My hard drive crashed on my workstation at the office about two weeks ago, so I took the opportunity to upgrade to Windows 7. Most everything seems to be working well but QuickTime has some networking issues — it appears that it cannot make any HTTP connections. For example it cannot load the “Content Guide” when you launch the standalone player — it just says “Loading…” at the bottom.

It also cannot update the application within the player — instead it displays an error message saying “A connection with the QuickTime software server could not be established. This computer may be having trouble accessing the internet or the server may be off-line.”

Finally (and worst of all) it will not load any content from the web. For example, if I try to open an HD trailer from the Apple trailers site, it displays a popup saying “Error 47: Invalid URL. ()

We have verified this on three different computers, two running Windows 7 Professional and one running Windows 7 Ultimate. We also tried every version of QuickTime 7.x we could find, and they all display the same error.

Finally, we tried disabling the firewall and adding an exception for the QuickTimePlayer.exe but nothing seems to fix it.

I am using QuickTime Pro (this is purchased software) so I called Apple support hoping to get a resolution. I spoke with James (who was very friendly) who pointed me to the following article in the Apple discussion boards. I had already seen this in my initial research but, unfortunately, none of the recommended fixes worked for me. After telling James, he informed me that Apple doesn’t really do troubleshooting support for QuickTime (O_o) so my only hope was the web site.

So until Apple gets its act together, I recommend NOT upgrading to Windows 7 unless QuickTime is not important to you.

Anyone out there with a similar problem?

Some may complain about the way Apple does things, but I recently had an experience with iTunes Music Store (iTMS) customer support that was incredible. I have to say that I’m even more of a fan boy of the iTMS than I was before.

First, you should know that I have always liked Winamp for playing music on the computer — not the really old version (Winamp 2.x) but the newer version with modern skins (5.x). Years ago, when the iTunes store first opened, I was very excited about the convenience of online purchasing of digital music, but I was not excited about being locked into using iTunes for playback. At the all the songs at the iTMS were encoded at 128KB and included digital rights management (DRM) which limited you to only using the songs on Apple iPods or (up to) five authorized computers, and only with iTunes as the playback software. This was a restriction I was willing to live with for the ease of online buying.

More recently, the iTunes store upgraded all their music to something called iTunes Plus, which is encoded at a higher bit-rate (=higher quality sound) and no DRM. This is freeing because now you can use any playback software you want (yay, back to Winamp!) Even better was how easy they made it to upgrade existing purchases to the new format: all you have to do is log into the iTMS and click the “iTunes Plus” link on the right side. You should be presented with the option to upgrade earlier purchases to the new format at a reduced cost, usually only 30¢ per song (if an upgraded version of the song is available.)

The problem was I didn’t get offered an upgrade for all of my old purchases. Specifically, I had 23 songs that I really wanted to update to the new higher-quality format but couldn’t through normal channels. Since everything sold is supposed to be iTunes Plus, I searched to see if all the songs I had were available and, with one exception, they were.

I called Apple support and they directed me to the iTunes Music Store support chat, http://tinyurl.com/c29va3 (bookmark that link!) After about one minute, Barbara B. joined me and asked how she could help. I explained the situation and she replied that it can sometimes take a while for the upgrade version becomes available — even if the higher quality version is available for new purchases. After a few more questions, she offered as a courtesy to let me purchase ALL 23 songs new and she would refund the charges!

So, not only did I get the rest of my library upgraded, I got to do it for free!

If you ask me, that just ROCKS!

About 19 months ago, my wife purchased a pair of Etymotic Research’s mid-range ($149.00) ER·6i Isolator Earphones (that was late 2005.) I had read about them and had mentioned to her that I really wanted a pair, but that they were really pretty expensive (at least for our standard of living.)

She sneaked around and managed to surprise me with them for Christmas. I was thrilled, but at the same time had a few trepidations because I had read about some folks who thought their sound quality was a bit overrated.

Initially for me, they were a bit hard to get used to because I couldn’t really get them to fit correctly in my ears. I would try to get them seated (pull up and back on the top of the ear while inserting the earphones) but I could always still hear some sound escaping from around the eartips — it was like they were not getting a good seal, so I never really got that good deep bass they were touted to have. Part of the problem was that I didn’t know which kind of eartip I needed. Mine came with two kinds of tip initially, the three-tiered rubber flanged tips and some solid foam tips.

