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.

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.

Here’s a really common use case. You’re typing along. You see you just made a typo. You correct it, which leaves the cursor at the corrected word. Now you want to go to where you left off.

But instead of pressing an “End” key, you’re forced to remove your hand from the keyboard and mouse over to the end of the line and click (or, if you haven’t gotten a Bluetooth mouse yet, do the same thing, requiring even more effort, with the trackpad).

I would sacrifice some speaker geometry for an “End” key.

But this post is not about that.

I’ve found many CDs that do not have artwork in the music database. (Interestingly, too, many multi-CD releases have artowrk for the first CD, but not the second.)

So the way to add artwork (once you’ve located and downloaded the JPG file from somewhere) is to select the tracks, right-click and select Get Info, then double-click on the area for the artwork. This action opens a dialog box.

Problem is, even if I’ve been working for awhile in iTunes, this dialog box always opens in the same place (the Documents folder, rather than the Downloads folder, where I’d previously selected to find the artwork file), and it always opens the same size (too small). So nearly every time, I have to click twice to select the Downloads folder, and then drag to resize the dialog box so I can see more files at a time and scroll less.

It may not be a big thing to programmers, but this is a repetitive task, and one or two extra clicks each time add up. And this basic concept of leaving where you’ve been before the same size and place as when you left it is a pretty simple one. So why it’s not followed here is a puzzlement.

Two decades and many computers, both desktop and notebook, later, I finally bought my first Mac.

I’ve been lusting for a MacBook Pro since they came out with the latest line that touts 7-hour battery life. Some of my former co-workers who used MacBook Pros as their primary machines would routinely claim that they’d run windows faster than PCs.

That last was the tipping point. I just waited for opportunity.

I was initially attracted to the 13″ machines. I loved the dimensions, the light weight. But in playing with them side-by-side in the stores, it became evident that for the work I’d typically do, the 13″ screen would be too small. So I settled on the 15″, despite that knowledge that trying to use it, say, on an airplane would be a tremendously cramped experience.

Opportunity finally arose. I had $300 in Best Buy gift cards that I’d been saving for a PS3. But out of the blue, Fry’s put the base model, definitely enough processing power and a reasonable amount of hard disk space, for $200 off. At the local Best Buy, I asked if they price matched, and when they said they did, it meant that $500 of the cost would not be coming out of my pocket. Sweet.

Plans are for this to be an outlet for the good, the bad, and the ugly. As someone with extensive experience in the area of user experience, I’m in a unique position to rationally analyze issues I might encounter and provide useful feedback free from the fanboy fawning.

More than once I’ve done this and I discovered right away that there’s no End key on the keyboard. Huh? Arrow keys, yes. But no End key. Of all the keys that could be omitted from the keyboard layout, the End key is probably one of the last ones you’d want to discard.

(That the Delete key is in the place of and acts like the Backspace key on PCs and that the Delete key was omitted as well is another issue.)