Working fix for CDDB lookups in iTunes for Windows

Since the release of iTunes for Windows, I haven’t been able to get it to connect to the CDDB to get track information for my CDs. Judging from the activity on Apple’s discussion boards, I’m not alone. Today I found a fix that works on the board, involving turning off the use of proxy servers and deleting a registry key (see linked post for details). I don’t think Apple did a lot of testing of these features with machines that sat behind corporate firewalls and proxy servers…

How shall we sing in a strange land?

I sang for the first time at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle on Sunday. The group was a pick-up men’s chorus made up of men from the Cathedral Choir and from the general congregation, which is how I got to participate. For having only half an hour of rehearsal I thought it went quite well.

There was also an interesting discussion during the service with US Marine Colonel Andy Hutchison, a reservist who was called away from his work at Boeing (and membership in UPC) to become deputy for Logistics Operations for the Marines during the Iraq war and subsequent occupation (article mentioning Andy’s work here). He spoke about his faith and the progress being made in Iraq. Acknowledging the bad news that was coming from Iraq, he also discussed his witness first hand of the relief of the Iraqi people of being out from under the Hussein regime. It was interesting hearing the voice from the front lines.