iTunes Store and DRM-free music: What you need to know

Apple announced it would drop digital rights managements from all iTunes Store music—here's what you need to know to make sense of the news.

Expo: Apple introduces iLife '09Apple has introduced a new version of its iLife application suite, including iPhoto '09.
iTunes Store goes DRM-freeApple has re-encoded its iTunes Store catalog to offer 8 million songs without DRM; the remaining 2 million are expected to follow by the end of March.

Quickly reveal obscured desktop icons Learn how to quickly reveal icons that have been obscured after moving your dock to the side of the screen.
Sync multiple iPods to one Mac Using OS X's Shared user folder, you can shared one iTunes library with multiple users on one Mac.
Bugs & Fixes: Dealing with iCal and Entourage duplicates If you sync Entourage calendar appointments with your iPhone or MobileMe account, you might notice duplicate entries popping up. Ted Landau has a procedure for eradicating unwanted copies with a minimum of fuss.
The finer points of finding free images The Web provides small design firms and freelance designers without a $15,000 photo shoot budget the opportunity to download photos and vector illustrations as easily as the click of the mouse. James Dempsey looks at where to find images and what the cost of “free” graphics are.
Set half-star ratings directly in iTunes Enable a hidden preference that allows the setting of half-star ratings directly within iTunes.

Expo: DRM-free announcement is music to consumers' ears While Mac fans may be agog over new version of iPhoto and iMovie, Dan Moren thinks the biggest news of Phil Schiller's keynotes was about the iTunes Store.
Upgrading to iTunes Plus: Why the hassle? Excited about Tuesday’s news that all the tracks in the iTunes Store will soon be DRM-free? It would be more exciting if upgrading your existing library to DRM-free tracks wasn’t such a hassle, Kirk McElhearn contends.
Opinion: Skipping another serving of Toast Toast 10 was announced, but is the upgrade cost justified?
Screen savers live! If you thought that screen savers died out in the '90s, or if Mac OS X is limited to Apple's built-in screen savers, think again. Dan Frakes has 13 -- count 'em! -- great screen savers for Mac OS X in this week's Macworld Video.
2008 in review: The year's Top 10 stories Plenty of stories made the rounds through the Mac universe in 2008. Here’s one man’s take on the ten biggest stories of the year.