Home Forums Peripherals & Multimedia iTunes, iPhone, iPod, iPad, Apple TV Upgrading Remasters in itunes

I'm struggling for a month -- is there one person who has actually taken CD,s that have been remastered, and successfully found a system to upgrades them in their personal itunes playlist?

The headaches are so vast and complex, I could write four pages on what I've been through, but alas, still don't have a good way to do this, as itunes makes it unbearable to achieve.

This may be better placed as a continuation of your earlier thread.

I think some clarification will be in order at this point, and a screenshot or two may help, because you've never made clear precisely what you're trying to do.

When you say "personal playlist", do you mean custom playlist(s) that you've created, are you really talking about your iTunes Music Library, or are you trying to deal with both? (In your other thread you said something about the new songs coming in at the bottom of the list, and that suggests that your'e talking about your iTines Music Library...not a playlist.)

Let's say you have Beatles Abby Road, personal mix from a CD, so no metadat, you hand typed in song names and album a long time ago to hard drive, and put on your peronsal playlist. You get the remaster, and you burn it from a friend, burn it to a CD, and then replace old version in itunes. Wondering if someone has a methodical system for that.

I get "unknown album", can't find, also itunes seems to have hidden meta, so it reaches for the old version even to the the trash. So you empty trash, but then song names or albums names don't stick, really endless, wonder if someone has discovered a system for this. You might also end up with a ghost version in library, or two version. Itunes will also create new folders for you. You have to rename the new ones several times by hand.... the headaches are limitless. Have not figured out a coherent strategy.

Honestly, I don't think this can be solved by guessing but who know... I think someone who has been in the trenches...

Actually, I'm pretty sure that once we understand precisely what you're trying to do, the solution to your problem will be a simple one.

At the moment, though, I'm trying to avoid guessing what you're trying to do so I don't have to guess at an answer.

In iTunes Images, the top image is your iTunes Library, and the bottom one is a playlist; with which are you trying to work?

It appears you may not be up to speed on all the latest features of iTunes. You might want to take a look at this WikiHow article. I find it covers pretty much everything about iTunes in a concise, thorough, and easily understandable manner. It may help you understand and solve your own problem.

COMMENT: I discovered WikiHow.com when I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo as my search engine to escape Google's insistence on tracking my searches. Since then I have become a fan of both.

Thanks Joe, I got an Apple guy on the phone for an hour today, so I think I'm good. It's an issue, no one really ask for, but very complex.

How does Google track your searches? Even private window did not help that? But Tor I suppose does?

If we are going into this in any detail, perhaps you need to ask this question in a separate thread as it can get complex and convoluted — fast. However a short answer is...

• when you do a search using the Google search engine
• when you use the Google Chrome browser
• when you visit any of the thousands (tens of thousands?) of sites that use varoius Google analytics or other Google cookies for their own purposes
• when you visit a site that does not use the Google cookies but fund themselves by selling advertising banner rights to third parties who do use Google analytics and other cookies
• by other more subtle means both on your computer and on the servers of sites you visit

The real trick is how you are individually identified. Recent threads on FineTunedMac have covered this aspect very well and there are many techniques other than tracking actual logons. I believe the most sophisticated means is currently by identifying the digital signature of your computer or other internet access device. This digital signature easily survives VPN (Virtual Private Networks) and Onion Routing, Little Snitch, as well as browser and plugin hiding.

The TOR browser is used by those with a requirement for the highest levels of security and/or anonymity including the military, government security agencies, and hackers. At its highest security setting it does a credible job of hiding the digital signature at the expense of...

• speed
• semi or total NON functionality on many including most E-commerce sites
• being blocked by some countries, ISP networks, and individual sites.
• always having to manually enter logon IDs, passwords and other data.

If you want to continue this, you might want to ask that it be split off into its own thread as it can get complex quickly. In the meantime, a short answer is you are tracked when you...

• use Google Chrome
• use Google search
• access a web site that uses Google analytics or other Google provided cookies
• logon to a web site that tracks such things
• access a web site that sells advertising rights to third parties that in turn use Google tools
• access a web site that does not honor "Do Not Track" requests (of course they do not tell you that)
• use some ISP networks and/or use their DNS server.

The real trick in all this is how you are individually identified and the latest and most sophisticated technique is through digital signatures that easily survive Virtual Private Networks even Onion routing, Little Snitch, plugin "blockers" in browsers and more global, even most supposedly secure browsers. In fact most of these are distinct elements in your digital signature.

At its highest security setting the Tor browser, used by the military, government security agencies, companies with high security requirements, and hackers, does a credible job of hiding the digital signature at the expense of…

• speed (it is clunky)
• being semi functional or even completely non functional on many sites including most E-commerce and financial sites
• being blocked by some countries, ISP networks, and individual sites
• forcing users to manually enter site userid's and passwords every time
• other annoyances

Thanks Joe, today, I did try to log into a Google account on Tor, and it wont do it. Says something to the effect we see something fishy on your computer, can you please give your phone number for verification...

Would you say that Google is the 2017 Big Brother..?

Google is being very rational. They are, after all, in the business of making money big money, and their stock in trade is your data. They absolve themselves of responsibility by saying they do not associate your name or identity with the data, but your digital signature approaches your social security number as a unique identifier and is even harder to hide or fake. So that promise is disingenuous at best.

Interesting info Joe.... but again, this monopoly called Google...Would you say that Google is the 2017 Big Brother..?

I have great friend who loves and admirers them, and others think evil...

It depends on your definition of Big Brother. I see Big Brother as any agency that collects all sorts of data and uses it to manipulate or gain power over others. Google most certainly collects the data, all sorts of data, and sells it to others in raw and/or analyzed form. Generally Google does not directly use the data to manipulate and dominate others. They do manipulate their users by selling search hit rankings to marketers and by using your data to select sidebar ads you see on their site. Looked at dispationately using customer data to manipulate or effect their purchases could be considered the definition of marketing.

All things considered, while Google is probably the biggest non-governmental collector and aggregator of data/information and I choose to take reasonable precautions to prevent or at least reduce the volume of data they collect from me, they do not rise to the level of Big Brother in my eyes. Neither are they evil unless you consider capitalism evil.

Thanks Joe, interesting bit...