What is the difference between a metadata cover update and a metadata title update? I've seen some interesting first-time import author mangling myself, depending how the author metadata was originally specified...
And regarding snapshotting backups -- I agree, which is unsurprising for a linux enthusiast
and if you check out the link I posted earlier on how I achieve my backups you will see they are indeed file-based, complete backups that can be accessed via nothing more esoteric than a bog-standard file browser.
Although as they are backed by an ext3 filesystem, I am afraid they aren't accessible from any OS.
