Moving your entire music library from your PC to your Mac sound like a daunting idea…. and there are many ways to do it, but I’ve found that this is the most seamless way and you won’t have to reset your ipod afterward either.

Step 1 – Upgrade
Make sure you have the latest version of iTunes on both computers.
-On the PC just download the latest version from the web at http://apple.com/itunes website and install.
-On the Mac click on the Apple icon (top left) choose Software Update. If you need to update itunes it will tell you to do so.

Step 2 – Consolidate
You need to make sure that all of your music files are here and accounted for on your PC and anything you purchased on your iPhone or iPod Touch has been synced to your library as well. The key here is to make sure all your media is IN your iTunes Media Folder.

Step 2 A
Get your preferences ready for consolidation.

1. Go to ‘Edit’ > ‘Preferences’
2. Select ‘Advanced’
3. Make sure that both ‘Keep iTunes Music folder Organized’ and ‘Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library’ have checks in their little boxes.
4. Make a note of the ‘iTunes Music folder location’.
5. Click on ‘OK’ to save those changes which will in turn get rid of the preferences window.

Step 2 B
Start the consolidation process.

1. Go to ‘File’ > ‘Library’ > ‘Organize Library…’
2. Check ‘Consolidate Files’
3. I also recommend checking ‘Upgrade to iTunes Media Organized’ if you haven’t done this before.
4. Click on ‘OK’ to start the consolidation process. This should take a few minutes.

Step 3 – External Hard Drive
You can be sure that all of your music, movies, apps, etc… are all together in the iTunes folder. At this point we need to move your entire iTunes library to an external Hard Drive.

1. Connect and nice big external Hard Drive to your PC. (Make sure that is is big enough to hold all of your iTunes library. If you are unsure you can open iTunes and at the bottom of the iTunes window you will see how many songs you have and how much space they are taking up.)
2. Now that your external hard drive is connected find your iTunes folder. It is located in ‘My Documents’ > ‘My Music’ > ‘iTunes’.
3. Drag and drop the ‘iTunes’ folder to your external drive. Make sure you are grabbing the ‘iTunes’ folder and NOT just the contents inside of it. You MUST grab the whole folder titled ‘iTunes’.
4. Wait for the transfer to finish and you can eject the drive and leave your PC.

Step 4 – Bring it to the Mac
Get ready to bring all your files down to your Mac from the external drive.

1. Connect your drive to your Mac.
2. Find the “iTunes’ folder that you saved to the external drive.
3. Open your Finder and go to your ‘Home Folder’ (the one with the house icon and your name).
4. Open the ‘Music’ folder.
5. This is the location you want to store your ‘iTunes’ folder from your external drive. (If there’s already an iTunes folder located here you can just replace it with the ‘iTunes’ folder you have on your external drive.)
6. Drag and drop your ‘iTunes’ folder on from your external drive to the ‘Music’ folder on your mac. (Click ‘yes’ if it asks you if you would like to replace your existing iTunes folder.)

Step 5 – iTunes Time
Now that your files have finished copying from your external to your Mac it’s time to open iTunes.

1. Hold the ‘Option’ key on your Mac when you click to launch your iTunes program.
2. A window should appear.
3. Click ‘Choose Library’.
4. A finder window will appear.
5. Go to ‘Home’ > ‘Music’ > and Choose your ‘iTunes’ folder.
6. iTunes will now open and rebuild using all of your settings, playlists, music, movies, apps, and more….. all exactly as you had it before on your PC.

Step 6 – Rock out!
Now go enjoy your day with your new Mac and all your music. And feel free to get rid of the PC now that your “important stuff” is moved to your mac.

(This post was written for my friend Caroline who just got a brand new Mac and ran into this exact dilemma. Enjoy!)

Last year we finished the shoots and realized we had three extra days, wahooo! As usual, we don’t really plan our excursions – we just go for it. At first we thought we’d check out Rome or Italy, but short flights to majors cities were more expensive than what we had in our pockets. So we decided to rent an Audi A4 (Hot Car!) and take a little drive to Kandersteg – a rocking alpine town in the breathtaking Swiss Alps. Wondering where that is? Let’s just say THE Matterhorn is just a short drive “through” the mountain from there.

