You Control: Tunes, Control iTunes From The Menu Bar

I've slowly been trying to rate a bunch of my mp3's in iTunes. Its a real pain to be constantly switching to iTunes when each new song begins to rate it. I knew there had to be a better way. Google to the rescue. I initially found Synergy, but it wasn't free so I kept looking. My next search yeilded You Control: Tunes, which to my delight was free and fit the bill!

You Control: Tunes has a wide variety of features. Using You Control: Tunes you can navigate through your music via small back, forward, play, and pause buttons located in your menu bar (previously I used Bytecontroller for this). You can also rate the song that is currently playing by clicking on the star ratings next to the navigation buttons. Another neat aspect of this little application is that when a new track begins a small window pops up showing you the artist, song name, album art and other configurable information.

This helpful application has allowed me to easily rate my music while keeping most of my concentration focused at the task at hand. I'd recommend that you at least give You Control: Tunes a shot. Since its free, there's no loss if you don't like it. But, I doubt you'll be uninstalling this puppy!

Bandwagon Plug,,, Get Your Free Account

Bandwagon is for music geeks that use Macs. If you have a huge music library that you never back up, then it may be time to look Bandwagon. The service officially launches February 22nd, 2007. Essentially But, I've got some great news. They have a neat promotion going on right now. Post their logo on your blog and you get a free account for 1 year... hence the shameless plug, lol.

I probably wouldn't normally try out their service, but if I get a free account out of this then I'll give it a shot. Of course, if I get a free account you can all expect a review :)

Apple Mail Does Gmail But No Syncing :(

Yesterdays iCal/GoogleCalendars success got me excited for todays task. But it ended up being short lived. Since Google and Apples calendar apps work so well together I figured that their email offerings would work equally well. As I stated yesterday, I like having a local copy of my data as well as a web version to view when I'm not using my personal machine. Getting the two copies of data to sync is a big bonus. Even if its only a one way sync (web to computer) its better than nothing.

Since I'd like a full two way sync, IMAP is the only way to go. IMAP allows you to sync your web mail to your hard disk and vice versa. Any changes made in either place will be reflected in the other. But, unfortunately Google doesn't offer IMAP for Gmail. Instead, only POP is available. So, although I won't have full syncing capabilities it'll still be nice to have a copy of all my email to reference while I don't have net access. POP essentially allows users to download mail off a mail server. The mail on the server can either be left there, or deleted once its downloaded. Because GMail gives its users such large (2gb+) mail boxes, I chose to leave my email on the server after its downloaded. Other web mail sites might give you a very small disk cap and deleting the mail on the server would be best. If you'd like some instructions on how to setup Apple Mail to receive email from Google's GMail check Google's official walk through in the Help Center. If you want to configure how GMail handles your mail after you download it you'll need to change your GMail settings. Its under 'Settings' -> 'Forwarding and POP'.

This solution is more or less the same as I was able to achieve with iCal. Syncing from Googles servers to my MBP is doable, but the opposite isn't. Hopefully that will change, because IMAP is perfect for having your mail synced in multiple locations. I have a feeling that IMAP hasn't been released for GMail due to the use of Labels instead of folders. GMail allows email to be organized under multiple labels instead of the conventional single folder method. IMAP could get quite tricky under this situation.

I feel that I've only half tackled this task. Until IMAP is available with GMail I won't be satisfied. Its funny how I'm ok with my calendar only being able to sync one way, but not my email. I suppose that I hold higher standards for some things than others.
Oh, and Google recently started allowing public signups for GMail. You no longer need to find someone to invite you. The new sign up is a bit goofy though. It requires you to give Google your cell phone number. They will then send you a text message with an activation code, which is used to open your gmail account.... Told you it was a bit goofy!

Subscribe/Sync Google Calendars to iCal

Three to four months ago I moved a lot of my data over to Google's servers (bookmarks, mail, calendar, RSS reader). I knew that I was going to buy a new computer, probably a Mac. I also knew I didn't want to deal with migrating the data over to the new machine. Furthermore I figured that its best to be able to access your information from anywhere, rather than one computer. I'm fully impressed with all three web apps. But, now that I have this great portable computer, I may go some places that don't have internet access, and thus no calendar :(

OS X comes with a full fledged calendar app named iCal, and I figured that I'd give it a shot. If I had to move my calendar data, day by day into iCal I wouldn't even consider trying it. But, Google Calendar supports iCal quite well. Google Calendar basically offers the equivalent of an RSS feed of your calendars, and iCal supports subscribing. You can even subscribe to any public Google Calendars through iCal, which allows you to get Federal Holidays, Moon Phases, and many others. The process is pretty strait forward, but if you'd like a step by step walk through check out GoogleTutor.

