By Rick Broida
November 17, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – For the past month or so, I’ve been leisurely migrating to Windows 7–at my own pace. If you’ve been following along, thus far we’ve partitioned the hard drive and installed Windows 7 on a new partition, and then used a couple free programs to install favorite apps and copy over Firefox bookmarks. This week I’ll show you how to finish up the process by migrating your Apple iTunes library and copying over your data.

Move Your iTunes Library

Copying over your iTunes library is a drag-and-drop procedure, though it may take some time.

Start by making sure you’re running the latest version of iTunes in your original version of Windows (XP or Vista). Then boot to Windows 7 and install that same version of iTunes. Any mixing of old and new iTunes library files could lead to unpleasant results.

While still in Windows 7, exit iTunes, then click the Windows Explorer icon in your taskbar. (Wasn’t it nice of Microsoft to finally make Windows Explorer readily accessible?)

Browse into the Computer section; find your original Windows XP/Vista partition (on my system it was Drive D:, even though it appears as Drive C: when I boot to that partition); then navigate into the Users, Your Username, My Music, iTunes folder.

You should see various iTunes Library files and subfolders. Now, find the corresponding iTunes folder in your Windows 7 partition–but don’t open it. Instead, select all the files and folders from within the original partition’s iTunes folder, then drag them to the new partition’s iTunes folder.

Depending on how much music, video, apps, and the like you have, the copy process could take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or more.

Along the way, Windows will likely notify you of a few duplicate files. Make sure to select the Copy and Replace option, as you want to overwrite the newer (and mostly empty) iTunes files with the ones from your original installation.

Once Windows has finished copying everything, start iTunes. Everything should be exactly as it was in your older OS. One cool exception: When you mouse over the iTunes icon in the Windows 7 taskbar, you’ll see Play/Pause and Skip controls you can use for music playback without needing to maximize the program.

Copy Important Data

It’s time to start wrapping up the process, installing any programs that didn’t get installed earlier, copying over data files, and setting up peripherals like printers. In other words, the time has come to start living under Windows 7′s roof, returning to XP or Vista only when necessary. Before you turn off the lights and lock the door, however, make a list of the programs you still need to install and the data you need to copy. Allow me to help with the latter.

Here’s a list of common data you’ll want to make sure you don’t leave behind:

Documents: Everything in your My Documents folder, and in any other folders you use to store Word files, spreadsheets, presentations, and the like.

Music: If you don’t use iTunes, or you keep your MP3s in a folder other than My Music, make sure to copy them over.

Photos: Most folks store them in the My Pictures folder, so all you have to do is copy the contents to the eponymous folder in Windows 7. Same goes for…

Videos: Most folks store them in the My Videos folder, so copy the contents to that same folder in Windows 7.

Financial records: If you use Intuit Quicken or Microsoft Money, your best bet is probably to use either program’s built-in backup option, saving the backup file(s) to an easy-to-find spot on your Windows 7 partition (the Documents folder, for example), then run the program in Windows 7 and restore the backup.

E-mail: If you use Gmail, Yahoo, or another Web-based e-mail service, you’re golden. Just sign into your accounts as usual using your browser. However, things are a lot trickier if you hang your e-mail hat in Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Live Mail. Because I can’t cover the migration steps for all those programs here, I advise you to do a little Google searching and find the instructions you need. They’re out there.

As I’ve noted before, the beauty of this slow migration is that if you forget something, no problem: You can copy it over as needed.

At some point, perhaps after a month or so, you can make this move more permanent by shrinking the partition for the old OS and enlarging the one with Windows 7. I’ll cover that at a later time.

IT security and control firm Sophos is urging iPhone and iPod Touch users to upgrade their devices with the latest version of Apple’s eagerly awaited operating system – not just for the enhanced usability features, but because the update fixes more than 40 security vulnerabilities.

Existing iPhone users can update their operating system for free via iTunes to version 3.0, and take advantage of a number of longed-for new features such as cut-and-paste, spotlight search and a landscape virtual keyboard.  However, Sophos experts note that Apple has also included a number of important security patches inside the update, making it crucial for both sets of users to patch as quickly as possible.  Sophos warns that the iPod Touch customers are required to pay $9.95 for the privilege.

According to an advisory on Apple’s Web site, iPhone OS 3.0 patches 46 vulnerabilities, including some that could potentially allow hackers to run malicious code on a user’s iPhone if they visited a booby-trapped website or viewed a specially-crafted image file.