This image is the Gemmi Valley. We hiked from here to the end as far as you can see in this picture… (HDR photo)

This is us… Kyle on the left bustin’ some gansta, me in the middle with some chillin’, and Kelly on the right thinking, “these guys are so ghetto and I’m not exactly sure how to be that California…”

Here’s the base of the gondola which ascends to the vertical abyss known as the Gemmi Region – sounds cool and IS cool. We had no idea what we would get ourselves into. The images that follow include our full day hike across that incredible snow covered valley in the 1st image of this post.

Which way should we go?

We weren’t the only ones totally pooped…. on our way up the far end of the Gemmi Valley at this point. Even the dog looks tired – at least he looks happy in his tiredness =) We were insanely excited to be there but very tired…

A hotel at the far end of the valley? Yep, that’s exactly what we found there… and the only way to it is by hiking, skiing, or snow cat. I wish we could have taken a ride in this beast!

LUNCH! When we’re in Europe I’m pretty sure my favorite past time is eating the fine cousine. I mean, what better place to have lunch than the coolest alpine lodge, many kilometers from anywhere, smack-dab in the middle of the Swiss Alps?!

While we were there we got crazy good rates on a room at the International Scout Center.

This is the town church….. pretty much exactly how I imagined it.

The Matterhorn… yes please! We drove our Audi up on this crazy old rusty looking train and locked the parking break.

We shot straight through the mountain we’d hiked the day before at nearly 80kph for 20min straight. Truly one of the eeriest experiences of my whole life. Not just a dark tunnel, but completely pitch-black inside with only the light from the radio. And you think Space Mountain is dark and fast? Ha! Space Mountain ain’t got nothin’ on tunnels in the Alps.

This is the only route to the other side of these mountains and we had to take a shot at seeing the Matterhorn in real life – even though it was socked in with fog…. I guess we’ll just have to go back someday =) Since we had a little spare time because the Matterhorn was socked in, we opted for another hike. Oeschinensee Lake seemed quite appealing as it was sitting frozen solid just 3 miles from our lodge. We should have seen the signs that this was going to be tough when there was a gondola to get there. But we weren’t totally dumb it was closed so what choice did we have? By far THE most grueling 3 miles I’ve ever hiked in my life…. Looks easy right? Its paved…… All I can say is steep steep steep!

Here’s a few more fun shots… yes we were “actually” there and it was AWESOME!

WordPress Setup

Paste this code where you would like your comments to appear.

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Paste this code just before your closing </body> tag.

<div id="fb-root"></div>
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    e.src = document.location.protocol +
      '//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js';
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Universal Setup

Paste this code where you would like your comments to appear.
And replace “uniqueID” with a unique number for that page.

<fb:comments xid="uniqueID" numposts="10" width="440" />

Paste this code just before your closing </body> tag.

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    e.src = document.location.protocol +
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Resources

Facebook Comment Creator Tool

Facebook Social Plugins

WordPress – paste this code where you would like the button to appear.

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=<?php echo rawurlencode(get_permalink()); ?>
&amp;layout=standard&amp;show-faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light"
scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" id="facebook-like"></iframe>

Other websites – paste this code where you would like the button to appear and
replace “http://yourwebsiteaddress.com” with the URL of your page.

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http://yourwebsiteaddress.com
&amp;layout=standard&amp;show-faces=true&amp;width=450&amp;action=like&amp;font=arial&amp;colorscheme=light"
scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" id="facebook-like"></iframe>

Add the CSS to your main stylesheet.

iframe#facebook-like { border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; margin: 0 0 -100px 0; padding: 0; }

Like Button Creator Tool

Facebook Social Plugins

Install the WordPress Plugin

CopyPasteHTMLCodeTool.xls

Visit The Youngren’s Blog

Video 1 – Quick Workflow (just the workflow without creating presets and actions)
Video 2 – Detailed Workflow (including how-to build presets and actions)

So over the weekend we sat down and created a pretty new blog for her where she can share all those creative ideas. She came up with the title called Notions and Non-Stick. That being notions referring to items use for sewing and creative ideas – while non-stick the coating on pots and pans (cooking)… I thought it was quite clever…

So check out her cool new blog, share it with your wives, and any other creative folks you know. It will be full of great ways to taste something new, making something new, or see something new.

www.notionsandnonstick.com

When I sit down to design a WordPress site I always like to start with a clean slate. Its almost like being a kid and sitting down with a really cool coloring book. My coloring book provided the lines and shape in which I could add my own color and style. Sometimes I’d even make a few lines of my own to improve upon what was already on the page. Using a blank WordPress template can do the same thing for a web designer. A blank theme will give you the system you need while keeping the creativity open so you can make a work of art of your choosing.

