Mike Southby

Love it or hate it, iTunes has become the de facto application for music handling on my machine; so much so that it has become one of those applications which I would say I couldn’t live without (OK, so perhaps that takes it a little too far but you see where I am going with this).

The problem is that iTunes is an application that Apple never intended to make for Windows; I guess you could say they became a victim of their own success and found themselves having to recode a Windows version as its popularity (and the popularity of the iPod range) grew.  It works much faster in Mac OS X, which translated could be written as saying iTunes for Windows is a complete bloat ware that takes up far too much RAM and runs slower than it should, certainly this has become more and more apparent as iTunes has been updated and updated.  The cynic in me would start to question whether Apple isn’t too serious about Windows and want to demonstrate to people that iTunes works much faster on Mac OS X because it is a better OS (thereby attempting to increase their sales of Mac hardware and OS X), but with a few simple steps it’s easy to speed things up a little and make iTunes for Windows a little more bearable:

Remove Smart Playlists

A lot of people will love the Smart Playlist feature, if you are one of them then you can skip this, otherwise removing them can make the application start-up speed up to 3 times quicker.  If you like me would give up almost anything for speed, then simply remove all the Smart Playlists (the ones with the purple icon) and restart iTunes to feel the improved performance.  If you don’t want to remove Smart Playlists altogether then editing them and disabling Live Updating will make a slight difference.

Disable Automatic Syncing

When a device is connected to a machine running iTunes, iTunes automatically starts syncing which I find quite annoying.  It can result in your iTunes getting frozen for up to 30 seconds or more.  Users don’t always connect devices such as iPods or iPhones for transferring songs; what if you only want to charge your device?  In such cases automatic launching of iTunes and syncing doesn’t make sense and isn’t needed.  To disable automatic syncing, simply select your connected device from the left sidebar and uncheck the Automatic Sync option.

Disable Options That Are Not Needed

A little bit of common sense if required here as there are various different options that you will come across in the Preferences menu and some may be needed depending on your individual setups, however a couple I would recommend would be to disable Crossfade Songs and Sound Enhancer under the Playback tab and Look for Remote Speakers Connected to AirTunes and Look for iPhone and iPod Touch Remotes under the devices tab.  You can also disable Look for Apple TV under the Apple TV tab unless of course you have one!  Most users will not need any of these options enabled and yet by default they are enabled adding to the burden, surely it would have made sense to ship iTunes in a more ‘lean’ configuration for the majority and allow the minority who own all these other devices (and let’s face it the kind of person who does is more than technically savvy enough to do this) to configure iTunes to their needs?

Reduce Clutter

While browsing your playlists, you will notice that unnecessary columns are displayed by default (yes, I know it’s a Pop song thanks).  Who wants to scroll all the way to the right and then back to the left to view all the columns?  It is better to reduce this clutter by hiding those columns that are not needed.  This can be done by right-clicking the column bar on top and then unchecking not-needed columns.  Not sure if this makes a huge difference to speed or not but it means that you can customise your view to exactly how you want to see it.

Finally, although I haven’t tried this myself I read somewhere that by keeping the Preferences window open whilst songs are converting, the whole process will be quicker!  Now there is logic to this; when you are converting a large collection of songs to ACC format, you will notice that after a few conversions the whole process slows down.  This is because after each change the iTunes User Interface gets updated (which takes forever when converting large collections).  So, how to speed up the conversion and disable the iTunes User Interface from getting updated?  Go to Edit and select Preferences; now let it remain open until all conversions are complete!

I’m sure there are other ways to speed things up too, if you know of any leave a comment below and share your thoughts.

There have been a lot of reports recently by numerous people around the internet, that there seems to be ongoing problems with people syncing their iPhone to iTunes in a Windows 7 environment.  The official Apple forums [Link] have got a number of threads related to the issue so it does appear that this is definitely a problem and this is not just a bunch of die hard Apple fans trying to add a negative taste to what has been otherwise, a successful launch for Microsoft’s latest operating system.

