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Sync multiple iPods to one Mac

Posted by Kirk McElhearn on

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When you’re alone with your iPod and your Mac, it’s easy to manage your library and sync your music, videos, audiobooks and data. But with the holidays over, many family members who didn’t have iPods beforehand may now find themselves the proud owners of one of Apple’s music players. And when two or more people share a Mac, it gets a bit confusing. There are several ways you can sync multiple iPods to one Mac, but the easiest method is to share a music folder. Here’s how you can share your music with another user on your Mac.

Generally, each user has his or her own OS X user account, and iTunes is designed to store music in a user’s Music folder. If Alice and Paul both like jazz, but only Alice likes classical music and only Paul likes bluegrass, they may not want to have to use up disk space by duplicating the music the both like. In addition, when they buy new music that they both like, they need to be able to add it to their libraries so they can both put it on their respective iPods.

OS X user accounts employ permissions to prevent one user from rooting around in someone else’s folders, but there’s a special Shared folder that useful for anything that multiple users want to access.

2008 in review: The year in digital media

Posted by Christopher Breen on

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In a year when Apple focused most of its energy on the iPhone 3G, matters of the cloud, and updated computers, its digital media efforts continued at a steady—and incrementally more interesting—pace.

Movies, movies, movies

At January’s Macworld Expo, Apple took another whack at making the Apple TV more than just a hobby. Having realized that a set-top box that streams media from a computer to an attached TV and AV media system is a tough sell—regardless of whose logo is tattooed into the case—Apple attempted to give the Apple TV a leg-up by announcing that movie rentals would become a part of the iTunes Store’s catalog. Playable on computers, compatible iPods, iPhones, and Apple TVs, these rentals would be accessible directly from the Apple TV (running the 2.0 software)—no more trotting over to the computer to download content and then sync or stream it to the Apple TV.

Unlike in the past, the Apple TV Take 2 software allowed the device to play HD-quality video (720p) and 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound.

At that time you still had to purchase movies on your computer and then sync or stream those movies to the Apple TV—only rentals could be downloaded directly from the iTunes Store to the device. In May Apple made it possible to purchase movies on the Apple TV.

Return of the last-minute Playlist gift guide

Posted by Christopher Breen on

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Given the economy and the accompanying tumbleweeds blowing through our malls, last-minute holiday shopping isn’t the crush it once was. Therefore, I declare it safe to venture out during these final shopping days to pick up last-minute items for your loved one. (Or, do as you’ve always done, and plant yourself in front of the computer and shop electronically.) Allow me to recommend:

Holiday music and movies The excitement of opening presents and gathering around tables laden with food is enhanced by appropriate holiday music. The iTunes Store has just that kind of music on sale now. While you’re browsing the bargain bin, be sure to check out the Store’s Movies Under $10. The holiday classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, is going for just $5.

Gift certificates While you’re at the Store, be sure to click the iTunes Gifts link. As you’re surely aware, you can purchase iTunes gift certificates in email or printable form, gift specific music, TV shows, and movies (like that copy of It’s a Wonderful Life); and provide someone with the gift that keeps on giving in the form of an iTunes allowance.

But iTunes isn’t the only game in town. The music sold by Amazon MP3 plays perfectly well on any MP3 player (including an iPod, iPhone, or computer) and that music is often priced lower than what iTunes offers. You can email or print a gift card or send one by mail by visiting Amazon’s Gift Cards page. And if your favorite recipient doesn’t care for music, no worries, they can apply that gift card to any purchase they like.

RIAA stops suing individuals: Are we home free?

Posted by Brennon Slattery on

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Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from the Today @ PC World blog at PCWorld.com.

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has set aside its gavel and will stop prosecuting individuals for pirating digital music files, according to a Wall Street Journal report. Does this mean you should hop on Limewire and fill an iPod with illegal tunes? Not quite.