My workflow usually looks something like this:

1. Start with a Photoshop mockup
2. Slice up my graphics
3. Code my HTML and CSS in a single document locally
4. Move that to a server using includes and jquery
5. Start dropping everything into a blank WordPress installation
6. Fix bugs and add content

When you install WordPress you’ll no doubt get a default theme loaded with a mess you have to clean up. To get your new design working properly and to save you time use one of the following BLANK templates:

• Digging Into WordPress Blank Theme – by Chris Coyier
• Starkers Blank Theme – by Elliot Jay Stocks

What makes Princess by Design even more unique is it’s basis on timeless Christian principles with a focus on proper etiquette and high moral values. Christie and John follow after Christ with their lives and desire that young ladies do too – not to mention that Christie has also been a “real life” princess for Disneyland for the past 8 years.

This site was a completely custom design built on the Media Sprout content management system for easy updates.

Check out the site!
www.princessbydesign.org

Alyssa Morales – Biola Student

Alyssa Morales (Junior, Communication Studies) is no stranger to exploring new paths. One of 12 children and the first to attend college, she has not let hardships or difficulty keep her from pursuing God’s path for her life.

Having grown up and volunteered consistently in church, Alyssa discovered the truth of pursuing God as a sophomore in high school. It was then that she learned that life was more than going to church and volunteering. It was about depending on the love of God, even when life is hard.

While attending Ignite, an annual event co-sponsored by Biola Youth Ministry Outreach, Alyssa experienced God’s love in an overwhelming way and understood that God’s path for her would go through Biola.

Though she had never considered Biola before Ignite, Alyssa finds herself in her third year at Biola University. She has since grown in her faith and relationships and has seen God provide for her as she experiences Him on a constant basis.

Alyssa is currently a Biola Ambassador who gives tours of Biola’s campus to prospective students. She is also a member of Biola Ethnic Advancement Team (BEAT) and serves as a mentor, sharing her story and experiences to the benefit of others.

Though the future is undecided, Alyssa plans to pursue speaking, writing and communications.

So the truth is, Jess is my beautiful wife and the other two guys are her brothers. We just had some fun taking these cool pictures at an abandoned military base up in the mountains east of San Diego.

Did you shoot a fantabulous video in 16×9, edit it into a one-of-a-kind master piece, only to find out that your glorious work of art was going to be shown on a 4×3 screen? Yeah…. it’s a bummer when that happens but hopefully this will help!

Ok hold it don’t freak out! He’s not “really” dead but he died in my dream! Isn’t it odd how we dream? What’s with all those crazy things that happen throughout our day that oddly enough come back in the weirdest ways in our dreams? Well last night was most certainly one of those nights where your dream is far-out and hilarious!

It was my third year working at the nuclear power station and I was slotted to give a tour of our facility and reactor. It was late afternoon when our guest arrive – whom else other than Morgan Freeman of course. (I’m guessing he’s in my dream due to the fact that Jess and I watched a MythBusters episode recently that busted the myth that you can blow up a forty foot mutant shark with a harpoon gun and some ground up road flairs. In Deep Blue Sea, Samuel L Jackson gets chomped by a shark rather unexpectedly but for some reason I often confuse Morgan and Samuel.)

Morgan arrived right on time to check through security where they confiscated his digital camera. This wasn’t the best start to the day because this made him pretty mad – I think he was just planning on selling the photos to grandma or something – mostly harmless.

