have none.
No-one believes you, so they bomb the **** out of you and invade your country.
You still have no cows, but at least now you are part of Democracy….

AN AUSTRALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows.
Business seems pretty good.
You close the office and go for a few beers to celebrate.

A NEW ZEALAND CORPORATION
You have two cows.
The one on the left looks very attractive.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons

I ordered some stuff from dabs.ie over Christmas and foolishly chose to use PayPal to pay them. For the last three days the order has been sitting in “Awaiting PayPal Authorisation”. Contacting PayPal to find out what is happening is not as easy as it seems…

For some bizarre reason, the “Contact Us” link at the bottom of every PayPal page lead to

We are unable to complete your request.
An unexpected error has occurred.
Error message detail
java.lang.Exception: XssFilterSecurityException at com.paypal.tool.filter.XssFilter.doFilter(XssFilter.java:69)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:27)
...

I remote-desktopped into my work machine — a completely different network/ISP — and got the same error with both Internet Explorer and FireFox. So I’m not sure what’s going on… but a quick google unearthed a URL that works — the trick apparently is to use this URL: https://www.paypal.com/row/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_contact.

In an attempt to be a good netizen (hey, it’s only Jan 2nd, most of my New Year’s Resolutions are still intact), I reported the website problem to PayPal and was immensely reassured to see that they list AOL and WebTV as possible browsers, but don’t list FireFox (> 20% market share) or Safari. Looks like they haven’t updated their ‘Contact Us’ form since 1998.

I was therefore not surprised to receive an email reply to the above information stating that

… in order to maintain the integrity of the account, we need to make sure we are speaking directly to the account holder. In order to assist you, we recommend you contact us by telephone at 08707 307 191 and we will be more than happy to clarify the matter with you.

1. There was no account-specific information submitted. Maybe someone could actually read what was submitted?
2. The number they give is a UK-specific 0870 number. Impossible to call from here in Ireland, and even if it were…
3. Like I’m going to phone an 0870 number at my expense to tell them about problems with their crappy website.

Muppets.

Y’know, there must be a market for that rubber stamp from Top Secret…

(Well, that New Years Resolution to ‘rant less’ didn’t last long.)

Well, it’s finally happened. The historic Beamish & Crawford brewery in South Main St., Cork is to close - the new owners, Heineken, are to transfer some 40 workers to their own Murphy’s Brewery in Blackpool, and to sack 120 other workers. A Happy Christmas to Heineken too.

How this “merger” didn’t get stopped by the competition authorities I’ll never know. And for Heineken, presumably the lure of a prime city-centre site to sell on to property developers proved too much - even in this economic climate. Shouldn’t be long now before a tragic fire envelops the famous Beamish Counting House - a listed building - thus clearing the way for good old Stalinist apartment blocks.

Shame really, there’s been a brewery on that site since the late 1500s. Ah well. Sic transit gloria. Now my problem is what beer to drink - for now at least I don’t feel like drinking Murphish. I think a protracted tasting session is in order. Well, that’s what I feel like doing after hearing this depressing news…

From RTÉ News: Beamish brewery to close, 120 jobs lost:

Heineken is to close Beamish & Crawford brewery in Cork next March, with the loss of 120 jobs.
Production operations will be transferred to one site at Heineken Ireland’s Leitrim Street brewery in Cork city. Up to 40 employees from Beamish & Crawford will move to Heineken Ireland, with 120 others losing their jobs.
The Beamish & Crawford brewery was founded in Cork in 1792 by William Beamish and William Crawford.
Local Fine Gael TD Deirdre Clune described the decision as a body blow for Cork.
‘This is a dreadful day for the 120 Beamish & Crawford staff and their families, particularly in the run-up to Christmas’ she said.
In a statement, Heineken Ireland said it made the decision following an ‘a review of both individual brewing operations with particular focus on capacity, expansion capability and future investment’.
Managing Director Gerrit van Loo said: ‘Retaining two breweries is not sustainable and the loss of so many jobs remains a sad but unavoidable outcome.’
‘We will do all we can to minimise the impact on people and the community. We have agreed comprehensive severance terms with the trade unions, we will provide outplacement support, including career counselling, job search training and pension advice to all departing staff’.