iPod Am I being a bit Obsessive? Worth the bother? Couple questions...

[SamIchi]

I was trying to merge 2 iTunes libraries and totally erased all the meta data for past 4 years. I did a bunch of other stuff, but that's the short story. All I have left is a previous library from 2005. I really wanted the date added, and play counts.

I've had Last.fm since 2005 so I'm thinkin I'll look at all my charts from each week and add music to the iTunes library whenever new music was introduced in my charts at last.fm and then do the play counts (you don't have to listen to the full song for the playcount to add up

This way I'll have my play counts and then have the same order of date added, but not the actual date So that's my question, without messing with the internal time on my computer, is there a way to change that? Even if I could change it I couldn't get the actual date and time added from last.fm but just the week added.

Anyone know? This is going to take forever, but I really want to preserve my listening record. I don't know why I'm so obsessive about it. It pisses me off so much that I screwed myself over.

 

[Nugget]

Running Leopard yet? You could restore your library file from Time Machine.

 

[SamIchi]

Running Leopard yet? You could restore your library file from Time Machine.

Hah, leopard is the reason (not the whole reason) why I lost my data. Prior to leopard I was trying to merge the libraries, and when it came time to upgrade, I did some cleaning and deleted some files I didn't want to delete. For some reason or another I wanted clean and organized HD's before I did my upgrade, so stupidly, I deleted certain files on my external for TM to have room. So right before my first backup, a certain folder was deleted.

*shakes head in shame* I usually hold onto everything but this one time I deleted something important to me, and right before the TM backup. Terrible Sam, terrible

 

[Nugget]

What rotten timing.

For what it's worth, I totally understand your desire to recover all your iTunes metadata. I had a similar crash and I lost about a month's worth of added/playcount information and I was crushed. It really sucks.

So, I guess you're not the only one that obsessive. I wrote a little shell script that runs every night to back up my library data file so that I don't lose it to corruption ever again.

 

[CarlsonCustoms]

What exactly do people do with playcounts? I never quite got what this info was useful for.

I have almost 5k songs on my Ipod and find myself skipping songs alot. I think I need to delete some stuff from my other "musical phases"

Zack

 

[decksnap]

What exactly do people do with playcounts? I never quite got what this info was useful for.

I have almost 5k songs on my Ipod and find myself skipping songs alot. I think I need to delete some stuff from my other "musical phases"

Zack

Well if you used playcounts, you could build smart playlists that either included or excluded songs you never listen to or listen to too much. That's one reason it's useful.

 

[CarlsonCustoms]

That's not a bad idea.. Thanks..