“If left unpatched, hackers could run malware on your iPhone just by you visiting a website or viewing a maliciously-crafted image,” explained Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.  ”Although we haven’t come across any examples of hackers creating malware to exploit these vulnerabilities as yet, it is vital that iPhone and iPod Touch users understand the importance of this latest update.  Without it, they are leaving themselves potentially wide open to attack – it pays to remember that no operating system is invincible.”

“There’s no doubt that some iPod Touch users will be unhappy that they have to pay for their devices to be fixed, and it’s certainly unusual for a company to charge for important security patches like this,” continued Cluley. “In an ideal world Apple would make free fixes available for iPod Touch users who don’t feel they need cut-and-paste and other new features, but do want to be able to use the internet securely.”

For more information, please visit: www.sophos.com/blogs/gc/g/2009/06/18/apple-update-fixes

By Kirk McElhearn
Macworld.com
February 17, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – One of the biggest announcements made by Apple during the recent Macworld Expo was the news that, soon, all music sold by the iTunes Store will be free of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. Currently, some 80% of music sold on the iTunes Store is without DRM, with the remainder to follow by the end of March.

While this frees up iTunes Store purchases for playback on other devices, or with other software, there may still be a hurdle if you don’t use a compatible device, or if you want to use these files with Windows software. For the music files sold by Apple are in AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) format. (Contrary to what many believe, this is not a “proprietary” format owned by Apple, but rather part of the MP4 specification.) But not many devices support AAC. Aside from Apple’s offerings, Microsoft’s Zune, the SanDisk Sansa, several Sony devices (the PlayStation Portable, Walkman and some phones), the Sonos Digital Music Player, the Squeezebox, and some other devices can play back AAC files. A handful of player programs support AAC, but not some of the most commonly used Windows programs such as Windows Media Player. But nearly every digital music player can play back the more ubiquitous MP3 format, as can most home DVD players and car stereos (via MP3 CDs).

If you want to take advantage of the vast catalogue of music available on iTunes (while Amazon.com has a broad selection, iTunes still has many exclusive albums, or albums with bonus tracks, and, in some areas, has a wider range of music), why not buy AAC files and convert them to MP3 if you want to use them on non-Apple devices? Some people think it’s heresy to convert music from one format to another, but, in reality, if you convert a 256 kbps AAC file to a 256 kbps MP3 file, you won’t hear any difference or degradation.

Converting these files with iTunes is pretty simple. Choose iTunes: Preferences, click the General tab, then click on the Import Settings button. If you have never changed the default settings, this will be set to AAC Encoder at 128 kbps (what Apple calls High Quality). Choose MP3 Encoder from the first menu, then, in the second menu, choose Custom, then 256 kbps. (Use this bit-rate, which is the equivalent of the iTunes Plus AAC files’ bit-rate so you lose as little quality as possible.) Then click OK twice to save your settings.

Next, create a playlist with the tracks you want to convert. Select them all, then choose Advanced: Create MP3 Version. iTunes will take a few minutes (depending on how many tracks you’re converting), and will make you new MP3 versions of your files. In order to find which they are–they’ll be filed together in your library with the originals–check your Recently Played playlist, or create a smart playlist where Kind Contains MPEG and Date Added Is today’s date, in the form 1/20/09. Next, Control-click on one of the tracks and choose Show in Finder. If iTunes organizes your music, you’ll find all the tracks for a given album in the same folder; just spot the MP3 versions and copy them to another folder or device.

(If you often change from one format for ripping your music from CD to another when converting files, you might want to use Doug Adams’ Quick Convert script. It lets you convert tracks using your choice of encoders, then restores your encoding preferences after conversion.)

So the above technique works for iTunes Plus files, which are DRM-free, and which allow you to convert them to other formats. But what if you have older iTunes files with DRM? You can’t use the same technique; iTunes will tell you that can’t convert protected files to other formats. So the trick here–which is a bit time consuming–is to burn your music to CD, then rip it from the CD in MP3 format. Don’t bother ripping at a bit-rate higher than 160 kpbs (iTunes files with DRM are 128 kbps, but it is commonly agreed that AAC files are better at lower bit-rates; using 160 kbps for MP3 should retain the same level of quality). You’ll then be able to have DRM-free files to use on other devices, while you wait for the true death of DRM.