iPod and iTunes Guide

Understanding Why Smart Playlists Are Called Smart

2011-05-31T23:58:00.001-07:00

You create a smart playlist by defining a set of criteria based on any number of different attributes.
After you have created these criteria, iTunes chooses songs that meet those criteria and places them in the playlist. An example should help clarify this. Suppose you are a big-time Elvis fan and regularly add Elvis music to your Library. You could create a playlist and manually drag your new Elvis tunes to that playlist. But by using a smart playlist instead, you could define the playlist to include all your Elvis music. Anytime you add more Elvis music to your Library, that music would be added to the playlist automatically.
You can also base a smart playlist on more than one attribute at the same time. Going back to the Elvis example, you could add the condition that you want only those songs you have rated four stars or higher so that the smart playlist contains only your favorite Elvis songs.
As the previous example shows, smart playlists can be dynamic; iTunes calls this live updating. When a smart playlist is set to be live, iTunes changes its contents over time to match the criteria. If this feature isn’t set for a smart playlist, that playlist will contain only those songs that meet the criteria at the time the playlist was created.
Finally, you can also link a smart playlist’s conditions by the logical expression All or Any. If you use an All logical expression, all the conditions must be true for a song to be included in the smart playlist. If you use the Any option, only one of the conditions has to be met for a song to be included in the smart playlist.

Becoming a Musical Genius with Smart Playlists

2011-05-31T23:57:00.000-07:00

The basic purpose of a smart playlist is the same as a standard playlist—that is, to
contain a collection of songs to which you can listen, put on a CD, and so on.
However, the path that smart playlists take to this end is different from standard
playlists. Rather than choosing specific songs as you do in a standard playlist, you
tell iTunes the kind of songs you want in your smart playlist, and it picks out the
songs for you and places them in the playlist. For example, suppose you want to create
a playlist that contains all of your Classical music. Rather than picking out all
the songs in your Library that have the Classical genre (as you would do to create a
standard playlist), you can use a smart playlist to tell iTunes to choose all the
Classical music for you. The application then gathers all the music with the genre
Classical and places that music in a smart playlist.

Deleting a Standard Playlist

2011-03-31T23:45:00.002-07:00

If you decide you no longer want a playlist, you can delete it by selecting the playlist on the Source List and pressing the Delete key. A prompt will appear; click Yes and the playlist will be removed from the Source List. (Make sure to check the Do not ask me again check box if you don’t want to be prompted in the future.) Even though you’ve deleted the playlist, the songs in the playlist remain in the Library for your listening pleasure.

Listening to a Standard Playlist

2011-03-31T23:45:00.001-07:00

After you have created a playlist, you can listen to it by selecting it on the Source List and using the same controls you use to listen to a CD or music in the Library. You can even search in and browse playlists just as you can the Library or CDs. (That’s the real beauty of iTunes; it works the same way no matter what the music source is!)

Setting the Order in Which a Playlist’s Songs Play

2011-03-31T23:44:00.000-07:00

Just like an audio CD, the order in which a playlist’s songs play is determined by the order in which they appear in the Content pane (the first song will be the one at the top of the window, the second will be the next one down, and so on). You can drag songs up on the list to make them play earlier or down in the list to make them play later.

Removing Songs from a Playlist

2011-02-28T22:44:00.000-08:00

If you decide that you don’t want one or more songs included in a playlist, select the songs you want to remove in the playlist’s Content pane and press the Delete key. A warning prompt will appear. Click Yes and the songs will be deleted from the playlist. (If this dialog box annoys you like it does me, check the Do not ask me again check box and you won’t ever have to see it again.)

Adding Songs to a Playlist

2011-02-28T22:40:00.000-08:00

The whole point of creating a playlist is to add songs to it. Whether you created an empty playlist or one that already has some songs in it, the steps to add songs are the same:

Select the Library as the source.
Browse or search the Library so that songs you want to add to the playlist are shown in the Content pane.
Select the songs you want to add to the playlist by clicking them (remember the techniques to select multiple songs at the same time). To select all the songs currently shown in the Content pane, press Ctrl+A (Windows) or „+A (Mac).
Drag the selected songs from the Content pane onto the playlist to which you want to add them. When the playlist becomes highlighted and the cursor includes a plus sign (+), release the mouse button (see Figure). The songs will be added to the playlist.
Repeat steps 2 through 4 until you have added all the songs you want to include in the playlist.
Select the playlist on the Source List. Its songs will appear in the Content pane. Information about the playlist, such as its playing time, will appear in the Source Information area at the bottom of the iTunes window.

