How Mac & PC can Share an iTunes Network Library

I thought I had started another post on this... I'm trying to find a way to share one iTunes 7.5 library, stored on a network drive, between my 10.5 Mac and her XP-PC. I want both of us to be able to play, add, and trash songs and video - it doesn't have to be simultaneously.

When you start up iTunes on a PC holding the "Shift" button down, it will ask you if you want to "Choose a Library..." or to create a new one. When you choose a library, the app looks for an ".itl" file. When I navigated to the network drive, it listed all of the directories, but no library file was apparent.

My Mac generated iTunes library file has no extension on it. Just for kicks, I added an ".itl" extension to the Mac file and it asked me if I really wanted to do it. I said yes and then I tried launching iTunes on the PC again.

This time it loaded the library up with out a problem. Then, iTunes began updating the library since I had just installed the newest version of 7.5 on the PC.

Now, my fear is that I won't be able to access the library file on the Mac. It's just a waiting game now.

UPDATE: It seems to work fine. I might not have even needed to add the ".itl" extension, but it doesn't seem to negatively effect the Mac version.

Future network setup

Once we get jobs and find a place to settle down, I'll finally get to set up our network. It'll take a while to get "everyone" together, but I'll have to think of how I'll assign everything.

1. PowerMac G4 w/ 10.3? - I dunno if I'll even be able to take this one back. Mom-folks have been using it for sometime now and they might be reluctant to letting it go, but I could persuade Dad to getting them a new iMac of their very own. Unfortunately I don't really remember what it's got under-the-hood. I'd like to incorporate it into a file server with a bunch of HD's in it. It'd be nice to get over a tetrabyte of storage finally.
   
2. PowerBook G4 w/ 10.4 Server - I'll probably keep this one running as the main server until I can figure out what to do with the PowerMac G4. Eventually this might just function as a backup mail server.
   
3. iMac w/ 10.4 & Windows XP - We haven't even bought this computer yet. It'll be Hyunjoo's main computer, running both OS's. We'll probably use it for watching videos directly and hopefully I'll be able to load up some cool games on it.
   
4. MacBook w/ 10.4 & Windows XP - something that I'll probably use as my main computer and something to play movies for Movie Night.
   
5. Compaq Armada M300 w/ Windows XP - I'll probably turn this in to a guest computer or an emailing station.
   
6. Linksys - I'll keep this router to handle our Ethernet and wireless networking.
   

The Network

We're starting to get quite a collection. I've been trying to keep track of it all, so here's a run-down of the hardware

• MacBook
• Partition 1 - Intel OSX Tiger
• Partition 2 - Boot Camp - Windows XP
• PowerBook
• PPC OSX Tiger Server
• External 250 GB
• Personal Files
• Mac installers
  
• iTunes & iPhoto libraries
• Bittorrents
  
• Armada
• Windows XP
• External 65 GB
• Windows installers
• Cued videos
  
• Peripherals
• Canon i70 portable inkjet printer
  
• Epson flatbed scanner
• iPod FW 3G 40 GB - 2 partitions
  
• TechTools Protogo Universal profile
  
• TechTool
• DiskRescue II
  
• DiskStudio
• DiskWarrior
• iDefrag
• External 120 GB
• clone of 250 GB HD sans Bittorrent documents
  
• External 80 GB USB
• iTunes & iPhoto backup libraries
• essential documents backups
• LaCie RAID 1 external enclosure (wishlist)
• for secure storage of personal documents and media files; I'm tired about worrying whether my drives will fry in the heat, I'm only buying HD enclosures with built-in fans (and FireWire/USB connectivity) from now on
• UPS (wishlist)
• for the eventual PowerMac-fileserver
  
• PowerMac (TBA)
• eventual server with external 250 and 120 HD's installed
• upgrade with hardware RAID 1
• Acard AEC-6880M

Back it up!

I recently bought a portable USB 80GB drive cuz I got sick of burning multiple CD-RW's to back up my school files. I don't usually transport large files from work to home, so I'll mostly be using it to back up school stuff. I looked around and decided to try out Norton's Ghost 10 software. I've been really happy with it so far. Looks like it's doing a great job. I've got it scheduled to do my back ups at night. No more burning! Yahoo!

Once I had my PC set, I felt like I should have my Mac protected as well. I've been doing manual back ups with Retrospect Lame version... so, I looked around and bought a license for SuperDuper! This software works a little differently. It makes bootable clones of drives which I like because I'll have zero downtime if something goes wrong with my internal drive. The downside is that it doesn't make "check-points" for recovery like Norton Ghost. So I can't roll the system back a few weeks to an older configuration. I don't think that'll be much of an issue though.

Of course, I hope I'll never have to use any of this software in a dire situation. I've already lost one of my external drives connected to my Mac last year and was lucky enough to recover the majority of the data. Not again!!!

Now I just gotta get HJ set up and we'll be set.

Photo Mosaic Software

Click to view website
Hyun-joo came up with a great idea to incorporate a mosaic into our wedding invitation. I didn't do a lot of checking around, but this software seems pretty decent.

The plan is to use poraits of everyone we'd like to attend the wedding to create a mosaic of something... we don't know what that'll be yet. Think of it as a surprise.