The three-tiered rubber tips were just too narrow and long for my ears — they would just sort of rattle around in my ear canal and the sound quality was about the same as listening through a tin can. The solid foam tips sounded best, but my ears would start feeling full and hot only after an hour or so of wear.

After using them for nearly a year, the re-washable foam tips finally began to wear out. I went online and looked at some of the replacement tips.

I found some two-tiered rubber tips, so I decided to order five of them (for a whopping $14). When they arrived about a week later, I removed my last pair of foam eartips and slipped on a set of the new rubber ones ones I just received. When I put the earphones in my ears, I was shocked. The seal was soft and perfect and the bass response I had read about became real.

You know that feeling when you find a new piece of music or a song that is fresh and exciting to listen to? That’s what these earphones did for music I had loved for years.

I can wear them for hours comfortably. You can listen to classical, rock, funk and folk and it all sounds simply breathtaking. I haven’t heard anything that didn’t sound like new music through the 6i’s.

Needless to say, I use them frequently. They are especially useful while mowing the grass. We have lots of grass to mow, so it takes several hours riding on a mower and bush-hog to get it all done. A great feature of the earphones is that you do not have to turn up the music very loud to overcome the sound of the engine because of the isolating effect they have on outside noise. You can listen at a comfortable, clear level while mowing, weed-eating, whatever.

So, on with the story.

About a month ago, my earphones developed a short in two places of the cord — near the jack and near the Y split between the ears. The right ear would occasionally clip or cut out completely. After about a week of sputtering, the right ear finally gave out. I was crushed.

I checked online and noted that the warranty period is 1 year from the date of purchase for the 6i’s and I had owned these for nearly 20 months. I figured I would have to pony up a fee for servicing them, but I really wanted to get them fixed.

I called Etyomtic on July 3 toll-free at 1-888-Etymotic (1-888-389-6684) and spoke with customer service. I was expecting to have to provide a credit card on the phone for arranging the service request, but the nice woman on the phone simply gave me an RMA number and told me to mail them in with a letter explaining the problem so they could diagnose the problem. I wrote a simple letter explaining how much I loved them and how the short had developed, dropped the earphones in the padded envelope and shipped them off.

After about 2 weeks, I decided to call and find out about the status and cost of my repair. I spoke with another friendly customer service representative who (after a short delay due to computer problems) was able to look up my ticket. He informed me that a replacement set had been shipped out several days ago and was scheduled for delivery today, no charge. I asked him to reconfirm that, since my earphones were no longer covered under warranty. He said they had, in fact, been covered under warranty service. I told him what a surprise that was and he simply replied "Well, how about that!"

I thanked him and am now enjoying the sweet sound of my beloved earphones again.

This is customer service at its best. Not only does the company make an excellent product, they stand behind it. Lord-willing, I will be a ER customer for a long time.

Update: (9:50 p.m., 2007-01-02) If you add the two lines:

before loading the XML, it will ignore the missing DTD.

There is no built-in simple way to do this in iTunes.

I have seen several cool Windows scripts that folks have created for doing some of the parts of library maintenance, but nothing that did everything, especially the hard part of scanning folders for media files and checking to see if they exist in the iTunes library. Since this was such a valuable feature in Winamp, I decided to put one together.

I cannot take full credit for this because parts of my script are built on other people’s work including Otto’s.

If you too are being resigned to use iTunes but miss this feature of Winamp, give my script a try.

Basically, he was left without a passport and thusly wasn’t able to get into the country (the U.S.) Bummer.

I was really looking forward to hearing them. I haven’t had time to try and verify the story (edit: it does seem to have some validity, based on posts at thousandfootkrutch.com), but I assume that it’s all true since I heard it from someone that got the story from a Clear Channel employee. Also, the signs posted outside the venue said that TFK wouldn’t be there because they couldn’t get into the country. Consider this a still-open invitation to Thousand Foot Krutch to come to Little Rock to play, though. I would still love to see them perform live.

Since TFK didn’t make it, we were instead given the treat of hearing a local band, Wake the Dawn, who stepped in at the last minute. They were excellent (mad props to Bryson, the lead singer, who has a great voice.) I highly recommend them. They had a nice hard edge to their music, but very melodic at the same time. It was also fun to see the members of Pillar occasionally peek out and watch some of WTD’s show.