Creating a Standard Playlist with Songs in It

2011-02-28T22:36:00.000-08:00

If you know some songs you want to place in a playlist, you can create the playlist so that it includes those songs as soon as you create it. Here are the steps to follow:

Browse or search the Library to find the songs you want to be included in the playlist. For example, you can browse for all the songs in a specific genre or search for music by a specific artist.
In the Content pane, select the songs you want to place in the playlist.
Choose File, New Playlist from Selection. A new playlist will appear on the Source List and will be selected. Its name will be highlighted to indicate that you can edit it, and you will see the songs you selected in the Content pane. iTunes will attempt to name the playlist by looking for a common denominator in the group of songs you selected. For example, if all the songs are from the same artist, that artist’s name will be the playlist’s name. Similarly, if the songs are all from the same album, the playlist’s name will be the artist’s and album’s name. Sometimes iTunes picks an appropriate name, and sometimes it doesn’t.
While the playlist name is highlighted, edit the name as needed and then press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac). The playlist will be ready for more songs.

Creating a Standard iTunes Playlist

2010-10-31T18:04:00.000-07:00

You have two ways to create a playlist. One is to create a playlist that is empty (meaning that it doesn’t include any songs). The other is to choose songs and then create a playlist that includes those songs.
The place you start depends on what you have in mind. If you want to create a collection of songs, but aren’t sure which specific songs you want to start with, create an empty playlist. If you know of some songs that you are going to included, choose them and create the playlist. Either way, creating a playlist is simple and you end up in the same place.
You can create an empty playlist from within iTunes by using any of the following techniques:

■ Choosing File, New Playlist.
■ Pressing Ctrl+N (Windows) or „+N (Mac).
■ Clicking the Create Playlist button (see Figure).

Whichever method you use will result in an empty playlist whose name will be highlighted to show you that it is ready for you to edit. Type a name for the playlist and press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac). The playlist will be renamed and selected. The Content pane will be empty because you haven’t added any songs to the playlist yet.

The Extra-Special Smart Playlist

2010-10-31T18:01:00.001-07:00

A smart playlist is smart because you don’t put songs in it manually. Instead, you tell iTunes what kind of songs you want included in it by the attributes of that music, such as genre or artist, and iTunes picks those songs for you (see Figure). For example, you can create a playlist based on a specific genre, such as Jazz, that you have listened to in the past few days. You can also tell iTunes how many songs to include. The really cool thing is that smart playlists can be dynamic, meaning that the songs they contain are updated live, based on your criteria. As you add, listen to, or change your music, the contents of a smart playlist can change to match those changes; this happens in real time so that the songs included in a smart playlist can change too. Imagine that you have a smart playlist that tells iTunes to include all the music you have in the Jazz genre that is performed by Kenny G, the Pat Metheny Group, Joe Sample, and Larry Carlton. If you make this a “live” smart playlist, iTunes will automatically add any new music from any of the artists to it as you add that music to your Library. The content of a live smart playlist changes over time, depending on the criteria it contains.

The Standard-But-Very-Useful Playlist

2010-10-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

Simply put, playlists are custom collections of songs that you create or that iTunes creates for you based on criteria you define. After a playlist has been created, you can listen to it, put it on a CD, move it to your iPod, share it over a network, and more.
There are two kinds of playlists: standard playlists and smart playlists.
A standard playlist (which I’ll call just playlist from here on) is a set of songs you define manually. You put the specific songs you want in a playlist and do what you will with them. You can include the same song multiple times, mix and match songs from many CDs, put songs in any order you choose, and, basically, control every aspect of that music collection (see Figure).
Playlists are very useful for creating CDs or making specific music to which you might want to listen available at the click of the mouse. With a playlist, you can determine exactly what songs are included and the order in which those songs play. Playlists are also very easy to create and they never change over time—unless you purposefully change them of course.