Instead of its usual strategy of pinning scofflaws and wringing them through the court system, the RIAA will shift the burden to ISPs. When it appears as though an ISP customer is downloading illegally, the RIAA will contact the ISP and it will now be the ISP's responsibility to slap wrists via e-mail. If the actions do not cease, more e-mails will come; until finally, the alleged criminal's Internet access is either watered down or shut off, or they see themselves in court.

This is a rather unexpected shift for the RIAA. Earlier this year, the RIAA upped its fines to $1.5 million for a CD's worth of music, which heightened the organization's fright factor. Then, in April, an Arizona court shot down the RIAA's claim that storing music in a shared folder constitutes illegal file-sharing; just one nail in its coffin. Now the RIAA has put its hands up in surrender and backed away from the situation—for the most part. In the agreement, the RIAA held the right to prosecute the most egregious offenders: those who download an average of 5,000 to 6,000 songs a month.

Those concerned with privacy can also take a deep breath. Instead of demanding the identity of file-sharers in its proceedings, the RIAA will forward its e-mails to ISPs without requesting such information.

How effective will this new strategy be? The RIAA believes it'll boost consumer awareness that "their actions are not anonymous." We'll have to see whether or not a few e-mails from ISPs politely asking for a cession of downloads will be more hard-hitting than a multi-million dollar lawsuit from one of the most reviled organizations in the United States.

First look: Songbird

Posted by Christopher Breen on

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You’ve got your copy of iTunes and are pretty happy with its ability to play and organize the music on your computer and stream Internet radio stations, right? Imagine that you could do that plus skin the interface, scrobble the music you play (as well as log into and interact with your Last.fm account), play not only MP3 and AAC files, but also Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, and WMA (Windows Media Audio) files; access audio blogs and download the audio files on them; view a list of local concert appearances of artists found in your music library; stream a far broader collection of Internet radio stations; and automatically view lyrics to the song you’re listening to.

If that sounds attractive, you owe it to yourself to download a copy of Songbird. Developed by the Pioneers of the Inevitable (who had a hand in developing WinAmp and the Yahoo Music Engine), Songbird is a free, open source, cross-platform media player/web browser based on Mozilla’s XULRunner platform. Given its roots, it shouldn’t be surprising that it resembles a web browser as much as it does a media player such as iTunes.

Alike

But resemble iTunes it does in its organization of your music. Along the left side of the Songbird window you see a pane that includes Library, Downloads, Radio, Playlists, and Bookmarks entries. (Other entries may appear depending on which extensions you’ve added. Yes, Songbird, like Firefox, supports extensions, which bring even broader capabilities to the application.)

Choose Library and the contents of your music library appear. As with iTunes, you can sort the contents of your library by Title, Artist, Album, Genre, Rating, Comment, and Date Added (and more). When you play a track a tabbed pane lets you see information associated with the selected artists. For example, you can view a discography, find links to MySpace, IMDB, and fan pages; read Amazon reviews of the selected album; read current news about the artist; view a slideshow of Internet-based photos associated with the artist; and watch music videos from YouTube, Yahoo, and MTV.

Copy tags to other music tracks

Posted by Kirk McElhearn on

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When you by a new CD and slip it into your computer’s optical drive to rip it, iTunes automatically queries an Internet-based database to try and guess the album’s name, artist, and the names of its tracks. (If it doesn’t, you may need to turn this option on in iTunes’ General preferences.) iTunes uses the Gracenote CD database, which stocks information on more than 6 million CDs and more than 80 million tracks. In most cases, you’ll get track information for your CDs, but in some cases, the query to Gracenote comes up blank.

Gracenote is good at finding track info for the majority of mainstream releases and popular artists, from Madonna and Britney Spears to the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, and it’s generally reliable for indie bands as well. As I rip my CDs, I find that even some quite obscure music gets identified correctly. But a fair number of albums slip through the cracks, notably classical music on small labels.

