administrative mumbo-jumbo

I just called my best friend and found out that we have the same administrative mumbo-jumbo to mess with...

This involves retrieving a paper in University A, bringing it to University B to be signed, going to the library to get another paper, and bringing it all back to University A (I used different names because we're actually transferring from opposite universities!!! Might be easier to just switch identities :p)

Let's just hope the offices will be open.

I also need to get pictures of me taken, buy enveloppes, stamps, photocopy every possible and imaginable document that could be asked of me, go see a doctor (which is a joke: he'll take one look at me and sign the paper saying I can do sports!!! then again sometimes they listen to my heartbeat and take a look at my knee...).

I'm going to have QUITE a week!!!

Happy Birthday!!

Happy birthday iBook :)

It's one year old, today...

Today, I saw Daniel again after a long time without seeing him at all, which was nice.
I also talked to a very good friend I havn't seen in over a year, which was really fun. But I left msn abruptly, forgetting that's rude, and now I feel really bad. I tend to leave without giving it a second thought because I'm usually back in time for it to barely matter. But then again there are times when you just don't have time to say goodbye- some things just can't wait. I'm so used to talking to people who are on 24/7 that... well... I tend to assume the person will still be online when I get back, or be back on within a couple hours.
Well, I'm forgetting that I didn't see that guy online for over a year and a half... so I must be dreaming. I hope he doesn't take it personally.

Other than that, I got some books as late birthday gifts :)
And I've advanced quite a bit in my administrative stuff...

AND- a new car!!!!!!!! Not all mine (I don't even have my licence yet) but I can drive in on week-ends. It's a cute 8-year-old Citroën Saxo :)

The 1998 version

For those of you who care, here is an article about the french editions. I have the 1998 version.
It's really worth being read. I wish I had the missing episodes. I'm glad I have that version and not the 2004 and 2005 ones, they have deplorable translations of dialogues, and even worse coloring (why don't they just keep it the way it was in 1998?)

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck

I admit it: I'm a fan.
I used to read about my favorite duck when I was a kid, and I actually own the collector's La Jeunesse de Picsou from 1998, which, today, can only be found on ebay for about 30-40 euros. (original price: about 30 francs)
It's one of the best comics ever.
And I was just feeling really bad I missed out on the re-edition of them in 2004 and 2005, with extra episodes. This came about when I bought the most recent collector hors-série with Don Rosa's comics for my sister's birthday, and now I wish I had all the "in-between" episodes that aren't in the 1998 edition.
My best bet is to buy them in english, for the simple reason that it's a book, and not a magazine. So it's not a collector's item, but it's the original version or close enough, and brand new. There's actually a new one coming out. There's the first one that contains episodes 1-15, and then this new one, coming out on September 6th, contains all the "in-betweens" and the episode 0.

I'm quite tempted to get them. For less than 15 euros each I can have the original (aka in english) version, brand new (and not with a ripped cover, like my collector's edition now has: it has been read and re-read by my entire family).

The end of ResExcellence...

*gasp* what is to become of me??? It was one of my favorite sites...
There were so many cool ways to customize your mac, it taught me everything I know practically... And the forums are closed, too... I come home from vacation to that... Was gone all summer so I didn't see it coming.
I'm so bummed out :(

I just found This page, and I think it explains a lot.
Personnally I was enchanted by the mac community, I've always found the forums helpful, and although some people can be rude, I just always figured that was "life".
I know that whenever I've had a problem, if I do my research myself first everywhere I can think of and if I explain my problem, as well as everything I've tried, as clearly as possible, everybody has always been very helpful.
I'm sorry to hear that this isn't true everywhere.
And I'm sorry if I've ever been rude...
I can understand why the site was shut down, and I do hope somebody else will be able to take it over.

On a funnier note, this page cracked me up. Especially the image. I hope it's ok to post it on my blog, along with a link to the post. If not, I'll take it off.

my HD icon

In case any of you want to have it, or have one with your own desktop image, just leave me a comment on this post with your e-mail adress and I'll send you the icon, and you can also send me a screenshot of your desktop and I'll make you a personalized one. I also have a couple pink ones with cherry blossoms.
Feel free to check out my AdiumXtras as well (cf. sidebar).
I like making stuff :D
I can also make 14-inch iBooks, powerbooks, I can send you icons for System Preferences with colorized Apples, and I can colorize any of your application icons, (or I can try!!)

