Minor tweaks to the sites here to incorporate the latest textpattern code along with my previously mentioned hacks. Shout if you hit any roadbumps.

Allow me to think out loud for a few…

iTunes is a great app, but one feature I really think is missing is some sensible method of archiving songs onto other disks or removable media. Not backup, thats easy both inside of iTunes and out, but instead archiving of tracks out of the current “rotation” and off your main drive.

To do this right the interface would have to include:

• The ability to archive selected tracks (or playlists) to removable media or other location on your drive, keeping all iTunes data like play counts, last played and ratings intact. When archived the tracks would be removed from your main playlist and the files out of your main library.
• iTunes would then have a way to keep track of extended library (perhaps just second XML file), including Volume information, and provide a browseable interface of that information so you can track down songs later without having to resort to looking through 20 backup disks that may or may not be labeled well.
• Once the Volume is found with the tracks you’re looking for provide seamless import of tracks back into the main library like they never were removed.

Sure, hard drives are cheap, and I could just load every track I have into one giant Volume and playlist, but call me strange in that I really don’t see a need to have all those files in one place and as my mood changes I find myself burning a disk or two of stuff I may not want to listen to and putting it on a shelf for some other time.

And the management of Volumes isn’t limited to archiving either. It would be a great feature for people with a laptop + external storage, or a network share that they’re not always connected to or other setup where they may not want to have tracks in their “main” library, but want to connect and disconnect to other libraries depending where they are.

Any Apple UI folks listening?

Time again to run my batch of scripts over my server logs and post up some of the resulting reports here and here

Interesting things seen last month include early sightings of Opera 9 and IE7, and a fairly big post September drop in traffic for PNH following the annual activity around my 9/11 photos.

Besides traffic, this past month was lacking in fun UA strings… most interesting one I ran across while skimming the reports was:

Mozilla/1.10 [en] (Compatible; RISC OS 3.70; Oregano 1.10)

Google isn’t the only monstrous web company out there. Showing they’re still looking for a fight Yahoo! has rolled out the next generation of Yahoo! Maps.

From the Yahoo! Search Blog: Yahoo! Maps: drag ‘em, search ‘em, hack ‘em:

We’ve got your Flash and AJAX here…

Our launch wouldn’t be complete without developer APIs. We’ve got stuff for hard core hackers and map enthusiasts alike:

• Simple API. To get a custom Yahoo! Map up and running with our Simple API you need only a text editor and a web site.
• JavaScript-based APIs for Flash or AJAX let you choose the tools you’d like. You can host the maps on your site and include any features you like. Grab an application ID and get started with Yahoo Maps APIs.
• Building Block APIs make a lot of the heavy lifting easy. You get features like geo-coding, Yahoo! Local, traffic information and map images.

And Jeremy Zawodny chimes in with coverage of the Yahoo! Local Events Browser Demo seen here.

To all my Flickr Friends & Family members check out my photos and order all the prints you’d like. (you know ‘prints’? those old papery things?)

Staff member Stewart Butterfield announced that starting today Flickr is offering photo printing services. I’m happy to finally see this, and while I haven’t had the need for any prints made its always one of the first things I’m asked about when I try and set up a friend or family member with an account.

Photos look to start around $0.20 each and can be delivered or ordered for pick up at your local Target store. And like other organizing tasks, you can set the restrictions on who can order prints of your own photos between yourself, contacts or anyone. Check out the Printing FAQ for more.