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Friday, January 23, 2004

KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNG!

Kung-Tunes is driving me batty.

At some point in the last few months, over the course of normal incremental version upgrades, it has had some "features" added that are incredibly annoying. Like, if you want it to run automatically without having to be started and stopped by hand, it *forces* itunes to NOT ONLY start up on its own, but to START PLAYING whatever track is first in your library. So every time I restart my computer (which isn't often, actually), I get serenaded by "Me and Giuliani" by !!!.

AND, if you pause a song, Kung-Tunes just stops running. You have to go back into the program and re-activate it. Just because you paused a song for a second!

AND, if you quit Kung-Tunes for whatever reason, it *automatically quits iTunes, too*.

Look, I just want something that will run inobtrusively in the background, uploading iTunes track info to this website whenever iTunes happens to be running. I don't want to have to think about it, I don't want to have to worry about whether or not it's actually doing what I think it's doing.

I have Synergy (and before that, PTHiTunesNotifier) and iChatStatus running happily 24 hours a day. Why can't Kung-Tunes do the same anymore? Is there another program that has the same feature set (and is free) so I can get rid of this monkey?

(This dorky Macintosh rant has been brought to you by The Phone Isn't Ringing At Work Day.)

March 19, 2004 Update: Hey! I fixed it. I edited the faceless AppleScript version of Kung-Tunes (which is basically an old, outdated version of the program that for whatever reason still works with the latest version of the OS and iTunes even though the GUI ones might not), saved it as an application bundle, modified the NSUIElement in the Info.plist to make it not appear in the dock, and added it to my startup items. Voila: transparent updating of the sidebar when iTunes is playing, without intrusive starts and stops. Now maybe I'll blog again. At some point. Go read Glitter for Brains instead; he's funny.

March 19, 2004 Update Part II: I spoketh too soon. The script is currently sucking down 72% of my CPU and isn't updating diddly squat. Oh well.

Posted at 02:57 PM

Comments

001. Laurel Girvan

I crave your day, I only wish *my* phone would stop ringing. You know those days when you'd rather wake up all over again and pretend the whole thing was a nightmare? Yes. Me too.

Got a pair of pants at Macy's, though, that fit so perfectly I think I imagined them. Must peep into shopping bag again and again...and again....

Posted at 04:54PM on Friday, January 23, 2004

002. brian w

Testing testing.

Posted at 10:58AM on Tuesday, January 27, 2004

003. Tim

I tired out Kung Tunes once, but it was too fiddly and annoyed me so I gave up in the end.

Posted at 08:06AM on Saturday, January 31, 2004

004. Bart

If it's just the new versions that bother you, how come you don't just install an older version?

Posted at 11:12PM on Sunday, February 15, 2004

005. brian w

The previous versions unfortunately don't work with my operating system & current version of iTunes.

Posted at 11:26PM on Sunday, February 15, 2004

006. tom

'me and giuliani...' by !!! gets played everytime i forget my iPod isn't on random anymore and hit play. I hate that song now.