I would have to disagree with you about iTunes and Quick Time.
I help look after around 20 computers running Windows XP Pro and they have
Quick Time on them and it does not impede the machines in any way. I should
also point out that these computers are used in 'critical' systems where they
need to work and they run as sound editing and playout devices.
My own PC I have at home runs iTunes and Quick Time quite happily.
Phil
----- Original Message ----
From: escalation746 <>
To:
Sent: Sunday, 9 March, 2008 11:54:16 PM
Subject: [Nature Recordists] Re: Getting organised...
A few random notes from a one-time database programmer.
First, I would never install iTunes or Quicktime or any other Apple
product on a Windows PC. These are far too monolithic and invasive,
being more than impolite to your system and other applications. (This
is not Mac-bashing. .. in this category I also include Real Media
products, for example.) Install one of these and you might have other
media programmes randomly crash or permanently stop working. I have
seen an entire Windows install get irrevocably corrupted simply by
installing an Apple product... this after the person did not believe
me when I warned them it could happen!
I would also not recommend anything that requires one to use Access,
since this programme is proprietary and poor. In early days the
database was famous for spontaneously corrupting, and though I have
heard that problem is now less likely to happen, there are still
better solutions.
Microsoft's own FoxPro is a far superior technology that they
essentially buried in favour of Abscess (as we called it back in the day).
Likewise I would not recommend Word, a programme that is not even
compatible with its own files over different versions. This creates an
enormous headache that every business must contend with. Instead grab
the open source OpenOffice..org, an equally capable office suite that
is quite compatible with DOC files, even more so than Word itself.
Good cataloging programmes are always so difficult to find.... because
everyone has different needs. UNIX freaks (positive term, BTW) roll
their own with sed, grep and a handful of pipes doing the dirty work.
Nowadays the same is still possible -- and much handier and
cross-platform to boot -- using a language like Python. (This is far
easier to learn than embedded database languages, more powerful, and
more likely to be leveraged in other contexts.)
I would recommend not using a database at all, but rather utilising
the file system by implementing a system with sidecar files. One plain
text file per folder can list each piece of media in that location,
together with a series of tags. Utilities can be written to populate
these from embedded metadata, update them with new files, and search
them for required terms.
This would be totally open, cross-platform and database agnostic.
I am sure many people have already hacked together just such a solution.
-- robin
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