iPod and iTunes Hacks

Contributors

The following people contributed their hacks, writing, and inspiration to this book:

• Doug Adams is the webmaster of “Doug’s AppleScripts for iTunes” (http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes), a web site that offers free AppleScripts for iTunes and resources for people who write them. The site was started in late 2001 and originally offered AppleScripts for SoundJam MP, the wicked cool MP3 player for Macintosh computers that was acquired by Apple and that eventually evolved into iTunes. Doug has been working with AppleScript since its debut during the days of System 7, but he has been programming anything that moves since buying a mail order Commodore 64 in 1983. In addition to the iTunes AppleScripts site, he maintains the “AppleScripts for Tex-Edit Plus Archives” (http://www.malcolmadams.com/te/). Doug lives in Providence, Rhode Island with his wife, Natalie, and daughter, Ellen. When he’s not AppleScripting (which, believe it or not, is most of the time) Doug is a freelance audio producer and commercial voiceover announcer.

• Joshua Benjamin is an aspiring Mac developer with several years spent in systems administration. He’s currently studying Human/Computer Interaction within Computer Science and Psychology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Josh keeps information on his software and research at http://www.jbenjamin.org

• David F. Bills is a technology architect and multimedia professional residing in New York, NY. He is a musician, computer enthusiast, and runs SmartPlaylists.com among other websites.

• Alan Donovan is a researcher in the field of programming languages and program analysis. He holds degrees from the University of Cambridge and MIT, in whose Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory he currently works. He has been programming for over 20 years and has worked on industrial projects involving multimedia, networking, embedded systems, interpreters and compilers. Alan currently divides his time between Boston and New York.

• Rael Dornfest is CTO of O’Reilly Media, focusing on emerging technologies just this side of viability and some beyond the pale. He assesses, experiments, programs, fiddles, fidgets, and writes for O’Reilly in various capacities. Rael is Series Editor of the O’Reilly Hacks series (http://hacks.oreilly.com) and has edited, contributed to, and coauthored various O’Reilly books, including Mac OS X Panther Hacks, Mac OS X Hacks, Google Hacks, Google: The Missing Manual, Essential Blogging, and Peer to Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies. He is also Program Chair for the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. In his copious free time, Rael develops bits and bobs of freeware, particularly the Blosxom weblog application (http://www.blosxom.com), is Editor in Chief of MobileWhack (http://www.mobilewhack.com), and more often than not maintains his Raelity Bytes weblog (http://www.raelity.org).

• Razvan Dragomirescu is the cofounder and Chief Technology Officer for SIMEDA GmbH, a leading provider of wireless technology. His time is split between researching new wireless technologies and administrative work (which he really hates :-). Razvan started tinkering with computers at the age of 7, with the help of his dad and a ZX Spectrum computer. He can be reached at [e-mail].

• Allen Evans is an undergraduate student studying German at the University of Vermont. He enjoys traveling and has lived abroad in Germany. He is an avid skier, cyclist, wakeboarder, and technology enthusiast.

• brian d foy has been an instructor for Stonehenge Consulting Services since 1998, a Perl user since he was a Physics graduate student, and a diehard Mac user since he first owned a computer. He founded the first Perl users group, the New York Perl Mongers, as well as the Perl advocacy nonprofit Perl Mongers, Inc., which helped form over 200 Perl user groups across the globe. He maintains the perlfaq portions of the core Perl documentation, several modules on CPAN, and some standalone scripts. He’s the publisher of The Perl Review, a magazine devoted to Perl, and a frequent speaker at conferences including The Perl Conference, Perl University, MarcusEvans BioInformatics ’02, and YAPC. His writings on Perl appear in the O’Reilly Network, The Perl Journal, Dr. Dobbs Journal, The Perl Review, on use.perl.org, and in several Perl Usenet groups.

• Fred Harmon holds BS degree in Avionics Engineering and works for major aerospace company. He is also an avid motorcyclist and is active in several motorcycle touring communities.

• Greg Koenig is an industrial designer who lives in Portland, Oregon.

• Raffi Krikorian is an unapologetic TiVo lover and a digital plumber. If you look hard enough, you can usually find him putting together a hack for some random stray idea that got him sidetracked from his last project. He is currently a graduate student at the MIT Media Lab, where he is both studying systems of organic scale and constructing very small IP-nodes that self-organize into larger systems. He freely admits, however, that his serious television addiction is probably getting between him and his goal to finally graduate MIT for the second time. When he’s not studying or watching TV, you can find him wandering about or trying something new. And finally, in whatever time is left, he tends to his wasted bits on his blog at http://www.bitwaste.com/wasted-bits/.

• Bernad Leach founded ipodlinux in early 2003 to provide an alternate platform for application development on the iPod. Based on a slimmed-down version of the Linux kernel, ipodlinux provides a Unix-like application environment with full support to the audio, display, and storage capabilities of the iPod. Originally from Australia, Bernard now lives and works in Europe.

