How do you keep track of what’s free on iTunes? You can do it the hard way by checking iTunes or the easy way by subscribing to the Free iTunes Downloads blog.
The design is too splog-like, but the content is good.
You can subscribe via RSS feed and know when something cool to download is available like the pilot of Jericho as of this writing.
One of the best videos interviews I’ve seen in a long time — and a total must see for techies — is the Steve Jobs and Bill Gates interview at D5 Conference.
Great stuff. Go download it now while it’s available and free. The video is almost 1GB.
Thanks Macenstein.
Moody is a free add-in for iTunes that enables you to tag your music in iTunes by color coded chart based on intensity and sadness to hapiness. At last count I had something like 1,200 songs so this might take awhile, but I like the idea that once everything is tagged I can choose a mood and it will take care of dispensing the tunes.
MP3 blogs are basically podcasts that send along mp3 music only. Peel wraps up mp3 blogs into a player, stream and mp3 blog reader.
All Things Marked offers a tutorial on how to manage multiple libraries with iTunes 7:
iTunes 7 has some new and improved features to help people manage their music, movies, podcasts and pictures. One of the long-awaited features is the support for multiple libraries. A library (in the iTunes realm) is an XML file that stores the information about your media you use in iTunes. All of the songs you have in iTunes are referenced in the XML library file. I will show you how to manage multiple libraries with iTunes 7. This is good for people with iPod
This is something I’ve been wanting to learn how to do for some time. Thank you!
From the same folks who made my currently most used to date Apple gadget (RadioSHARK) comes iKaraoke:
sends the music from your iPod to your stereo minus the lead vocals, so you can step up to the mic and sing the lead in your favorite tunes.
Hat tip to Techie Diva.
With the recent purchase of an 80GB iPod 5g and video purchases from the iTunes store it hasn’t taken very long to empty my eMac’s hard drive. Fortunately I had already partitioned off an external network drive for use on the Mac and set that to be the master drive for iTunes.
But first … had to copy over the iTunes music folder from the eMac which took a little over an hour to move the nearly 18GB of music and video.
My next question is can I set iTunes to recognize multiple drives? Thus by adding another external drive I should be able to keep building on our music and video library.
My wife recently wanted an iPod and bought the 80GB iPod black. We are in the process of putting our entire family’s music on the Mac through iTunes. Since her music tastes differ from the rest of ours in many cases (I prefer more 70s and 80s classic and hard rock and she likes more pop and the kids are over the map), we have begun exploring creating different playlists for each of us. This way whomever is listening to the iPod can listen to the type of music they are interested in.
We learned that by setting the shuffle to “songs” (SETTINGS->SHUFFLE->Songs) it is possible to shuffle within playlists.
I just did some searching through Google to see what creative playlist generating others were doing and came across this strategy from maximumaardvark:
I created five smart playlists. The first three are simple: I call them ‘x-star radio’, where x is a number between 3 and 5 inclusive. The ‘3-star radio’ playlist contains all songs rated 3 stars that have not been played in the last 10 weeks. The ‘4-star radio’ playlist contains all songs rated 4 stars that have not been played in the last 4 weeks. The ‘5-star radio’ playlist contains all songs rated 5 stars that have not been played in the last 2 days (since I use the 5 star rating to mark songs that I am, like, so totally in love with right now). The fourth playlist is a smart playlist that contains all of the songs added to my iTunes library within the last 21 days. I tie it all together with a fifth playlist called ‘@Radio’ (the @ keeps it at the lexicographical top of my playlists). It’s a smart playlist that is defined as the union of the other four.
Sounds like a good strategy. Anybody reading have other good playlist techniques? Here’s a good guide to creating smart playlists I found.
iPodfolder (Freeware, Mac or Windows):
Backup your iPod Music to a folder on your Mac or a folder on another iPod.
Tangerine (freeware) via Lifehacker:
Tangerine analyzes the beats per minute (BPM) and beat intensity of the songs in your iTunes library, then helps you create playlists based on these attributes.
iSquint is a free iPod video conversion app. Update: a commercial app (visualhub $23 USD) will allow fitting up to 18 hours on a single DVD.
convert videos to the newly supported iPod resolutions (640×480 in H.264 - the new standard for downloads from the iTunes store). Other than that, iSquint is still the best solution for one-click, simple conversion from virtually any codec to iPod compatible video
Have songs in iTunes with incomplete information? Then maybe a brain devouring friend will come in handy like iEatBrainz v1.07:
takes songs that you’ve chosen in your iTunes Library, that have incorrect or missing information for Title, Artist or Album , and then uses the sound of each song to match it with the correct information maintained in the MusicBrainz Database
You can verify the info before updating the iTunes library.
