gwinity

Nichnack, that's a really odd habit - why do they do it? Must be a real pain having to reinstall EVERYTHING every time. Next time they go to reformat, maybe try and get them to partition it into three different drives: one for Windows (usually C), one for programs and one for data (music, photos, documents, etc). If you have a copy of Symantec Ghost, take an 'image' of the Windows/Programs drives when the system is clean and has the programs you want on it. Then instead of reformatting, you can restore those drives exactly as they were when the image was taken. Windows XP also has a 'rollback' function that works similarly, but I've not used it, so can't vouch for it.

Did any of that make sense? The main thing you need to get them to do is partition the drive - never keep everything jumbled up on C:\ with Windows and all your programs... that's just asking for trouble.

[/end geek mode]

Ariella

I second that suggestion to use itunes. Just a tip - when if you're running iTunes on a windows system as opposed to a mac, it tends to be a memory hog. In other words, if you want iTunes to import your CDs faster or convert faster, close all the other programs you are running(Including your internet explorer with which you are reading orientaldancer.net sadly). I have barely any music on CD anymore, it's all on the hard drive. I have over 4 gigs of arabic music!

Maariku, I *think* you want to buy another hard drive instead of more memory if you want more music storage space without killing your lap top. More hard drive space will give you more space for songs, whereas more memory means you can run more other programs while you listen to your songs. If you want my personal recommendations for good hard drives, personal message me.

miss_shimmy

I keep my cds in a top drawer,also in folders,and on the computer too.

miss shimmy
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sedoniaraqs

iTunes, baby! iTunes!

I don't know how itunes works on PCs, but on macs it is seamless, automatic organization. When itunes rips CDs, or when I download from emusic or iTunes store, iTunes automatically puts the music in a special music folder, and in that artist folders, and in that album folders. I drag the album folders to the itunes window after each rip, and it automatically adds the playlist. So each album has its own playlist, plus I have various artist playiists that I put together for classroom use, practice, recitals, performances, etc.

I have organized my playlists into folders:
Egyptian oriental
Lebanese and general Arabic oriental
Turkish oriental
American/Arab-American oriental
new-agey/fusion belly dance
All drum solo
Performance/Classroom playlists
Middle Eastern not for dancing
New Age (relaxation music, nature sounds, etc)
Celtic
American folk/Country
Classical
Everything else

Everything is backed up on my iPod and a second computer. When I put on recitals on campus, I use an auditorium with a smart podium system complete with house speakers. I take my mac laptop, plug it into the system, and have everyone's music ripped to an iTunes playlist.

My actual CDs, on the other hand, are a terrible mess. Some are piled on my office desk, some are in the floorboard of my car getting scratched, some are in my so-called dance room (aka junk room), some are in my dance bag. Some CDs are floating around without their cases -- I find the case but not the CD, then months later the CD resurfaces but I can't find the case.....

Sedonia

belly_dancer

mine too!!! piles piles everywhere!!!

slinks

oh I can sympathise too :-) ... BUT I have all my originals put away ... I have burnt only the ones I liked .. and if there were one or two songs that I liked out of so many cds I'd burn up one cd, I have them all in a folder that carries 384 cds but have only got 256 ... I do have a few other cds lying around but I really can't be bothered even trying to listen to them, because I know what I like is in that folder... I'm not buying anymore unless I KNOW that I will like it :-)

My dvds are in folders such as intructional, performances, choreographies, veils and documentires

Zurah

have I-Tunes as well, and what I've done is to just burn my favorite tracks (if I don't absolutely love a song in a given album, I won't have it there taking up space). I listen to my new cd's a few times, then burn it and put each song in: Amerabic, Arabic pop, techno and fusion (as you can guess, I don't really have many of these, so they can go all together in the same folder), Egyptian, Lebanese, Miscellaneous ME / BD (for all the stuff I don't really know how to classify), and Turkish. Almost everything is also backed in my PSP (have to get a new memory stick for the new ones). As for my cd's, I've put my favorites in wallets to play at home, and have a bunch of others, a good many of which I haven't even listened to yet, packed inside boxes in no particular order. I'm just proud of myself to have them more or less neatly put away, rather than strewn all over the place as I used to.

Rereading this thread, I just noticed someone mentioned the possibility to include the lyrics and notes along with the song... can someone tell me how do I do that? I'm profoundly un-techy, so most of the time I don't take full advantage of all the neat stuff in my laptop... help?

Yshka

I have a really old pc and no chance to get a laptop anytime soon. My "storing" system might be somewhat weird but it seems to work until something better will come along. I now simply have all my music mp3's stored on a few Gmail accounts and 4shared.com. Those let you have different labels and folders to divide music in. The songs I really like and use often are on my pc harddrive.

My burned cd's all are numbered. I keep a big excell-file in which I list my music alphabetically by artist, containing all track info except lyrics. I add the number of a cd to the song info in the excel file, for the ones without numbers I add cd titles. It's easy to locate music this way but still a bit hard when you really cannot easily listen to everything on your pc. Plus I don't have over 200 cd's yet. I don't often find the time to go through all my cd's though. I too must go and buy an extra harddrive or memory stick to back everything up.

I so need a laptop someday soon... and itunes lol

maariku

I've tried iTunes, and at first it seemed liked a very good option as indeed they do let you store a lot of information about each song. (Zurah, iTunes has both a comment section and a lyrics section, right-click on a song and go to "Get Info"). But (probably due to my own incompetence) something went wrong and I lost quite a bit of my music. Nothing too fatal, I think I also do have everything on cd-s...

And the new version of Windows Media Player is also rather unconvenient, so I'm basically back at zero. Thanks for the idea of making a back-up copy to a memory stick though - it is so elementary, that I never thought of that

Yshka, you seem to have quite a system going on - very organized, wow!

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"[A good bellydancer] must express life, death, happiness, sorrow, love and anger, but above all she must have dignity." -Tahia Carioca,

Amulya

Uhm, what about: not

I have a similar problem:

part of my music is here, in a filing case without the original cases. Part is here in the original cases, part is in another city and another part on a mp3 player.

On the mp3 player it's all sorted acording artist (when i have many songs of the same artist) or genre.

And yes I also need a filing system. As soon as I move into a new house I will start doing that.

It used to be arranged neatly accoring to: classical arabic music, arabic pop, indian, fusion etc. The stuff I had on my computer was all organized, but it's way to much to burn on CDs.

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