iTunes, again

Some notes from MacInTouch Reader Reports

By changing the file type and creator of the AAC files encoded by iTunes 4 or downloaded from the iTunes Music Store from M4A/hook and M4P/hook respectively to MooV/TVOD or MPG4/TVOD, the songs can be played in OS 9. MPEG/TVOD files are recognized by QuickTime 6.0.3 and can be played in QuickTime or with a QuickTime based music player such as MPLAY. MooV/TVOD files can be played as above but are also recognized by iTunes 2.0.4.

Well, I just got my computer back from AppleCare, and my laptop had become de-authorized. I couldn't "de-authorize" the machine's former state. Two other machines were authorized and they were both at home. I emailed customer support (from the iTunes help menu). They emailed me back saying that they had "de-authorized" all of my machines, and I'd need to re-authorize those I wanted to use. [suggests an authorisation connection is needed for each song, rather than first use]

Installing LAME: In the terminal execute:
cd Desktop/lame-3.93.1
./configure --disable-brhist
make
sudo make install
That's it. Together with the iTunes-Lame AppleScript, you are ready to go.
BTW, the --disable-brhist flag to configure is necessary because for some reason the terminal gets confused when lame prints its VBR histogram.

iTunes' AAC encoder isn't very good. QuickTime does a much better job. It appears that iTunes is permanently set on QT's "Fastest" setting, and not on "Highest Quality". The speeds on the encodes also lend themselves to this fact, iTunes being substantially faster than QT on high quality.

Of late, [the iTunes visualizer function] does not seem to be functioning as it has in the past. The random patterns and moires no longer pulse to the music.
Apple broke some of the interaction between iTunes and its plugins with 4.0. I don't know the full extent of it, but I know that at the very least they changed (apparently unintentionally) how the progress of time is reported.