• John Maushammer began hacking recreationally on an Apple II+ and has since reverse engineered the Sega VMU game system and the Dakota disposable digital camera. Professionally, he designs hardware and software for embedded computers that have traveled to the ends of the earth and into space. His hobbies include photography, bicycling, and hang gliding. His website is http://www.maushammer.com

• Jesse Melchior is a 29-year-old amateur special effects artist, writer, and filmmaker. He runs his own business, a digital video and effects company called REELMAGIK, along with his friend, John Tatarelli, and his brother, David Melchior, from his home in Parkside, Pennsylvania. Jesse has been involved in special effects work since he was a young boy. With a natural talent for drawing and painting, his progression took him to the next level, sculpting and make-up FX, and then filmmaking. To date, he has been involved in several short films, two commercials for well-known financial institutions, and a number of local video projects. His other talents include miniatures, optical effects, pyrotechnics, FX animation, and prop building. He is completely self-taught and has had no training in any field.

• David Miller is a programmer by trade, and he prefers tinkering with documents + nodes + attributes + styles rather than with queries + result sets. His site (http://www.fivevoltlogic.com) is five years in the making, and should be usable within the next three.

• Chu Moy is a software engineer. He received an undergraduate degree in electrical engineering from Yale University and runs HeadWize (http://www.headwize.com), a headphone resource site.

• Gregory Ng is a lover of all things Apple and, most importantly, his iPod. As an advertising art director and proud daddy, he still manages to find time to write for AppleMatters (http://www.applematters.com), where he is a contributing editor. His love for music and fame previously led him to be an Elvis impersonator (Chelvis, The Chinese Elvis) and the DJ of a now defunct radio show, “Fresh Cuts from the Audiobarn.” His website is http://www.GregoryNg.com.

• Jason Rohrer is the lead developer for several open source projects, including MUTE, konspire2b, minorGems, silk, and tangle. He is also a writer, artist, and musician, as well as an activist for personal freedom. He lives voluntarily poor and job-free, dividing his time between parenting and personal projects. He can be found at http://jasonrohrer.n3.net

• Chris Roose is a documentary radio producer, jazz/soul/funk DJ, and music store slave living in Brooklyn, New York. His first encounter with a Unix-like operating system was Linux Slackware 1.0 in 1993. It was Mac OS X, however, that inspired him to explore the full potential of Unix. He can be reached at [e-mail].

• C. K. Sample, III maintains the weblog “3650 and a 12-inch” (http://3650anda12inch.blogspot.com) that discusses the use of a 12” Powerbook G4 and a Nokia 3650. He is a doctoral candidate in English at Fordham University, focusing on twentieth century American and British literature, as well as 20^th-century world literature, biblical studies, and critical theory. C. K. (Clinton Kennedy; no relation) works in Fordham’s Department of Instructional Technology and Academic Computing as the Lab Coordinator for Marymount College and the Fordham Graduate Center in Tarrytown, New York. His first “computer” was an Atari 400, and his first Mac was a PowerBook 5300CS. Originally from Jackson, Mississippi, C. K. currently lives in Bronxville, New York with his fiancée, Kristin Landgrebe, and his pet Eclectus parrot, Misha, who is two years old.

• Ted Stevko (http://www.plasticnoodle.com) has been an illustrator, a programmer, a cartoonist, a network administrator, a Java programmer, and a web designer…usually all at once. He started using Macs in 1989, helping to run a two-computer network for his journalism class while drawing cartoons and writing articles. Currently, Ted builds high-availability web-service applications in Java during the day, and at night he works on comics while listening to the BBC, NPR, and old 1950s radio dramas on his iPod.

• Chris Seibold has been a computer enthusiast since 1990. He has worked as a political cartoonist, radio show producer, and Manufacturing engineer. He is currently a freelance writer in Knoxville, Tennessee.

• Meiera Holz Stern is a writer who lives in Newton, MA, with her family.

• Adriaan Tijsseling is best known as the creator of ecto and Kung-Tunes. He is originally an academic (with a Masters in Artificial Intelligence and a PhD in Cognitive Science), but nowadays works as Senior Technology Manager and Software Consultant for Joichi Ito’s private company. This just means he is juggling a variety of tasks that are all Internet-related and involve quite a bit of coding. He blogs regularly at http://kung-foo.tv and currently lives in Japan with his wife, Yukari, and daughter, Kee.

• Phillip Torrone is Associate Editor of Popular Science Magazine, feature columnist for engadget (http://www.engadget.com) and author of numerous books on mobile devices and design. Phillip’s work and projects can be viewed at http://www.flashenabled.com.

• Owen Watson is 21 years old and recently finished a BSc (Hons) in Computing for Industry at Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK. He is incredibly passionate about technology, especially all things Apple. You can drop him a line at [e-mail].