Within 5 minutes I had imported all my Google Calendar data into iCal. I didn't expect it to go that smooth. There are limitations to this though. Any changes you make in Google Calendars will show up in iCal. However, changes made in iCal won't be displayed in Google Calendars. This is due to the fact that you are merely subscribing to a feed rather than syncing the two. After a bit of searching around I found SpanningSync. Although still in Beta SpanningSync will offer two way syncing between iCal and Google Calendars. Ultimately this is what you want. But for now, as long as you understand the limitations of subscribing you'll be able to get by till SpanningSync is officially released.

The Only Windows XP Feature I Missed

One of the only features of Windows XP that I have been missing is the 'Show Desktop' button in the quick launch bar. That little button immediately clears your workspace and tosses windows in the task bar. Sure OS X has Exposé, but sometimes it just doesn't do the trick. F11 is nice, but the windows are still there once you toggle it back on. And hitting Apple+M or Apple +H really fast isn't efficient.

Luckily I found a 'Show Desktop' clone, ironically named Show Desktop :) This little app resides either in your Dock or Menu Bar. When clicked, all of your open programs get hidden (so you can still Apple+Tab through them) and finder windows get minimized. This is as close to the Windows XP version as it could get. Now if only I could figure out how to set a keystroke to Show Desktop I'd be set!

iEatBrainz

As you know I've been living in ID3 tag hell. You know those mp3's that you got from a friend that don't have an informative file name and the tags are completely empty? Picking through those songs one by one trying to figure the song name or artist out takes a rediculous amount of time. Of course you don't want to get rid of the songs, but you don't want to slowly figure each song out either.

Well, there is a solution!

Have you ever heard of acoustic matching? Basically all music files have an audio fingerprint. This fingerprint can then be used to identify your songs. BrainzMusic maintains a database of a huge amount of audio files. Included in this database along with the fingerprints are ID3 tags. So those unruly mp3's without tags are no longer a problem. The database won't work on 100% of your music files, but it is fairly robust and will be able to tackle most of what you throw at it.

The Mac client, iEatBrains, integrates with iTunes which is awesome. Simply load up iTunes and iEatBrains, then select the songs in question within iEatBrains. The search takes a second or two for each song. When the searching is complete you can choose from potential matches and update your iTunes library.

This is definitely a nifty tool if you're music tags are in shambles! Best of all... its FREE :)

iPhoto Automation

Tonight I busted out some archive DVD's I had laying around with photos on them with the intent of slowly importing them into iPhoto. Once I copied the 10gb worth of pictures onto my MBP I set out to import them. Somehow I noticed the file permissions were a bit botched up though, which lead me to a bit of unix trickery :)

find . -type d -exec chmod 755 {} \;
find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;

Thank god for the sysadmin class I took in college. That saved me tons of time.

With this hurdle out of the way I moved on to creating folders/albums for my pics. I figured that there must be a way automate this and there was! Allan Marcus wrote iPhoto Folder Import 1.0, a great script that creates iPhoto albums from folder names. So if you have all your pictures already sorted into folders that are neatly named just drag the folders onto the script icon and ZING! You got your albums! iPhoto can handle drag and drop album creation, but only with 1 folder at a time. The importer can handle multiple folders :) I expected to only get through a few years worth of photos, but instead I got through ALL of them.

With a bit of extra time I was able to install Keyword Manager (thanks Galley) and start fooling with it. This little plugin/script seems really awesome and I can't wait to get all my photo's tagged :)

To iTunes Or Not To iTunes, That Is The Question

I've been debating this question for a few days now. While using Windows I used winamp for a while, then ditched it. Eventually, I ended up just playing my music in Windows Media Player. I never set up play lists, I just opened up a handful of songs at a time and went from there. As you may have read before, I'm a little paranoid about handing my data over to a program without knowing what the program is going to do with this data.

I don't remember any of the specifics of things I've heard in the past, but for some reason I have this suspicion that iTunes doesn't play well with non iTunes store music. And since I've never used iTunes, all my music is DRM free, mostly ripped CD's. My biggest fear is that iTunes would bring down an Iron fist and start trying to control where I can play my music. Although these feelings seem foolish, its hard for me to adopt iTunes with this fear. Tonight I decided to give iTunes a whirl and see if I could debunk my suspicions.

It wasn't long before realized that I was wrong, which is great, because I really want to use iTunes :) When I import my music into iTunes they retain their original file format and don't get converted to the DRM laden ACC format. This means that iTunes won't be able to control what I do with my music!

As I import more of my music and get some time to explore more of iTunes I'll give my full blown opinion of iTunes.

Adventures With iPhoto

I'm not one to jump into using new applications, especially when years of data is in question. But, since I made the switch to Macs I might as well jump in head first and explore iPhoto 6.

I always like to do a bit of research before I start using a program. I like to know how its going to handle my data and where I need to go to back it up. My adventure with iPhoto was no different.

