Library Web Chic

When I bought my Powerbook a little over a year ago, I thought that an 80 GB hard drive would be plenty of space for my stuff. Pre iPod and digital camera that might have been true, but post media-creation acquisitions this was far from the case. However, I didn’t even realize it and last week it got so bad that I crashed my computer because I didn’t realize I’d run out of space and tried to do an Apple Update. There was some post-computer meltdown swearing, but I run daily backups to my trusty external hard drive and nearly all my data (minus a few email messages) was restored.

Problem was I still had little free space on my laptop hard drive. So I got mad at myself for being so stupid to not buy enough space and went to check out Powerbooks on the Apple website only to discovered that I really couldn’t get a 12″ Powerbook with a much bigger hard drive (100 GB is the max). This combined with the knowledge that by default you can’t have multiple iTunes or iPhoto Libraries had me frustrated. Yes, I could move all my photos and music to my external 250 GB firewire drive, but what would I do on the road?! Carry the firewire drive with me or not have access to my pics and music?!

A thorough Internet search revealed some more realistic options. Namely iPhoto Library Manager and Libra. iPhoto Library Manager helps you manage multiple iPhoto libraries and Libra helps you manage multiple iTunes libraries.
I’ve now split my libraries so my more recent photos and favorite music are on my local hard drive, while my external drive contains my complete collections. The only downside to this method is that I haven’t found an easy good way to add new things to both places. iPhoto Library Manager is a more complete piece of software because it allows you to move rolls, and albums (but not slideshows) from one library to another. Libra doesn’t do this which makes adding new things in both the current stuff and complete collection more difficult. I can do things manually if I’ve very careful.

To solve the adding new things problem in iTunes I’m investigated using rsync to add the new items to my iTunes Library folder. This still doesn’t get them into iTunes. So I found an Applescript that will allow me to add a specific folder to my iTunes library. I’m discovered that if I run this on my iTunes Library folder for my current iTunes library that it will add the new items to my archive library without duplicating existing items. So the last thing I need to do is automate it so this script runs on a regular basis, probably when I login.