Customizing the Content Pane

2010-09-30T23:58:00.000-07:00

You have a number of ways to customize the columns (tags) that appear in the Content pane. What’s more, you can customize the Content pane for each source. The customization you have done for a source (such as a CD or playlist) is remembered and used each time you view that source. You can choose the tags (columns) that are shown for a source by using the following steps:

1. Select the source whose Content pane you want to customize. Its contents will appear in the Content pane.

2. Choose Edit, View Options or press Ctrl+J (Windows) or „+J (Mac). You will see the View Options dialog box. At the top of the dialog box, you see the source for which you are configuring the Content pane. (It is a playlist called Johnny Cash.) You also see all the available columns that can be displayed. If a column’s check box is checked, that column will be displayed; otherwise, it won’t be shown.

3. Check the check boxes next to the columns you want to see.
4. Uncheck the check boxes next to the columns you don’t want to see.
5. Click OK. When you return to the Content pane, only the columns you selected will be shown.
If you can’t see all the columns being displayed, use the horizontal scrollbar to scroll in the Content pane. You can also use the vertical scroll bar to move up and down in the Content pane.

Adding Artwork for Songs in iPod

2010-07-31T22:46:00.000-07:00

You might want to associate artwork with a song. For example, if a song doesn’t have album art associated with it, you can add the art yourself. Or, you might want to add the artist’s picture or some other meaningful graphic to the song. You can add one or more pieces of art to songs by using the following steps:

Prepare the artwork you are going to associate with a song. You can use graphics in the usual formats, such as JPG, TIFF, GIF, and so on.
Select the song with which you want to associate the artwork.
Open the Info window and then click the Artwork tab. If the selected song has artwork with it, you will see it in the Artwork pane. You can add multiple images for the same song. You can use the slider under the image box to change the size of the previews you see in the window. Drag the slider to the right to make the image larger or to the left to make it smaller. This doesn’t change the image; instead, it only impacts the size of the image as you currently see it in the Info window. This is especially useful when you associate lots of images with a song because you can see them all at the same time.
Click Add. A dialog box that enables you to choose an image will appear.
Move to and select the image you want to associate with the song.
Click Open (Windows) or Choose (Mac). The image will be added to the window.
Continue adding images to the Artwork pane until you have added all the images for a song. The default image for a song is the one on the left of the image box.
To change the order of the images, drag them in the image box.
Click OK. The window will close and the images will be saved with the song.

Viewing Album Artwork in iPod

2010-07-31T22:43:00.000-07:00

To view a song’s artwork, do one of the following:
■ Click the Artwork button located under the Source list. The Artwork pane will appear and display the artwork associated with either the currently playing song or the currently selected song. At the top of the artwork, you will see Selected Song, which indicates you are viewing the artwork associated with the selected song, or Now Playing, which indicates you are viewing artwork associated with the song currently playing.
■ Double-click the artwork to see a larger version in a separate window. The title of the window will be the name of the song the artwork is associated with.
■ To choose between viewing artwork associated with the selected song or the song currently playing, click the text at the top of the Artwork pane. The artwork will change to the other option (for example, if you click Playing, it will become Selected Song), and you will see the artwork for that song.
■ If you choose the Now Playing option, the artwork will change in the Artwork pane as the next song begins playing (unless, of course, the songs use the same artwork).
■ If the song has more than one piece of artwork associated with it, click the arrows that appear at the top of the pane to see each piece of art.

Ratings Songs in the Content Pane

2010-07-31T22:38:00.000-07:00

You can also rate songs in the Content pane. To do so, follow these steps:

Scroll in the Content pane until you see the My Rating column.
Select the song you want to rate. Dots will appear in the My Rating column for that song.
Click the dot representing the number of stars you want to give the song. The dots up to and including the one on which you clicked will become stars.

Configuring Song Options in the Info Window

2010-05-31T05:18:00.000-07:00

You can configure a song’s options in the Info window by performing the following steps:

Select the song whose options you want to set.
Open the Info window.
Click the Options tab
To change the song’s relative volume, drag the Volume Adjustment slider to the left to make the song quieter or to the right to make it louder.
To rate the song, click the dot representing the number of stars you want to give the song in the My Rating field. For example, to give the song three stars, click the center (third) dot. Stars will appear up to the point at which you click. In other words, before you click you’ll see a dot. After you click a dot, it becomes a star.
To set a start time, check the Start Time check box and enter a time in the format minutes:seconds. When you play the song, it will start playing at the time you enter. When you set a start or stop time, you don’t change the song file in any way. You can play the whole song again by unchecking the Start Time or Stop Time check box.
To set a stop time, check the Stop Time check box and enter a time in the format minutes:seconds. When you play the song, it will stop playing at the time you enter.
Click OK. The window will close and your changes will be saved.

