Keys Corner

The Independent has printed a thoughtful proposal for the way to proceed in Iraq from someone who really should know what he is talking about – Ali A Allawi, the Minister of Trade and Minister of Defence in the Iraqi Governing Council Cabinet from 2003 to 2004. He was also in the Transitional National Assembly, and Minister of Finance, Transitional National Government of Iraq in 2005-2006.

His proposals are certainly not going to please the White House, but the analysis seems more plausible than Bush’s alleged strategy of increasing troop levels in Iraq. He points out that the majority of the states in the Middle East find the current situation of increasing Shia ascendency in Iraq deeply disturbing and that a solution to the current crisis must be generated initially from within Iraq and then get regional support for the direction taken – that includes support from Iran and Turkey.

It’s a long article, but worth reading and certainly quite different from any proposal that Bush is likely to make, which unfortunately means it has little chance of being implemented.

If you are looking for an excellent utility to backup or copy your iPod’s music into your iTunes library, one of the best is Red Chair Software’s CopyGear for Mac.

They come originally from the Windows corner and also offer a tool-set for Windows called Anapod Explorer which includes CopyGear and additional utilities for managing photos on your iPod as well as integrating with Windows Explorer to provide drag-and-drop file management to and from the iPod. Until now I’ve used Senuti to transfer from my iPod, which is donationware. CopyGear is more powerful and well worth the $15 registration fee (you can try it before you buy – by transferring up to 25 tracks before the demo version stops working).

If you want the Mac version, just make sure you don’t do what I did, which was to inadvertently jump to the Windows product page in their store and buy that version before I realised I hadn’t bought the Mac version as intended! You can only get to the Mac store page from the Mac product page.