Confusion

This post was actually too long, so I shortened it.

My biggest problem with having lots of things to do is I never know where to START on a problem. Once I've started it, I can generally finish. Same for school: if I have to write a paper, if I can find ONE idea, the rest generally come naturally.

Right now, the most important thing in my life isn't installing Linux, but I NEED to get it done.
It's saving all the documents off the PC that need to be kept and putting them back on that bugs me. I'm not sure exactly how well the iPods will work with Rhythembox, and I'm not quite yet sure where to store everything. On my iBook? On an iPod (not mine, my disk is formatted for mac-only)? Or just get an external disk, we'll need one eventually anyway?
It's not like I actually have much space left on my iBook, as you can see.

The most important problem for me to solve right now involves scholarships, social security, etc...
which means that I need to work on scholarships first because that's what gives me the right to have free social security, but for that I *think* I already need to be signed up in university. But I can't be signed up until I have social security. Oh and let's not even mention that my files need to be transferred from my old university to my new one and I'm not even sure of the procedures for that.
I'm quite confused.

Battery Exchange Program iBook G4 and PowerBook G4

If you have a powerbook or an iBook, your battery may be a security hazard, and Apple will recall it and send you a brand new one, free of charge.
Kind of nice, I was starting to get an alarming amount of loadcycles!
Battery Exchange Program.
It's for 12" and 15" ibooks and powerbooks (not 14")...

Scarlet Letter...

Pretty soon (if all goes well), I'll be able to place this sticker on the car :D

OK... OK I'll explain... I'm not bent on committing adultery.
In France, young drivers need to place that sticker on their car for 3 years (not quite sure why it's an "A" though... if anybody know's I'd be glad to find out why) and have a lower speed limit than everybody else and less points on their driver's licence (6 instead of 12)... So I'm not exactly excited about the sticker, but I am excited about being allowed to drive soon!
My exam is on September 8th!!!!

Apart from that I'd like an Apple sticker on my car when I have one of my own... :)

Courage

Why is it that when you build up both the courage and the motivation to do something important, it isn't possible to do it?
Is it precisely because it's not possible? So it seems easier? I'm not certain of that- in some cases I guess that would account for it, but not always. Sometimes courage just comes when it comes, like a "déclic"- a revelation, and you know something needs to be done. You just can't do it right away.

Projects and a rant on the point of life (of my blog, really)

Yes, I'll rant on the point of this blog, too... Just thank me that I won't rant on and on on the point of life... lol

I'm not sure when I'll actually have time for all of this, I've been quite busy lately and it's not likely to change until at least October...
But I do have some plans and dreams and hopes and wishes...

I'm WAY behind in my webdesign... I have at least 2 or 3 projects to work on (for family, friends, and yes, even this blog... there's a bug somewhere in the template that I can't seem to fix- I could if I had time to- but I tend to forget... AND for a new blog, more later in the post!!!)

I also need to work on making the family PC usable. For now, it bugs all the time. And Windows is getting on everybody's nerve (especially mine, I'll admit), so I need to put Linux on it :)

I need to figure out the social security stuff... Free for me, cuz I'm a student, but still a LOT of paperwork...

I need to finalize my inscription to my new univesity...

I need to pass my driver's licence.

And last but not least, I have a new blog idea in mind... top secret... I've already written a few posts on paper, jotted down ideas as they came... I think it might be more interesting than this one, in the sense that it'll actually have a fixed theme, this one is more of a "jot-down-the-thoughts-as-they-come" sort of blog- which obviously interests only a select audience, and only for a short time. I won't abandon this one though, I like it too much for that...
This blog is a sort of therapeutic blog for me. Patience is the virtue I lack the most. So I use this blog to vent, or work on it, try to reason with myself, perhaps bring a chuckle to my readers, or help or whatnot, although I'll gladly admit humor isn't my "thing", either. I'm sure nobody's cracked up reading my blog. Oh well. That's life.

And I'm certainly forgetting some plans.

cruisin'

I'm back from the island of ré (which explains the lack of posts here!!)....

