Apple Grrl

iTunes is a fantastic and easy way to get music for your iPod or computer.  Even so, there is always a feature someone thinks is “missing” to make it do just one more thing.  Lucky for the rest of us, these people make some fabulous plug ins and extras to fill in the blanks.

iWow: recommended by MacUpdate. Works great on Tiger and under, not so hot on Leopard right now. Hopefully they’ll patch it soon.

iTunesExport (Windows): sends your iTunes library to a thumb drive or another computer

Symphonic: locate and open songs

iTune My Walkman: put iTunes on non iPods (phones, MP3 players)

ByteController: controller for your menu bar

DockArt: Put album art in the dock instead of the iTunes icon

DRM Dumpster: automate the process of clearing the DRM from your iTunes files

GForce: replaces the iTunes visualizer

NowPlaying: list the iTunes songs you are currently listening to in your IM program and other places

Privatunes: my favorite of all the plug ins on the list, this one removes your personal information from each file. Currently only works one song at a time.

Arkaos Visualizer: another visualizer replacement for iTunes

iDupe: removes duplicate songs in iTunes for you - quite handy

MoreTunes: completes your meta data information while displaying album art

Harmonic: add lyrics to your iTunes library

DeskTunes: iTunes notifier

iConcertCal: scans your playlists then displays concerts from your favorite artists coming to your area

Moody: sort your songs by your mood

There are a ton more out there to choose from, but this list has some of my favorites. Have fun, and if you have a favorite I forgot share it in the comments!

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LifeHacker posted their list of 23 iTunes extras and add-ons here. Are they really the best? That I don’t know, but I do know that I don’t use many iTunes add-ons. Most of the ones I’ve tried, like iWow, don’t play well with Leopard. Others don’t play well with iTunes at all on a MacBook, causing speaker issues. Many don’t have adequate updates and support once they are created, tossed in the dustbin by their programmers.

If you find an extra or add on for iTunes you want to try, by all means use it. My MOG and Last.FM “recently played” lists come from an iTunes add on. When they work, they work great. But when they don’t they can be hard to uninstall. I suggest learning to use the Activity Monitor - a handy way to stop a process causing an iTunes Freeze so that you can figure out if the freeze may be due to a plug in or not. If it is, you can then uninstall the plug in. If it isn’t, you can trouble shoot using Activity Monitor.

Do you use iTunes add ons? What are your favorites? Did LifeHacker leave any off its list?

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This January, Apple is to release Mac OS X Leopard build 10.5.2 build 97C. Why is this news? Because the build is set to address the 76 biggest complaints that have been heard about Leopard.

The complaints addressed include the pesky Internet connectivity issues, general Airport wonkyness, Rosetta compatibility, memory leaks and more. The rumor is that this much needed release will hit around the same time as Macworld.

The release date is a good guess, since Apple has already released the fix to developers.

Source

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A friend pointed out this handy Leopard application to me today, and I immediately thought of the potential for helping friends and family work out technical issues. Of course, they’d have to have Leopard and a newer Mac, but still - it’s a great little program. It allows to share the screen of Macs on your Network, both remote and in house.

This article from MacWorld even has a variety of Terminal commands you can use to increase functionality of Screen Sharing. It goes so far as to add handy buttons and shortcuts to your Screen Sharing toolbar, and to give you a Bonjour window to make finding computers on your network that much easier.

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UsingMac posted a post showing over 200 cool shortcuts in Leopard. Check it out.

Why use shortcuts and hot keys? While they do have a slight learning curve, they also boost your productivity and make your computing experience faster and more efficient once you have them down pat. I just got Leopard, so I’m no where near familiar with many of these, but I’m learning. I want to compute like a rock star. I already type over 100 words per minute, why not execute commands faster, too?

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Leopard users have complained about not being able to keep an internet connection. The fix is relatively easy, and involves changing a default setting that was added in Leopard. This user says it best:

Well, this problem isn’t just with me, it’s actually quite widespread and has been mentioned all over the Internet and Apple support discussion forums. But…I have a fix! You see, Leopard has changed the way in which OS X reads network traffic, as part of their new Firewall setup. I won’t go into a huge explanation, as it is quite techy and geeky. The simple fix is, to open up Network preferences, and select the advanced tab. From here you click on TCP/IP and under the settings for Configure IPv6 turn it off, completely off. This instantly fixed the problem for me.

I tried the fix and it solved my dropped connection issues right away. thanks, Victor!

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By now you’ve heard that someone hacked the iPhone, unlocking it so it can be used with other carriers than AT&T/Cingular on any GSM network. Hallelujah! Many are surprised that Steve Jobs hasn’t weighed in on the issue, but I’m not. He got his start by renegade computing, after all, in a dynamic double Steve duo with Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple. I would be more surprised if he came out against the hack. Let’s hope he honors his roots and keeps mum on the subject. 9 to 5 Mac has a nice synopsis of the hack and the history on their site.

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Oh thank goodness! I could have used this 3 sheet cheater pack about five years ago, but whatever. No such thing as too late with this one. This site has a downloadable three PDF set of cheater notes showing every character key on your Mac. Sweet! What are character keys, you ask? Any time you want type the registered trademark or copyright symbol, or figure out the stroke combo for typing the Euro symbol - those are character keys. Have fun!

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