Album artwork wanting

I’ve found iTunes to long be one of the worst mp3 jukebox programs, but unlike on a PC, where you have lots of choices, including the nicely powerful and versatile Media Center, you’re pretty much limited to iTunes when you’re using a Mac. Plus, you need it to access the App Store.

So I’ve been once again re-ripping my CDs as mp3 files. The file organization isn’t waht I’d like it on disk, the file naming isn’t what I’d want, but I’m making do. The only way to find albums is through a flat access method, which means lots and lots of scrolling (and I’m not even close to being done), but again, I’ll make do.

What’s frustrating is the frequent issues I’m finding with album artwork. Many of the CDs I’m ripping have no artwork available in the database iTunes and Apple uses for music metadata. And in far too many cases, the artwork is simply wrong, sometimes amazingly so.

As a result, about half the time I rip one of my CDs, I subsequently have to Google the CD and look for images that match the actual cover art, download the file, and then apply it to the tracks. Not only is this annoying, I can’t figure out any way to get this information back to the metadata database so future folks who do this task with these CDs won’t have the same issue.

Apple touts it’s Cover Flow as an interesting way (certainly not a useful way, however) to browse your music selection. But Cover Flow’s usefulness is further attenuated when the default cover art the Apple offers as suggestions is too-often  just plain wrong.

Heat!

One of the things that kept me away from MacBooks was an experience I had a few years ago.

I don’t buy notebook computers by mail for one big reason: heat. Heat dissipation is one of the biggest engineering challenges in computers, made doubly so in the confined space of a notebook computer case. So I want to test a notebook’s heat dissipation before I buy it. I want to feel the underside, and I want to rest my hands on the keyboard and feel if the wristrests are too hot.

A few years ago, we had a work a benefits fair, where one booth was showcasing Mac products. (We got a discount on Mac purchases as employees.) I picked up the demo MacBook and felt the underside of the case–and jerked my fingers away, my fingertips almost getting burned by the high temperature.

So befoer I made the commitment to but this MacBook Pro, I tried doing a lot of research. I read review after review. And every time I was in a computer store that sold MacBook Pros, I’d feel the underide, looking especially for ones that had been running for awhile or doing some task. Reviews suggested that Apple had improved on its heat dissipation in newer models, and none that I encountered ever got all that hot.

But the reality turned out to be not quite the pre-purchase experience.

I’ve found that CPU-intensive activities really makes the bottom of the case hot. Even ripping CDs, which you’d not think is all that intensive (in iTunes no less) does the trick. But tonight took the cake.

All I’ve been doing is some occasional web surfing, in-between watching TV (and leaving the MacBook Pro simply sitting. At one point, afger being away for 10-15 minites, I came back, only to find it quite warm.

I have no explanation. Nothing at all has been straining the CPU nor has there been anything driving disk activity. But it’s definitely too hot to sit on a lap. There’s even a modest amount of heat coming up through the left side of the keyboard.

I can’t tell if this is normal, but the first impressions are that maybe Apple engineers didn’t do as good at engineering good heat dissipation as originally believed.