After a long walk from the front gate across the prison like cement compound we arrived at the outer wall of reactor number one. The armed guards scanned my ID card, I place my eye up to the scanner, and ‘boop’ the door unlocked with a hiss. The wine of robotic servos opened the heavy metal door to the outer room of the reactor, which also looked much like a bank vault door. The receptionist handed us Duck Tape and HAZMAT suits. Don’t ask me why there was a receptionist…. We Duck Taped on our HAZMAT suits and rubber gloves but for some reason Morgan was embarrassed to put on a goofy white wrinkly onesy with little green booties and refused. We figured the reactor is pretty harmless as long as you don’t touch anything or breathe so we let him go in jeans and a t-shirt. (I think the part of the dream comes from watching World’s Toughest Fixes on the National Geographic Channel they got into a nuclear power plant to fix a turbine. Cool show by the way…)

Now passing through the huge thick inner reactor doors covered in radioactive stickers and red flashing lights surrounding the door frame. The first thing you see inside is a metal catwalk that spans across a vast cement pit filled with all sorts of fascinating robotic machinery. At the bottom of the pit is a deep pool of water submerged in the water are thousands of fuel rods clearly causing the water to bubble like soda does on the side of your glass as a reaction is taking place. During our tour Morgan began to narrate everything I was thinking even though I was giving the tour… For some reason I told Morgan (him speaking) that even if a penny dropped into the water and disturbed it everything would boil over and the reactor would erupt like a nuke. I continued explaining the process of fusion and how the reaction heats water that then creates steam to power a turbine that rotates a generator etc etc etc….. (I’m pretty sure none of this “nuclear eruption junk” is true but in a recent episode of MythBusters we watched [we watch a lot of MythBusters if you couldn’t already tell] Grant, Tory, and Kari toss 3 different kinds Alkali Metals into water to see if they could blow up a bathtub with the same amount of force as a grenade – quite an enjoyable episode I might add.)

In intervals on either side of the catwalk were huge metal spheres that functioned like a Tesla Coil. Every thirty seconds or so a massive bolt of lightning would snap across the catwalk between the metal spheres and an odor of Ozone would be in the air. Each time I gave this tour I had to make sure that we passed by those spheres while they were charging before the next lightning strike. But this time, as we passed through the spheres, a bolt of lightning struck across one of the coils in the distance at the end of the catwalk. It happened way ahead of schedule, some sort of rogue zap I guess. In an instant, the remaining generators started snapping towards us in a series getting closer and closer rapidly headed toward the one we were standing directly between. The warning alarms began to sound and I took off running down the catwalk. Everything went into slow motion and the sound of our boots against the metal catwalk is all I could hear. In an instant a “vvvvuuuzzzzwwwarrrppp!” of lighting struck and I turned to see Morgan get electrified with so much energy that it collapsed the catwalk beneath his feet, sending Morgan and a tangle of twisted metal into the reactor pool. The pool instantly boiled (like on MythBusters with the Alkali Metals) sending radiation throughout the facility in white cloud of gas. I was contaminated but managed to escape before the fire doors slammed the reactor closed.

Outside now nighttime and in the care of emergency personnel, I was quickly washed down to remove any contamination on my body. The only thing I really remember is a gurney and the flash of fire engine lights. For some reason they put me into a big inflatable bubble while we waited for the proper decontamination team to arrive, which was taking stinkin’ forever. It was weird though, I was strangely not sick or feeling any side effects from the radiation yet, but I knew it would happen if I wasn’t helped soon. (It’s likely this part comes from a recent episode of 24 where one of the Terrorist’s sons is exposed to high amounts of radiation.)

The worst part of the dream came next…. my alarm went off and I woke up! Dag nabbit! I’ll never know if I survived! At least I’ve never actually died in a dream – is that even possible?

Oh well, sorry for the anticlimactic ending, I was kinda bummed too, but stay tuned for my next exciting and usually abstract dream.

Here’s a few thing I love about Project Bubble. For a start, it’s completely free. Secondly, there isn’t any mention of gantt charts or things that freelancers don’t need for their day to day business. Thirdly, the user interface has been designed to be really easy to use, and simple.

Users of Bubble will find that creating projects, sharing tasks and sending invoices is a total breeze. Project management can actually be fun!

Bubble has SSL encryption for security, a community that is growing really quickly (with a special group for those that contribute), and a development team who releases updates almost daily – this I particularly love!

Pricing is based around whatever the user feels like paying, and is completely free for non-commercial use.

Freelancers can’t miss out on at least hearing about Bubble so they can check it out and draw their own conclusions. It’s worth a look!

www.projectbubble.com