In a move which I haven’t delved deeply into, it seems there has been some sort of lockdown with iTunes album art. Fortunately software alternatives are appearing.
This is the first release since Apple started protecting their artwork. About 25% of artwork from the iTMS still works. However Corripio now also searches other artwork sources for high quality images. You can select which sources to search and in what order to do so
Over the next week would be a really good time to be buying an iTunes song or two as Apple plans some juicy giveaways as they work their way to one billion songs sold. In addition to a full scholarship in the winner’s name at a local music school Apple plans to award the following:
… every person buying a 100,000th song gets a black 4GB iPod nano and a $100 iTunes Music Card. The person who downloads the billionth song from the iTunes Music Store will receive a 20-inch iMac, a $10,000 iTunes Music Card, and ten 60GB iPods.
Ten 60GB iPods? Wow. That’s like $4,000+ worth of iPods just for having the lucky golden ticket.
Apple has sold 30 million songs through iTunes in ten days and is closing in on selling its first billion. iTunes launched its billion song countdown on February 7. On February 7 Macworld reported the company to have sold 951,060,444 songs. At three million song sales each day, Apple seems set to reach its billion song target within the week.
How many iTunes song have I bought to date? One. I know, I’m way below the curve. I guess I’d rather buy the CD and burn it without the DRM so I can use on any device, but I’m not opposed to buying another track or two. And who wouldn’t want to lay their hands on that 20 inch iMac? How many iTunes songs have you bought?
Probably most have seen the blue promo space in the iTunes window which says that the iTunes MiniStore: “… allows you to discover new music and videos right from your iTunes Library”
I turned it on to see how good were the recommendations. Anybody else using this? Is it like TiVo’s recommendation quality (pretty good)?
A couple times I’ve lamented how a lot of my iTunes music has no album art and I needed to do something about that. While reading through RSS feeds catching up on reading I came across an embarassingly obvious manual way of adding album art: just search for the album art on Amazon and drag the picture to the “drag album art here” section. I’m sure many dedicated iTunes users know this tip.
Then I came across this free application called Clutter which automatically extracts album art from Amazon from CDs inserted into the drive and iTunes and shows you in a handy little window (pictured above). To copy album art to iTunes just click the APPLE KEY + SHIFT + K.
The rumours about a new iPod and iTunes combo with video have been circulating for awhile but today Steve Jobs finally made it official. The new iPod, named just that: The iPod will start shipping next week. I’ll try to get back with some screenshots and more information after I’ve checked it out further.
Harry Potter Collector’s Edition iPod ($548 USD as of this writing) — contains all Harry Potter audiobooks and a 20 GB specially engraved with the Hogwarts Crest:
Etched on the back of the 20GB iPod is the Hogwarts Crest, a symbol of the school of magic that Harry Potter attends. The Hogwarts Crest was originally drawn by author J.K. Rowling herself and illustrates the four houses that make up the school, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw.
Earlier today Steve Jobs announced that there are now 10 million iTunes users with credit cards and the average user has purchased 60 songs. Number of songs I’ve purchased from ITMS? Goose egg. That Madonna Immaculate Collection set is looking good though for $9.99 and 17 songs. I could be tempted soon!
Today Apple released two new products plus an iTunes 5.0 upgrade. iTunes has made some UI enhancements and added Madonna music! That’s right, she was a long holdout but now all 15 of her albums are available via ITMS.
iTunes cell phone
The Motorola ROKR ($249.99) available exclusively through Cingular (darn, we are with Verizon), comes with a special version of iTunes inside. Holds about 100 songs and is on par with the Shuffle, feature-wise.
iPod nano
This sleek device comes in black or white and two sizes: 2 GB ($199, 500 songs), 4 GB ($249, 1000 songs). Unlike the Shuffle, it comes with a color screen. Should appeal to those who are on the move and want something light.
The stories here and there about the doom and gloom in the online music downloading arena seems to be bogus at Apple anyway. Apple sees 64 percent growth in music downloads | MacMinute News:
Jobs then displayed the following numbers, noting that the iTunes Music Store has had 64 percent growth in the last five months.Songs sold:
May - 10,830,537
June - 12,331,133
July - 15,103,099
Aug. - 15,665,890
Sept. - 16,229,955
Oct. - 17,726,830 (projected)