As usual, it was a wonderful trip: walks on the beach, swimming in the waves nearly every afternoon, enjoying the beauty of the island, eating the crabs my dad caught in the morning...
But I think the best part was the cruise we went on, with my family, my grandfather, aunt and cousins... From St Martin to l'île d'Aix, and with a tour of Fort Boyard, we saw it from every angle. We also went under the bridge of the island, and it was soooo fun!! The weather was beautiful, there was no wind in the morning, but in the afternoon there was some and that was fun too, all the waves splashing water on us, the wind blowing in my hair, the waves sparkling in the sun, all this with the Corrs singing in my ear (i love my iPod!)
I also wasn't sea-sick at all, and for the first time was able to appriciate why people love boats so much, love navigating... Because I do too!!!!
I was so excited to get into the port of La Rochelle... It was beautiful, all the towers...
I'll eventually put up some pictures.

Sneak peak at Leopard

Click the link and behold!!! I'm sooo excited, although I probably won't have the money to buy it right away...

Visitor stats, or why do people google a URL?

I was looking at my stats, and I noticed that 2 people found my blog by googling my URL...
What's up with that?

1. What's the point in putting a URL in google, if you already know where you're going?

2. How in the world did they know MY URL? My URL is long, it is unusual and complicated, and I don't know anybody in Italy. Lucky guess?
If it was just Waiting, wishing, I could understand. But adding alessia afterwards is almost like the person already knew my blog :p

Also, I suppose people found my recent post :)
My OS X user stats exploded! They went from a usual 5% of users to 17% :)

top 10 free OS X apps

All the following applications are for Mac OS X, and at least have free trial versions that can used (and re-used...)
Some are to be used with caution, some have questionnable uses but can come in handy, and I'll provide all the website links for you.
This is a special post to celebrate post #100 on this blog!!!

1. Adium

I like Adium because you can use all your instant messaging accounts on it (msn, aim, gmail, yahoo, etc...) simultaneously. I also like it because you can download lots of Xtras, some of which I made, I like the fact that it is open-source and that it's so good that mac-users will never need to use msn's awful software!!!

2. SizzlingKeys

This is REALLY cool if you like listening to your background music while working. You can configure your own keyboard shortcuts to change songs, pause your song, etc... And you can configure the floater to look really nice on your desktop. It's free!

3. Growl

This is REALLY COOL and why Windows will never amount to anything :p... It works with iTunes, Mail, Adium, and other applications to notify you for some events. You can configure the floater to look nice on your desktop.

4. Senuti

This wonderful application will allow you to do the only thing iTunes will not: copy music from your iPod to your computer. This has many legal applications: backing up the music on your hard drive, saving space to put all your heavy developper apps which take Go upon Go of space on your poor hard drive, or even just transfering your music from your old mac to your new mac :)

5. VLC

Now illegal in France, but I don't see why. Anyway most media players are fussy. This one isn't too much. It'll allow you to read even .wma files without downloading Windows Media Player *shudders*. Excellent for watching DivX, DVDs, and home videos when QuickTime gets fussy.

6. Amnesty

Dashboard is nice. But I don't like opening it. I like having my widgets on my Desktop and closing them when I'm sick of them. You can enter a terminal command to make this possible without downloading Amnesty, but I still like Amnesty because it allows you to change your widget's size, rotate it, change it's transparency, etc... It's 20$, which is a lot, but I've been using the trial version, which works very well :)

7. ClearDock

Ever get sick of the color of your dock? Change it! You can also work on the transparency, and the border. WAY cool. Unsanity also has other cool haxies but this is the only free one.

8. HandBrake

This is a DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter. That doesn't sound very legal, but there is a legal use I like: for those of us with video iPods, it's nice to put our home videos on it without having to buy the pro version of Quicktime, or even to put a film we legally bought to watch on the plane, for example. PLuuuus, the dock icon looks really cool :)

9. CyberDuck

An excellent FTP client :)

10. Coconut apps

These are really cool to know if there's an open network in the area, or how well your battery is doing, or where your mac was built.


OK, well those are just a few of my favorites. I think with all those you'll have time to get the most out of your mac :)

it's frustrating to wait when you're ready...

Waiting is OK when you're not ready.
Waiting is OK when you're not sure.
Waiting is OK when you're scared to death.

Waiting is annoying when you're aching to do something you could do, but aren't allowed to do yet.
When it would be so very practical and wonderful,
when it's something you know you'd enjoy and you know it would make other people's lives easier if you could do it.
When it would simplify travelling.
When it would make life as a whole easier.

