iTunes 6.0.1 out already
Submitted on October 20th, 2005 by admin
Filed under The Mac Side and Audio and Software and Windows
No. of comments Comments Off
I try to stay away from announcing minor product updates, but the latest iTunes has been giving me some problems so I thought you iTunes users might be interested to know that Apple has already released an update to its music player, bringing it to version 6.0.1, which seems to be just minor bugfixes and maybe some unresolved DRM issues..
With iTunes 6.0.1, you can preview, buy, and download over 2,000 videos on the iTunes Music Store and sync your music and purchased videos with iPod to enjoy on the go. To watch purchased videos, you must have Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later.
iTunes 6.0.1 features several stability improvements over iTunes 6. After purchasing music from the iTunes Music Store with iTunes 6 or later, you will also need to upgrade your other computers that purchase music from the iTunes Music Store to iTunes 6.0.1.
[Via MacRumors]
Create, find, and send podcasts with PodOmatic
Submitted on October 19th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Podcasting and Audio and Services
No. of comments Comments Off
Looking for an all-in-one podcasting tool? Check out PodOmatic. This free service, or rather collection of services, provides you with all the tools you need to create, find, and send podcasts. First off is the podcast directory. While not as easy to use as other directories, it does seem pretty comprehensive (yes, our podcast is there, too).
The best part of PodOmatic, though, are the podcast creation tools which are completely web-based. Sign up for an account and you’ll get 250MB of storage to host the podcast. All you need after that is a microphone as all recording is done via your browser. You can add your choice of sound effects, and even sign up for a free phone number so your listeners can call in and leave comments. You can then e-mail your podcast via podMail to whomever you want. Lastly, there’s podAmigo which is a desktop podcatching client which also lets you sync all your podMail. If you’re looking to get into podcasting, this is one of the simplest tools available.
Hacking your iTrip
Submitted on October 19th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Audio and Hardware
No. of comments Comments Off
I tend to do a lot of driving, and being a huge music lover, it would be a big bother to have to carry hundreds of CDs with me any time I went into the car. Luckily, I have an iPod, and a little device no iPod owner should be without, the iTrip. The iTrip acts as an FM transmitter for the iPod making it a must-have car accessory. The problem with the iTrip though is that it uses a very weak FM signal as to not interfere with other cars’ stereos and so you may get static sometimes. There’s a quick little article on Surf-Bits about hacking the iTrip which will increase the signal to 60 feet and get rid of the static and all you need is a long piece of copper wire.
Properly tag your music w/ MusicBrainz
Submitted on October 18th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Audio and Software and Windows
No. of comments (5)
If you’re anything like me, you get your music from multiple sources and often end up not having the proper ID3 tags on your songs. This might not be a big deal to you, though it you like to keep your music collection nice and tidy, you have to have the proper information filled out. If you have a large music collection, it would take forever and a day to properly tag all your music, that’s why there’s MusicBrainz Tagger.
This little tool scans through your music collection, checks various online music databases, and fills in the proper metadata for each file. If for whatever reason it cannot find the file in the database, it will ask you to input the relevant information manually and send it back to the server so that other people looking to tag the same music don’t have to worry about it. I recently ran MusicBrainz Tagger on my 15GB music collection and it correctly identified a majority of the music I listen to, which is more than I can say for most people. MusicBrainz Tagger is free, and available for Windows.
Sending voice e-mails made easy
Submitted on October 14th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Email and Audio
No. of comments (3)
Voice e-mails are a nice way of communicating because not only is it faster to talk than type, but it is much easier to convey a message by voice over writing (unless you’re an excellent writer, or bad speaker). Until now, if you wanted to send a voice e-mail to someone, you had to have multiple applications to do the recording and sending, but not anymore, thanks to a few new services that have popped up recently. Please note that they’ll only record your voice so they’re not solutions to record conference calls.
- Slawsome - free, web-based solution which allows you to record a message up to 2 minutes in length and send to any number of e-mail addresses; does not allow you to download the sound file.
- SpringDoo - completely phone based, must dial 800 number to make a call; 10 free minutes upon sign up, but charges by the minute after that; recipient must click on a link in the e-mail to get the sound file.
- VEMail - free, desktop application which makes recording and sending super easy. It’s only for Windows, though.
iTunes 6, now with video support
Submitted on October 12th, 2005 by admin
Filed under The Mac Side and Audio and Software and Video and Windows
No. of comments Comments Off
So it seems I was right after all and Apple went ahead and released video iPods today in 30GB and 60GB capacities (though I predicted 40GB and 80GB versions). What good would those shiny new iPods be without a way to get video onto them, right? Apple also released iTunes 6 to help you with that. There’s not much new on the software front, but it does represent some big upgrades for the iTunes Music Store.
It’s now possible to buy albums for friends as gifts, and add customer reviews of albums. Additionally, there is a new feature which will recommend new music for you based on your musical preferences. The big news though, is that it is now possible to buy episodes of TV shows. Currently, only a few ABC shows are available (Lost being the best!), but I’m sure others will jump on the opportunity soon. They will also be adding over 2000 music videos for download. Each video and TV episode will cost USD1.99 and be DRM protected (and only in QVGA format which is just 240 x 320). iTunes 6 shows great potential for video distribution, but seems to me, to be a premature release.
Yahoo! Podcasts plugin for Yahoo! Music
Submitted on October 12th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Podcasting and Audio and Services and Software
No. of comments Comments Off
For those of you who are using Yahoo!’s music service, the company has just announced a plugin for the application which adds podcasting support to the Yahoo! Music Engine.. If you’ve ever used the iTunes Podcasts service, you’ll be very familiar with how Yahoo!’s service works. Always nice to see big companies getting behind podcasts.
Uncap your iPod’s volume level
Submitted on October 11th, 2005 by admin
Filed under The Mac Side and Books and Audio and Software and Windows and Linux
No. of comments Comments Off
Owners of iPods in Europe have had to deal with ridiculous volume restrictions on their iPods which forces Apple to put a cap on the maximum volume level the iPod can achieve. Now, there’s a new program called goPod which will unlock the restriction and let you hear your music at full blast for some ear-bleeding fun. This may damage your iPod though I haven’t heard of any problems yet. By the way, this is illegal in France (LOL). Grab goPod right here; it’s free and available for Windows, OSX, and Linux.
[Via digg]
Yahoo! Podcasts directory
Submitted on October 10th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Podcasting and Audio and Services
No. of comments Comments Off
It was really only a matter of time before Yahoo! got into the podcasting game, and they’ve finally entered it, with Yahoo! Podcasts. Those of you who have used Odeo may be familiar with the interface, though Yahoo!’s offering isn’t as clean and simple as Odeo’s. Yahoo! Podcasts offers the ability to play podcasts directly from the browser, or you can download the audio to your computer. Since Yahoo! is first and foremost a search engine (though they forget sometimes I think), the service offers a well integrated search feature. You can easily find the podcasts you want by searching for particular terms, though I feel it may be better if they also integrated a URL search.
Free Music Friday - Paul Warner, Death Cab For Cutie, Ghotti, and Jonathan Coulton
Submitted on October 6th, 2005 by admin
Filed under Audio and Music
No. of comments (6)
Welcome to the first installment of Free Music Friday. Every Friday we will bring to you three to five artists who have at least three of their tracks available on the internet in non-DRM, no restrictions, free-to-download, MP3 format. Most (but not all) will be indie/unsigned artists, so if you’re looking for the latest Crapney Shears album, look elsewhere. Ok, so now that you know how this works, let’s get to it:
