Schinckel.net

The last few days has seen extreme weather in Adelaide. 42°C for 4 days in a row. And this at the time we decided to:

• Chop down the 13 Cypress Pines along the side fence.
• Remove the old air-conditioner and brick up the cavity.
• Knock down the old greenhouse.

Mum and Dad were up from Naracoorte to help us - Dad manned the chainsaw and they brought with them a 14" × 6" trailer, which we loaded up with Cypress offcuts. We kept the trunks, as they are pretty straight, and we’ll use them for garden beds. Anyway, we got all of that done - and a lot of it in shorter time than anticipated. The cutting down of the trees only took about 4 hours, which is lucky, as we may not have completed it otherwise. It was so damn hot. I took a heap of pictures. One day I’ll get around to posting some more.

I’ve just converted an Audio Book to AAC - I’m ashamed to say it’s The Da Vinci Code, but, well… Anyway, I was a bit peeved that it doesn’t show up as an Audiobook when you use the search feature of iTunes. And none of the tips I came across seemed to fix it:

• Rename the file so it’s *.m4b instead of *.m4a
• Use the Make Bookmarkable script from Doug’s AppleScripts
• Set the Type Code to “M4B "

Then I read this, at macintouch (iPod: File Management):

If I remember correctly, an iTunes audio book is little more than a renamed AAC file. The steps necessary for making your own are pretty simple:

1. Convert the file to AAC format (if it isn’t already)
2. Make sure it’s not in the iTunes library. (Otherwise iTunes may not recognize the change.)
3. Set the file type to “M4B " if you’re on a Mac (only necessary if you’re using a Mac)
4. Rename the file to have an “.m4b” extension
5. Add it back to the iTunes library

Look at #2. That does the trick. Now, I just need to see if the Join Together and Chapterize script will ever finish…