Waiting is hard when everyone is doing it around you.
Even people who shouldn't.
When all your friends look at you in disbelief: "but I started when I was 16!"
When for a long time you believed you wouldn't have to wait so long but things didn't turn out quite as planned.
When you could probably get away with not waiting... after all, lots of people do, you just need to be careful...

I'm ready to drive. I'm good at it. I feel confident on the road. I believe I'll get my driver's licence right away, or if I don't, I'll miss not by much. I love driving. It would be sooooo practical. But I must wait. Wait until the lists aren't so full. Wait until September, when I could have been ready in July.

Some things just can't be undone

Here are a few thoughts on the last book of Liz Curtis Higgs' trilogy. This post will mainly be about the evolution of my feelings about Rose. Do not read this post unless you don't care about spoilers. You are officially warned :p
I originally titled this post "Whence Came a Prince"- but I believe I have explained things sufficiantly for it to be interesting even to people who havn't read the books.

At the end of the second book, I truely despised Rose. I wished she had died as her friend had. She had reasons to be angry with her sister, obviously- but that's no reason to steal her husband and child and then rub it in by asking terrible questions. And it is also no reason to resort to witchcraft.
Also her motives for wanting a child utterly disgusted me. And her methods, even more.
I was also disgusted by the decision of the church- and it just didn't seem to me to be a realistic course of action. Not really. Two wrongs don't make a right. Sometimes, even if things got the way they are by wrongdoing, the best thing isn't to try and fix them, but leave best alone.
She and Jamie had already been living as husband and wife for a year. They had a child together and were genuinely in love. Everyone had believed, including themselves, that they were rightfully married.

For example, in the Bible, David married Saul's daughter, who was in love with him. But he had to flee from home, for his life was threatened by Saul. He had no choice. And Saul gave her away, certainly against her will, to another man.
Years later, David was king. He had other wives already, but, to prove a point, went to take his first wife back, when she was finally settled with that other man, who obviously loved her. It's a heartbreaking story.

Sometimes situations cannot be restored to how they *should* be.
In the case of the book, "restoring" the situation meant seperating a couple, and making a man marry the sister of the woman he loves, while he doesn't love the sister in question, taking Ian, their child, away from his rightful mother and giving him to an immature 16-year-old. To top it off, Leana had truely repented, and was a woman of faith, walking with God (which the pastor eventually realized), but her sister had nearly died from dabbling in witchcraft (which was a secret she only knew).

Some things just can't be undone. And trying to un-do them just makes the situation worse.

So, back to Whence Came a Prince. In the end, Rose dies after a tragic miscarriage of her twins. She had changed a lot in the book, she had repented, and everything, but I do think that it was the consequence of her past mistakes. She had dabbled in witchcraft to get married, pregnant, and she had cursed her father, stolen from him... I felt sorry for her, because by the end of the book you do, like Jamie and Leana did, forgive her and love her no matter how hard it was to do so. Sometimes even though you get forgiveness you can't undo what's done and have consequences to deal with.

Something that always bothered me in the Bible was the death of David and Bath-Sheba's first child. One of the only innocent parties. And this was after David's repentance.

Another long post, but interesting, I hope. I tried to explain things so that even those who havn't read the books might understand.

The truth will set you free

This has potential for being another LONG post. But I don't want it to be. I think the bulk of it is in the title.
This phrase has two meanings, both true.

The first one, the original one, means that Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, will set you free :)

The second one, which I will explore more in this particular post, means that lies will ensnare you, entrap you, and sometimes it may seem easier to keep some things under wraps, but no matter how painful it is to have the truth out, at least you have nothing to hide, and you are free. You're not trying to keep secrets, people may judge, point a finger, stare, be hurt, but you are free.

The question here, is: is this freedom worth the cost, which may be a personal cost, or one that affects another person deeply?

I was thinking of this in relation to the series of books I was reading, especially Fair is the Rose. Leana was much happier when nobody knew how her marriage to Jamie came about. When the truth was out, she lost her husband, her child, and had to sit on the repentance stool- all of which was utterly unfair. But at the same time, she was free.
Telling the truth isn't the easiest way, and sometimes it's better to not tell some things to the whole wide world- in Leana's case I think it would have been perfectly OK if she never told everyone, morally- but I was admirative that she told the truth to the kirk session even though it cost her everything.