Configuring a Song’s Options

2010-05-31T05:16:00.000-07:00

You can configure a number of options for the songs in your Library, including the following:
■ Relative Volume—You can change a song’s relative volume so that it is either louder or quieter than “normal.” This is useful if you like to listen to songs that are recorded at a variety of volume levels so that the volume remains somewhat similar as you move from song to song.
■ Equalizer Preset—You can use the iTunes Equalizer to configure the relative volume of sound frequencies.
■ My Rating—You can give tunes a rating from one to five stars. You can use ratings in various ways, such as to create criteria for playlists (such as include only my five-star songs) or to sort the Content pane.
■ Start and Stop Time—You can set songs to start or stop at certain points in the track. This can be useful if you don’t want to hear all of a track, such as when a song has an introduction that you don’t want to hear each time the song plays.

Labeling a Song in the Content Pane

2010-05-31T05:08:00.000-07:00

You can also edit tags within the Content pane:
1. Click once on a song to select it.
2. Click once on the tag you want to edit. The tag will become highlighted to show that it is ready to be edited (see Figure)
3. Type the new information.
4. Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac). The changes you made will be saved.

Labeling Multiple Songs at the Same Time

2010-04-30T09:04:00.000-07:00

You can change some tags, such as Genre, for a group of songs at the same time. This can be a faster way to enter data because you can change multiple songs at the same time. Here are the steps to follow:

Select the songs whose data you want to change.
Open the Info window. You’ll be prompted to confirm that you want to change the information for a group of songs.
Click Yes to clear the prompt. The Multiple Song Information window will appear (see Figure). The information and tools in this window work in the same way as they do for individual songs. The difference is that the information and settings apply to all the songs you have selected.
Enter data in the fields, make changes to existing data, or use the other tools to configure the songs you have selected. As you change information, the check box next to the tag will become checked to show that you are changing that data for all the selected songs.
When you are done making changes, click OK. The window will close and the changes you made will be saved.

Labeling Your Music

2010-04-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

Typically, if you have imported a CD or purchased music from the iTunes Music Store, you shouldn’t change most of the data that came from the source, such as name, artist, album, track number, and so on. Occasionally, a CD’s information will come in incorrect (such as a misspelling in the artist’s name); you’ll probably want to fix such mistakes. Also, you can certainly add data in those fields that are empty. There are a couple of places in which you can change a song’s tags. You can use the Info window to change a song’s tags, as you can see in the following steps:

Open the Info window for the song whose information you want to change.
Click the Info tag. The Info pane will appear.
Enter or change the information shown in the various fields. For example, you can change the song’s name or artist. Or you might want to add comments about the song in the Comments box. One of the more useful tags is Genre. This can be used for browsing and also in playlists.
To change a song’s genre, select the new genre on the Genre menu.
When you are done entering or changing tags, click OK. The Info window will close, and any changes you made will be saved.

Viewing Tags in the Info Window

2010-04-30T08:59:00.000-07:00

The Info window is probably the only area in which you haven’t seen tags yet. To view the Info window, select a song in your Library and choose File, Get Info or press Ctrl+I (Windows) or „+I (Mac). The Info window will appear. This window has four panes that you will be using throughout the rest of this chapter. The Summary pane provides a summary view of the song’s information, starting at the top with any album art associated with the song and including its name, artist, and album. In the center part of the pane, you see the data iTunes manages (you can view this data, but you can’t change it). At the bottom of the pane, you can see the path to the song’s file on your computer. When you click the Info tab, you will see the tags that you can change. You’ll learn how to change this data in the next section. The other two panes of the window, Options and Artwork, are used to configure specific aspects of a song (again, we’ll get to these topics in a few pages). You can view information for other songs without closing the window. Click Next to move to the next song in the source you are viewing (such as your Library) or Previous to move to the previous song. When you do, that song’s information will be displayed in the Info window.
To close the window, click OK.

