iTunes 9 - too much to manage

iTunes has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.
Too bloody right.

I upgraded my iPhone 3GS to the iOS4 operating system in the week of 23rd June, shortly after the update became available through iTunes.  The download and sync failed, and I ended up with a phone that couldn't make calls, load software, or anything else.  I tried uninstalling and reinstalling iTunes - no use, then uninstalling and reinstalling all of the Apple components on my PC - again no use, and finally, under the guidance of the help line, creating a new user account and uninstalling and reinstalling everything.  At last, I was able to make the update (even though that failed a couple of times).  Every uninstall/reinstall is a long process, including restarting the PC and a couple of hours a time is not too far of the mark.

Unfortunately, to get my phone back to my own user account and user name, I had to reset it to factory settings and so I will have lost some content - photos.  Very annoying, but at least the phone was back in action.

The real irritation now is that iTunes falls over while syncing music and/or podcasts.  I'm losing content because it stops downloading podcasts that I haven't listened to for a while - the reason I haven't listened is because I can't get them onto the iPhone.

The process suggested on the web site to fix this is too time consuming to be bearable, but it was failing tonight on file 4 of 220 that it meant to sync.  The file was downloaded at about 22:30 this evening. I have a few thousand files that may or may not be the cause of the issue.  Or not at all.

iTunes is now such a complicated set of software that if anything goes wrong, there's no way to fix it.  Now I daren't buy that lovely iPad because I may not be able to sync it.  Shame.

BBC - The History of British Music pt 1

I missed this four part series on its previous showings, but it's started magnificently, with the first truly great British composer, Henry Purcell. It's the BBC at its phenomenal best. Conductor Charles Hazlewood takes us through the music, palaces, and even pubs, with some brilliant performances.  The programme started with familiar works, but then Sir John Tomlinson sang a piece I'd never heard "They that go down to the sea in ships" and later "Cold Genius" from King Arthur.  He was superb, as was Elin Manahan Thomas, who performed Dido's Lament, and later "Fairest Isle", also from King Arthur.  And thank you to the Band of the Grenadier Guards, for their dramatic performance of the Funeral Music for Queen Mary (and for Purcell himself).

This wonderful programme was first shown on BBC4 on Saturday 9th May 2009, most recently on 26th June at 03:00 and now is only available on BBC iPlayer until 20:59 pm Friday 2nd July 2010. Link here. Catch it if you can!