You can enter track information manually if iTunes doesn’t provide it to you: select the first track, press Command-I, and enter the track name. Press Command-N to go to the next track, then, when you get to the end, select all the tracks, press Command-I and enter the album name, artist, and genre.

Play Windows media files on your Mac

Posted by Christopher Breen on

11 comments

If you’ve had your ear to the ground you know that increasing numbers of Windows users are switching to the Mac. And with that switch comes a measure of confusion (and yes, I mean in areas other than “What do you mean my new computer isn’t subject to adware and spyware!?”). For the purposes of this Playlist entry, I’d like to focus specifically on media file compatibility—making files you had on your PC play on your Mac.

Sure as shootin’, when a friend or relative hops the fence to the greener grass that is the Mac, I get a message along these lines:

Help! I’ve managed to move my beloved movie files from my PC to the new Mac you talked me into, but none of the movies will play. Or they’ll play but show only a white screen. I’m switching back to a PC if you don’t help me right now!

And my reply is this:

You’re almost certainly trying to play Windows media files. Those files aren’t natively supported by QuickTime, but you can force QuickTime (and any Mac media applications that use QuickTime’s technology, which is just about all of them) to play them by downloading and installing the free Windows Media Components for QuickTime. Do this and you should be good to go.

If the files still won’t play, beetle across the Web and grab a copy of the just-as-free Perian. With Perian installed QuickTime (and its related applications) can play AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW files. Specific video types include MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, and DosBox Capture. Specific supported audio types include Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, and Nellymoser ASAO.

And that should do it.

Ah, but what about the obscure audio file types such as FLAC, Ogg Vorbis, or .ape (Monkey Audio)? Call on Max. Yet another freebie (though contributions are welcome), Max can read and write over 20 compressed and uncompressed audio formats.

Our favorite iPod accessories of 2008

Posted by Dan Frakes on

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With the release of the iPhone 3G and the App Store, iPhone software was all the rage when it came to Apple’s mobile devices in 2008. Yet, the companies who’ve populated the iPod ecosystem with speakers, headphones, cases, and other accessories continued to produce fine accessories all year long.

A number of those accessories, both for Apple’s iPod line and the iPhone, caught our eye. In the grand tradition of our Plays of the Year, we’d like to recognize a few of our favorite iPod add-ons. Here are 11 accessories that made the grade this year.

ReviveLite scares away the iPhone killers

Posted by Dan Frakes on

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Over the years, I’ve seen iPod docks merged with a wide range of household objects: beds, chairs, desks, LCD displays, keyboards, fireplaces, and even toilet-paper holders.

So it’s hard to believe it’s taken this long for someone to combine an iPod-charging dock with a nightlight. Yet taken this long it has. Thankfully, Scosche has filled this gaping void in the accessory market with the $40 ReviveLite.

The nightlight section of the ReviveLite consists of a small, white LED behind frosted plastic; when the nightlight is switched on, an ambient-light sensor turns on the LED in low light and disables it in brighter light. The built-in AC plug flips into the body of the ReviveLite for travel.

When you want to charge your iPhone (either model) or iPod (any dock-connector model except the third-generation full-size iPod), the left side of the ReviveLite flips down to expose a dock cradle. A vertical groove along the side of the ReviveLite keeps your iPod or iPhone in place; for added stability, you can slip one of four included hard-foam adapters into the groove.

Now, granted, you can get a nice ambient-light-sensor nightlight at Home Depot for less than $10, and a cheap USB power adapter that, together with your iPod or iPhone’s own dock-connector cable, will charge your i-device for another $10 or so. But that wouldn’t be as gadget-cool, would it?

(On a serious note, as a parent whose toddler likes to sleep to white noise, this might make a nice travel accessory: Stick an iPhone running Ambiance in the ReviveLite and you’ve got a portable nightlight and a white-noise machine in one convenient package—as well as a fully-charged iPhone in the morning.)