After Wake the Dawn finished their set and cleared the stage, the Pillar crew started setting up. Then, Lester himself came out to sound check his drums. I don’t think many folks knew that it was him (the hat with the word "Roadie" emblazoned on it didn’t help), but a young lady behind me pointed him out and then called out his name a few times. He kind of looked up sheepishly and then grinned. It was a nice moment.

After all the setup and sound checks were done (they seemed to have some trouble with the front mic and the two center monitors) the lights went down and the theme some from Kill Bill (by Hotei) began playing. The guys took the stage and plowed right into their sophomore album’s title track, Fireproof.

They followed that with Ashamed, also from the first album. Then they moved to their new album’s material Where Do We Go From Here? with Underneath It All.

They slowed things a bit with more classics, Echelon (one of my favorites) and Further From Myself.

They kept things mellow with Rewind, a song about regretting past mistakes, from the new album. After that, Rob asked the crowd if they were still awake (which was met by an enthusiastic "Yeah".)

Then they moved into a great cover of the U2 classic Sunday, Bloody Sunday, which they did for a tribute album to benefit AIDS victims in Africa. It was most excellent, much harder edge than Bono and the boy’s version.

It was after this song that Rob disconnected the two front monitors. I guess they were giving him trouble, but it wasn’t noticeable in the crowd.

They played one more classic, Behind Closed Doors, before moving exclusively into all new material, all hard rockers: Simply, Frontline, and Hypnotized.

They finished the set with the radio-hit Bring Me Down, which had the crowd bouncing throughout and singing along.

They left the stage and, after a few minutes of chanting by the crowd, returned for an encore, playing another great rocker from the new album, Let It Out (which they said they hadn’t played live very often, so we were getting a treat.)

Rob finished the show saying that if anyone had any questions or wanted to discuss anything with the band, they would come out after a little bit to meet the crowd.

As they were leaving the stage and tossing stuff, I managed to catch one of the song lists they had used on stage during the show. (We were front-center, right against the stage.) Another fan had caught a corner of the paper and we made eye contact. He paused for a minute, then said that he already had one from another show, so we relinquished it to me. (You don’t find that at many concerts nowadays, do you?) I didn’t catch his name, but I’d like to thank him now!

After about 15 minutes, the guys came out to meet and greet the crowd. They seem to be genuinely nice fellows who are concerned about their fans, especially since all four of them were there getting their pictures taken with fans, talking and laughing and signing autographs for quite a few folks. They even recognized some of the fans from other shows, which I found very impressive.

They all signed the song list, which greatly impressed my teen-aged son and daughter.

All in all, it was a great show.

One of the other things that concerned me was the fact that I had used iTunes on my Macintosh and REALLY didn’t like the interface. I was worried that if I put all my music on my iPod, I would be forced into using iTunes. That’s one of the things about Apple Computers — if you don’t like the way they do something, you are just out of luck.

Besides, I do most of my music listening on my Windows machine with Winamp (I even like Winamp3.)

When the iPod arrived, I installed the Windows drivers and stuff. It comes bundled with Music Match Jukebox, which has an even worse interface than iTunes. The first thing I did was found something else to use to keep my iPod and PC synched. I tried Ephpod which does pretty well, but the winner by far was Anapod Explorer. It works incredibly well.

When I heard that Apple was releasing a Windows version of their iTunes software, I decided to download it and give it a try. I installed it and started looking around the iMusic store. I decided to take the plunge and purchased 5 tunes from and I have to say Apple has done the music purchasing part right.

The process was VERY easy (almost scary it was so easy!) and the quality of the music was great. And the whole thing with the Digital Restrictions Management (the stuff that keeps you from making illegal copies of the music you bought) doesn’t bother me, either.

I still don’t use iTunes as my player of choice, but once you purchase music with iTunes you can then burn it to CD, then rip that to mp3 or Ogg Vorbis or whatever your favorite format is. That way, I can stay with Winamp and listen to all my stuff.

In addition, I found another program to keep up with my iPod’s music. Anapod is a great program and is far superior to iTunes interface. It even handles the purchased music, so long as you use iTunes at least once to authorize your iPod to hear purchased songs.