I think that sometimes it's best to confess things that have remained hidden- but that doesn't necessarily mean everyone has to know everything. Sometimes they can remain hidden, but I'm not convinced that's the best way.

Feel free to comment on this post. Here are a few questions to reflect on, which would be worth commenting:

*for those who have read the book I'm referring to, what would you have done in Leana's situation?

*what should David have done instead of murdering Bath-Sheba's husband? What do you think would have happened if he had done that instead? I've been told this isn't the best example, if you can think of a better one feel free to comment on that

*do you think that if you've lied to a person in the past, and there is no way the person could possibly be affected by it presently, or ever find out, unless YOU tell, should you confess anyway?
And if you do decide to tell, who should you tell? Just the people immediately affected, or a wider audience?
And what about the case where it's a past affair? Is it the same thing as a lie, or should it receive a different treatment?

Over and over again...

When will this EVER end? Why do I do the things I do? Why do things start to get better in my life and then why do I fall into the same awful traps again and again? It's like I don't want to be free from all that, but I do!
I can pray, ask for God to intervene in my life, to help me, and He always does, he is always faithful... but then I mess up again and after awhile I'm just tiered of always confessing the same sins, asking sorry again and again- my repentance is always genuine, and I'm fine for awhile- but a few years down the road, or a few months, or a few weeks, I blow it all again.
I'm always sincere.

Guilt really gets to me and I just want to be free. Free. I long to be free, I long for the day I'll believe...
I can be thinking I'm doing fine and then realize I just chewed someone out again, or had a bad attitude, or judged someone, or gossiped... Or, worse, that I have been ignoring God, havn't talked to him in days, and don't even *care* what He thinks. And yet I do.
It's incredibly frustrating.
What makes it worst is I know the answers- I've read my Bible and listened to enough sermons and lived enough to know better and to know the way out. I can give good advice, even give it to myself. But following it is another matter...
It's like in my driving. Every now and then I'll make a mistake, and Rémi will stop me and ask me what happened, and I'll tell him : "this is what I should have done, this is what I did, and this is why. This is how I could have avoided the mistake". And then he'll be like "so why didn't you do it?" and I never know why. I think things are the same with my faith.
Faith and driving have so many parallels.
The answer is very simple: "Read your Bible and pray every day" - "Trust in the Lord with all of your heart" - "Love him with all your heart"
Why does it have to be so simple? Sometimes I'm much better at doing the hard stuff. And it's much more embarrassing to mess up when it should be simple.
How can I still mess up when Christ lives in me? When I am filled with his Spirit? When I love him? When I'm trying to follow him?

It's so tempting to set myself rules to keep myself on the right tracks- but then I want to break them for they are "only" rules I made up. It's so tempting to say "I'm back for good this time, Lord, I won't dissappoint you". I'm so afraid to fail that I dare not even try anymore.
Or I end up legalistic. And my faith becomes a set of rules. And I become judgemental.
What does this sound like? been there, done that... I've said that so many times before. I've expressed those frustrations countless times in my journals.

When I was a kid, I loved reading the Old Testament. I enjoyed the stories (even though I didn't understand them- it could be fairly humorous to post "The Old Testament, read by a kid") but mostly I wanted to read the Bible like any book and I always got stuck in the Prophets so I kept starting back in Genesis. I made it to the New Testament sometime in my early teens!
My thoughts, after awhile, were "I see a pattern here: Isreal trusts God, God delivers Isreal, they are happy, but stop relying on him, sin against him, ignore him and get idols, and then God punishes them and then they repent and it goes on and on and on like that."
When I was a kid I thought "that's pretty stupid"- and it is. But I'm pretty stupid as well. I'm turning around in my desert when I should be in the promised land!!
I think their main problem was that they wanted to go to the Promised Land, but they also liked some aspects of Egypt. They couldn't get in until they had "divorced" Egypt. I won't get anywhere so long as I still have any regards or regrets of my life on my own.

