Where have all the podcasts gone?

Well, kittyarcade.com is unveiling with a new design. The previous design was a bit constrained in it's dimensions, and I came to realize that while I liked it's minimal look, I wasn't able to showcase my art to the best quality because I was locked in at a small width. I also was stuck designing in tables. However, with this new design, I've broken free of tables and have a CSS, tableless layout.

Working with CSS can be both rewarding and frustrating. For one, it's very easy to make your style sheets immensely complex as you attempt to style for every possible element, forgetting that they call it "Cascading Style Sheets" for a reason. Another pitfall is the difference between browsers. There are some browsers I can't stand to code for because they don't follow compliancy standards or their models are very different from what you would expect. There are a variety of ways to get the different browsers to do what you want with various hacks (star hack, underscore, parent/child modifier). But it was in trying to figure out the differences between the browsers that helped me further my understanding of CSS. Am I a CSS whiz now? Not by a long-shot, but I'm glad I took the initiative to try something different with my site, rather than fall back on a table structure.

Some of the new things I'm trying to incorporate with my site redesign is a more information-rich site. Take this introduction, for example. I want to write more article-like pieces for my front page that will talk about the range of things from design to art to anything that I feel could be useful to someone out there. I felt another pitfall looming with my sporadic updates of "added another image to the gallery," and "updated the _____ page." They felt like meaningless, trivial sentences attempting to show the world that yes, I am still alive and kicking. Well, why don't I show the world that in a more meaningful, content-rich (oh, not sure I'm like *that* word) way?

To the right, you'll see I've added to the landing page - I'm including an area that will appease my need for those little "alive and kickin'" posts. I'll feature links to the sketchblog and post mini-updates on the latest piece of work I've finished or have in production. Below that, is a "featured site" block. Whether a talented artist, a truly awesome web design or just some really helpful information, I want to showcase others' work on the 'net.

Let's move onto that article portion, shall we?

Apple recently released the iTunes 7.0 update, which, when the notice came up on my work PC, I downloaded the update. The interface has changed a bit, but not by much. My Podcast updater was a bit hard to find at first, as I'm used to it being the upper right-hand corner. It is now located in the lower right corner. The menu on the left also notes that I have one podcast that I have not listeed to yet and two that it is currently downloading. So that's neat. The store, of course, now offers TV shows and movies, which is also reflected in my left-hand menu (not that I have any to watch at work...).

But I come in two days later, boot up my PC, start all my programs and discover that iTunes is not displaying anything in my music library nor my podcasts and that all of my playlists, that I had created to organize my music depending on my mood, were now mysteriously missing. Puzzled, I called over a coworker to make sure that I wasn't just seeing things. Nope, they were really gone. I have MP3s on my harddrive, so that wasn't lost, but what about the music I had imported from CD or the podcasts I had downloaded? Were those gone, too?

We tried uninstalling and then reinstalling, even redownloading the full install from Apple. Nothing made my library come back. Finally, we searched and I managed to find a forum where some other unfortunate people had gone through the exact same problem. I managed to find the answer: File >> Import Folder to Library and importing my iTunes folder that iTunes sets up in My Documents when it installs. That seemed to do the trick (going straight to File >> Import... would only let me import one song at a time). However, it lost all of my playlists and my ratings. I'm slowly rebuilding them.

Due to the problem I encountered and the problems I've read about, I've decided to hold off updating my home version of iTunes; at least until I hear about these issues being solved in another update. Only problem I have now is that when I plug in my iPod at work, iTunes keeps reminding me that there's new software to download for that, too. I'll hold off on that, thanks.