Now, looking at the problems people are facing, there does seem to be some common similarities; most people who are reporting the problem are using a motherboard with an Intel P55 chipset and the problem seems to be affecting more people using Windows 7 x64.  Both of these are not conclusive though, as it is also affecting people using other chipsets and Windows 7 x86, although certainly, less so.

The official advice – as always – seems to be a workaround, suggesting that you should use a USB hub or PCI USB card for connecting your iPhone, and disabling Power Management for each of the USB root hubs on your machine, but none of these seem to work universally for everyone which to me would suggest that neither Apple or Microsoft still really understand what the problem is and that there isn’t an imminent fix.

Fortunately, I don’t have an iPhone so am not affected by this, how about you?  Have you had problems with iPhone/iTunes syncing with Windows 7?  If so, have you been able to fix it or come up with a workaround?  Share your thoughts!

You all remember the Windows vs. Mac ads don’t you?  I guess in fairness Apple always knew they were on to a winner with those.  The humble pc and Windows may well be the winner in the corporate IT world but that’s not who the adverts were targeting, no they were targeting the average home user who wants an all in one solution that just works, and I have to admit the Mac does, and it does it very well.

So when it comes to marketing brilliance, it seems Apple are all over Microsoft.  But could it be that they have new competition?

Being an Android user and fan, I just had to smile when I came across this earlier today, further details can be found here.

iPhone

Here’s a brief walk through for configuring your iPhone (or iPod Touch) to work with true push-services on a Microsoft Exchange 2007 server.  Thanks to my good friend Steve for lending me his iPhone to have a play with and write this article.

Caveat: This method worked fine for me, but as always you follow this guide at your own risk.  I will not be held responsible for any problems along the way.  Please *do* backup both the Exchange server and your iPhone before making any changes.

What you’ll need:

• IIS (I have used v6, but the basics are essentially the  same for previous versions)
• Exchange 2007 with installed Service Pack 1
• iPhone running 2.1 or greater software

Step 1: Installing RPC over HTTPS

1. On the Windows server that is running Exchange, go to the control panel and then Add or Remove Programs.
2. Click the Add or Remove Windows Components tab, click Networking Services and then click Details.
3. Click to select the RPC over HTTP Proxy check box and then OK followed by Next.  You’ll need to have your Windows server installation disc ready at this point, or the i386 folder if you have made a local copy as some additional files will be needed to install this component.
4. When the Windows Component Wizard has completed installing, click Finish.

Step 2: Configuring RPC with IIS

1. Click Start, go to Administrative Tools, and then click Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
2. Expand $servername, expand Web Sites, expand Default Web Site, right click Rpc and then click Properties. (You’ll also notice that Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 added a new virtual directory called RpcWithCert.  This virtual directory points to the same location as the Rpc virtual directory.  You do *not* have to modify this)
3. Click the Directory Security tab, and then click Edit under Authentication and Access Control.
4. Click to clear the Enable Anonymous Access check box, we do not want this.
5. Click to select the Basic Authentication (Password is sent in clear text) check box.
6. Now, you should receive the following message: The authentication option you have selected results in passwords being transmitted over the network without data encryption.  Someone attempting to compromise your system security could use a protocol analyser to examine user passwords during authentication process.  For more detail on user authentication, consult the online help.  This warning does not apply to HTTPS(or SSL) connections.  Are you sure you want to continue?
7. Click Yes.
8. If you have not done so already, now would be a good time to enter your domain name into the Default Domain box (you can browse to the domain name by pressing Enter).
9. Click OK.
10. Finally, click Apply and then OK to finish.

Step 3: Configure RPC SSL in IIS

The RPC virtual directory has now been configured to use basic authentication in the above steps.  We are now going to configure SSL.  To configure SSL on the RPC virtual directory you have to obtain and publish a certificate or use the self sign method.  I have used the self sign method in this walk through.  If you only want to access your exchange server without SSL (i.e. using port 80) you can skip the next 3 steps.  This however is *not* recommended.