House

I have just finished reading the book co-authored by Peretti and Dekker.
Imagine finding yourself after a fishy car accident in an old house with strange hosts and another couple in a similar predicament, and then being told three "rules": 1. God came to my house. I killed God. 2. I will anyone who comes to my house like I killed God. 3. Bring me one dead body and I might let rule 2 slide..
(quoting by memory here, so it may not be the exact words, but close enough)

Makes you think. It's a good thriller, I've always been a big fan of Peretti's. I wouldn't go so far as to say this is my favorite book by him (I think The Oath, or The Visitation or Monster would get that title. I can't really choose. Perhaps The Visitation.) But it is nonetheless excellent, exciting, and a page-turner. It's actually much scarier than his other books, I'm guessing this comes from the association with Dekker. But perhaps a bit sloppier in the storyline- normally I'm crying out in pain because I long to know what's coming next- here it was going so fast I could barely breathe. I didn't even see the 300-something pages go by!!!
A good summer read. But I guess the problem is that since it's less a thinking book than an action book, I wouldn't enjoy reading it again and again. Other books by Peretti always have hidden facettes to discover.
Until the end I wondered who would kill who and what would happen, who would survive, and I wondered for a long time about the mirror. I was very happy to understand in the end. But I had the intuition about the "bad guy" from the 3d chapter.
The only problem with the book is that it is somewhat confusing in the basement, you tend to forget where the characters are. Perhaps that was intentional: the house seems to have a mind of it's own.

Apart from that, there was one thing that really bothered me, but saying it would be a sort of spoiler. So don't read this next paragraph if you're planning on reading it.
What bothers me is it's recurrent. In The Oath, the woman dies too. I think she could have been saved, should have been. I think this woman was perhaps a bit further away- but not nearly as far as Stephanie. I wish she hadn't died. I've always seen her as a victim. Of course she sinned- havn't we all? I really wanted her to be free from what was haunting her in her past. I genuinely feel for women who have been abused, and her whole life she was trying to figure it out- by being with men, by studying psychology, etc... And in the end she seemed to understand she had been going about it wrong- and for no good reason (IMHO) was killed off. She was the only "interesting" character, the only one I found to have much depth. And even then... The others were too stereotyped and sometimes just plain annoying.

The end wasn't really that surprising. Online lots of people have said the "message" wasn't very clear- I disagree. I found it clear. Peretti's books are novels, not sermons. Novels that make you think, of course, but still novels.
Think fiction. :p I only wish perhaps that we could have seen more into the character's thoughts and feelings towards the end, their inner struggles...
I think the story was very much along the lines of The Oath- that is, practically allegorical- and it also has the same "message". I got more into the other one though, partly because I'm "into" dragons. I even named my iPod Smaug!!
Ok I'm going off topic here, but I do recommend this book and I did enjoy reading it. I just had very high expectations because I'm a fan!

Paul's coming back from India!!

He's been gone a looooooooong time, but he's finally coming home. Well, not that I'll really see him more often anyway :p.
But I'm pretty excited to hear all about his trip. Not so sure when I will, but eventually.

This month of August is going to be super-busy for everybody I know. Including myself. I'm going to be going "non-stop" until the end of September at least.

Vacations, administration, driving, back to college (moving again- even though at least I know where I'm staying this year!), and then a conference, and all my classes and activities... Without counting perhaps even moving into a new room at home (and working on it in the meantime, but that's not really my job!) I'm going to be pretty busy. On top of it I need to ready my bonzaï for it's transition from summer to fall. Every year I have a hard time getting it to accept less light, less sun...

got a new ipod :)

I've had it for a few days now, which explains my internet silence lol... I've been busy playing with my new "toy". Watching Lost, Desperate Housewives... And finding a name for it. I was looking for a LOTR name for it, but most of the names I liked were already taken ;). I finally decided on Smaug (the name of the dragon- I like dragons even though they're pretty evil in the books). Unless someone else had a better idea.
It's a white 30Go iPod. It's so thin and the screen is so wide and nice and classy!
I also got theAgent18 case, it's VERY nice, I think it's one of the best cases I've seen out there :) I'd write a positive review for it on the website but that's hardly necessary because it already has so many positive reviews lol.
I also put my pictures on it.
My plan is to eventually free up my hard disk by deleting all my music off it and only keeping it on my iPod (if the worst comes to the worst, I have CDs of practically everything or a backup on my mom's mac or iPod).
I have yet to try and figure out how to put my own videos on it, I think it's probably not hard, but on the Apple site the only explanation is "buy Quicktime Pro!" - which isn't helpful. I don't want to buy it. I paid enough as it is for my computer and my iPod. There must be a free way to do it. I'll look into it this week when I'm done cleaning my room.

Otherwise I've been reading a lot but that's off topic.