tunequest

Yesterday, I wrote a detailed article about the new formula I'm using to quantify the overall quality of albums in my iTunes library. It's been working for me, but I realized that everyone rates their music differently. Webomatica, for example, explains in the comments that his song ratings are relative to other songs by the same artist. So I'd like to explain the thought process that goes ...

Read the rest of this post.

I established in the previous article that with all the interesting content out there, it can be quite daunting to listen to all those great podcasts. The ease with which iTunes lets you discover, subscribe to and manage podcasts can quickly lead to an overwhelming number of episodes and timespan to get through. "Podcast Overload" is a very real possibility. I also noted in that article that ...

Read the rest of this post.

Volkher at livingwithmusic posted the other day a rather thoughtful treatise against digital music files as a medium. He does a good job of bringing up all the relative shortcomings of abandoning physical media, including the effort required to encode/download and properly organize/tag files as well as the burden and cost that goes into storage and preventative backups. And he's right on the money about picking ...

Read the rest of this post.

Like clockwork, each January means the end of Christmas decorations, the onset of the full desolation of winter, learning the motor-memory of writing a new year and, of course, a sudden, massive hard drive failure. Every year since 2001 it has happened to me, always to my external music drive and always in January. It's quite comical, if you have the right sense of humor. Then it should ...

Read the rest of this post.

Update: The revised sorting feature/problem in iTunes 7.3 and later renders portions of this advice useless. Some of it still applies for Smart Playlist building, but the segregated sorting no longer works. If you're using a version prior to 7.3, go nuts. If you're using 7.3 or later, be warned. In striving for zen-like simplicity while maintaining and extending the usability of iTunes, please follow me as ...

Read the rest of this post.

Update: This problem seems to have been addressed in a recent update to iTunes. The program now stops looking around 100 missing files before giving the warning dialogue. So if you're having this problem, make sure you're using the latest version. :: One of iTunes 7 handy new features is the "sync problems" warning. The screen pops up whenever you try to sync your iPod with your iTunes ...

Read the rest of this post.

When it comes to organizing for iTunes and iPod, classical music is an entirely different animal than the "pop" formula the program is primarily designed for. Why tie yourself to an inefficient and illogical "album" model when classical works were never meant to be treated that way? iTunes allows you to appreciate individual works as they were conceived and executed: as individual, stand-alone works. :: Example of my ...

Read the rest of this post.