1. In Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager expand Web Sites.  Expand Default Web Site.  Right click Rpc and then right click.  Click Properties.
2. Click the Directory Security tab and then Edit under Secure Communications.
3. Click the Require Secure Channel (SSL) check box and also the Require 128-bit Encryption check box.
4. Click OK, click Apply and then click OK.

Step 4: Self Sign an SSL certificate for IIS

Next we need to provide a self signed certificate (or a commercially available signed one, iPhone works with both) .  You’ll need a free tool provided by Microsoft SelfSSL which comes with IS 6.0 Resource Kit Tools.  You can download it from http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=56fc92ee-a71a-4c73-b628-ade629c89499&displaylang=en.  Once you have downloaded and installed this, make sure you click Complete Installation.

1. Click Start > All Programs > IIS Resources > SelfSSL > SelfSSL to run the SelfSSL utility.  When you do this, you should have a command prompt window appear with help instructions.
2. Type selfssl.exe and press Enter.  The utility will use the default settings to install the SSL certificate which are:
   /N:CN=<YOUR COMPUTER NAME> (common name of the certificate)
   /K:1024 (key length of certificate)
   /V:7 (validity of the certificate in days)
   /S:1 (ID of the site to which the certificate needs to be installed i.e. Default Web Site)
   /P:443 (SSL port)
3. Press Enter, then type y and press Enter again to confirm the installation.

Step 5: Port Parameters in the Registry

You can manually edit the registry but it is easier and safer to use a utility to do this.  I’d recommend a tool called RPCNoFrontEnd which does all of the changes in only a few mouse clicks, available from http://www.mikesouthby.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/rpcnofrontend.zip.

1. Run the tool, all you need to do is input the servers name and click Set registry entries now.

Step 6: Configure Exchange 2007 SP1 to use RPC over HTTPS

1. Click Start, click through Microsoft Exchange and click System Manager.
2. Expand Your Organisation; expand Administrative Groups > First Administrative Group > Servers.
3. Right click on your server name and select Properties.
4. On the General tab, verify that you have SP1 installed.  Also, verify that a tab called RPC-HTTP is also present.
5. On the RPC-HTTP tab, click on RPC-HTTP Back-End Server.  At this point you may get an error, if you do just acknowledge it.
6. Keep clicking OK to exit.

Now, everything is set up as far as the server is concerned.  It’d be a good idea to reboot at this stage.

Step 7: Firewall ports for RPC over HTTPS

On your router, you’ll need to open the following ports:
No-SSL setup: TCP port 80
SSL setup: TCP port 443
if you are also running NAT on your router, you also need to port forward these ports to your server running Exchange/IIS.

Step 8: Configuration of the Exchange Account on iPhone

1. Tap Settings, then Mail, Contacts, Calendars, and then Add Account.  Finally click Microsoft Exchange.
2. Enter your complete email address, domain, username, password and a description for this new account (obviously, this can be anything you like).
3. Your iPhone will now try to locate your Exchange server using Microsoft’s Autodiscovery service.  If the server cannot be located, enter your Exchange server’s complete address in the Server field.  Your iPhone will try and create a secure (SSL) connection to your Exchange server.  If you did not setup SSL, it will try a non-SSL connection.  After successfully making a connection to the Exchange server, you may be prompted to change your device pass code to match any policies that may be enforced on the Exchange server, if so you can choose to do this or change the policy!
4. Choose which type(s) of data you would like to synchronise: Mail, Contacts and Calendars.  By default, only 3 days worth of email will be synchronised, to change this go to Settings, then Mail, Contacts, Calendar and select your Exchange account.  Here, choose how many days worth of email you’d like on your iPhone.

Important note: Once you have configured an Exchange ActiveSync account on your iPhone, all existing contact and calendar information on your iPhone will be overwritten.  Only one Exchange account is permitted.  iTunes will no longer sync contacts or calendar entries to your desktop computer however you can still sync your iPhone wirelessly with MobilMe services.

Please do leave a comment if you find this useful.