In Windows, I used to just store all my pictures in folders. Then when I wanted to view them I'd surf through the folders and 'view them as a filmstrip'. This worked ok. I tried out a few photo organization apps, but was never pleased with them. It seemed that they always wanted to store my photos in weird hard to find places with goofy organization. So I was a little hesitant to use iPhoto. If OS X had the 'view pictures as a filmstrip' built into the finder I probably wouldn't have given iPhoto a shot.

But, if that was the case, I'd be missing out on a killer photo organization app!

If you're like me you'll like to know how iPhoto stores your images. Most if of iPhotos data is stored in the /Users/uid/Pictures/iPhoto Library/ directory. The original unmodified versions of your photos are in the Originals directory. Within the Originals directory photos are organized just how I like them (Year/Album/Photos). If you edit a photo from within iPhoto, its saved in the Modified directory. You will never lose your originals! iPhoto's data storage met my approval, so I started importing pictures.

By dragging folders full of images into the iPhoto window an Album with that folders name is created for you. iPhoto also figures out the dates the pictures are taken and also organizes them by year. So you have 2 ways to look at your pictures at this point. Look in the Album or in the year.

Once you are finished importing all your pictures there are many things you can do. The biggest feature that most users will use will be editing. iPhoto has some nice editing tricks up its sleve. Rotating, Croping (with aspect ratio constraints), Red Eye Reduction, and Retouching are some of the simpler features available. More advanced editing includes Effects (Black & White, Sepia, Antique, Fade Color, Boost Color, Matte, Vignette, and Edge Blur), and Adjustment of brightness, contrast, saturation, tempeture, tint, and exposure. All of these effects give you a real time preview! There are 2 interfaces for editing pictures. To edit within the iPhoto window click the Edit button in the bottom left. To edit in full screen mode click the button to the right of the key located in the bottom left.

Slideshows are also really simple to setup in iPhoto. Navigate to an Album and select which photo's you'd like to add to the slideshow. If you'd only like a few select pictures hold down the shift key while selecting pictures. Once you are happy click the Slideshow button near the bottom of the page. This saves your slideshow in the left pane of iPhoto. When you select the slideshow you can set lots of options like Effects, Transitions, and Music. My biggest gripe is that there is no way to view a Slideshow without it being saved. I'd like to be able to click an album, watch a Slideshow of that album and move on. If anyone knows how to do this I'd love to know :)

This covers most of the basic features of iPhoto and most of what I'll probably be doing with it. However, Apple has some other neat things you can do from within iPhoto. You can get Books, Calendars, and Cards created with your pictures and Apple will mail them to you. You can also order prints of your images as well. iPhoto additionally provides a way to make and subscribe to Photocasts (similar to a podcast except with images). You can also easily upload your photos to iWeb via the 'Share' menu at the top of your screen. If you use Picasa or Flickr you'll need a 3rd party plugin to upload to their servers through iPhoto. The plugins are linked to at the end of this article. Backing up your photos seems easy enough, but I haven't tried it yet. Under the Share menu is an option to 'Burn' which should burn a backup of your images.

All in all, I'm impressed with iPhoto. Due to experiences with other photo organizing programs my expectations weren't very high. However, iPhoto meets my needs and I'll continue to use it. With more time I'm sure I'll find more things that will impress me and I'll be even more happy that I started using iPhoto :)

Here are a few pages that you might find interesting if you have time for some extra reading.

• About the iPhoto Library Folder
• Upload Your Photos to Flickr
• Upload Your Photos to Picasa
• Apple Official iPhoto Tutorial
  

The Keynote2Keynote Variety Show

What does a switcher, lojack, PC running OS X, and a hidden dictionary have in common? They are the topic of conversation for today :) We got everything but the kitchen sink!

First off, heres another report of a switcher! Colleen Lynn's mom just purchased her first Mac. And in true boyfriend dumping fashion they plan on 'burning' some memories. Remember what Smokey the Bear says... "Only you can prevent another windows user." LOL.

So what do you do when you you fancy sports car gets stolen? You trace the bad boy with that expansive lojack system you got installed. How would you like to bring that kind of security to your Mac? Well Jonathan Zdziarski over at Nuclear Elephant has developed an application with this in mind. " MacLoJack is a system daemon running under Mac OS X designed to call home when your Mac is reported stolen. Once activated, MacLoJack will wait until it has an available network connection and every 60 seconds upload as much data as it has available..." This data includes an external IP address and iSight pictures of the culprit!

What happens if you are a switcher at heart, but don't have enough confidence to take the dive and ride the Apple train? You install OS X on your PC! I haven't tried this myself, but some clever people are doing just that. Its not a short process, but if your determined it shouldn't be a problem. Once you get a taste for OS X its doubtful you'll return to windows and you'll be one step closer to becoming a switcher.

Lastly, did you know that you have a hidden dictionary feature available, a way to invert colors, slow motion, text clipping, and multiple ways to take screen shots? All of these features are built into OS X and ready to use, so take a look!

I hope thats enough to keep everyone busy tonight :)