Viewing Tags in the Browser

2010-03-31T18:50:00.000-07:00

When you view the Browser, you see the genre, artist, and album tags associated with the songs you are browsing

Understanding Song Tags and Knowing Why You Should Care About Them

2010-03-31T18:28:00.000-07:00

You saw how you can browse your iTunes music collected by genre, artist, and album. This makes finding music fast and easy, even if you have thousands of songs in your Library. This functionality is enabled because each song in your Library has information—also called tags—that categorizes and identifies those songs for you. Genre, artist, and album are just three of the possible tags for each song in iTunes. There are many more items of information that iTunes manages.
These types of data fall into two groups: data that iTunes assigns for you and that you can’t change, and data that you or iTunes assigns and that you can change.
Data that iTunes assigns and that you can view but can’t change include the following:

■ Kind—The type of file the song is, such as AAC, MP3, and so on.
■ Size—The amount of disk space required to store the song.
■ Bit Rate—The quality level at which the song was encoded. Larger numbers, such as 128Kbps, are better.
■ Sample Rate—The rate at which the music was sampled when it was captured.
■ Date Modified—The date on which the song file was last changed.
■ Play Count—The number of times the song has been played.
■ Last Played—The last time the song was played.
■ Profile—A categorization of the song’s complexity.
■ Format—The format in which the song was encoded, such as MPEG-1, Layer 3, and so on.
■ Channels—Whether the track is stereo or mono.
■ Encoded With—The tools used to encode the song, such as iTunes, QuickTime, and so on.
■ ID3 Tag—Data formatted according to a set of specifications. If a song’s data has been formatted with this specification, the ID3 version number will be shown
■ Purchase By and Account Name—Information that identifies who purchased the music from the iTunes Music Store and what account was used.
■ Where—A path to the song’s file on your computer along with the file’s name.
Data collected for songs that you can change includes the following:
■ Name—The name of the song.
■ Artist—The person who performs the song.
■ Album—The name of the album from which the song comes.
■ Grouping—A label you can assign to group songs together in some fashion.
■ Composer—The person who is credited with writing the song.
■ Comments—A free-form text field in which you can make comments about a song.
■ Genre—A song’s musical genre, such as jazz or classical.
■ Year—The year the song was created.
■ Track Number—The song’s position on the CD from which it came, such as “2 of 12.”
■ Disc number—The number of the CD. This is meaningful only for multiple CD sets.
■ BPM—The song’s beats per minute.
■ Compilation—An indicator of whether the song is part of a compilation in the Library, such as coming from a CD that is stored in the Library.

When you add a song to your Library, iTunes will add as much of this data as it can find for each song. However, you can add or change the data in the previous list.
So, why should you care about all this data? There are a couple of reasons.
The first is that, if you already know how to browse and search your Library, this data can be used to find music in which you are interested. That reason alone should be enough to convince you that these types of data are important to you.
The second reason is, when it comes time to create playlists, you can use song tags to determine which songs are included in your playlists. For example, you can configure a playlist to include the last 25 songs you have played from the Jazz genre. This is just a basic example—you can get much more sophisticated than that. In fact, you can include lots of different combinations of these types of data as criteria in playlists to create very interesting sets of music to listen to.

Removing Tunes from the Music Library

2010-02-28T06:59:00.000-08:00

Not all that glitters is gold, nor are all tunes that are digital good. Sometimes, a song is so bad that it just isn’t worth the hard disk space it consumes.
To remove songs from your Library, ditch them with the following steps:

Find the songs you want to delete by browsing or searching.
Select the songs you want to trash. They will become highlighted to show you they are selected
Press the Delete key. You will be prompted to confirm that you really want to delete the song you have selected.
Click Yes to confirm the deletion. You will see another prompt asking if you want the selected files to be moved to your Recycle Bin (Windows) or Trash (Mac).
Click Yes. The selected songs will be deleted from your Library, and their song files will be moved to the appropriate trash receptacle on your computer. The next time you empty that receptacle, they will be gone forever.

Of course, songs you delete probably aren’t really gone forever. You can always add them back to the Library again by repeating the same steps you used to place them in there the first time. This assumes that you have a copy somewhere,
such as on a CD or stored in some other location. If you imported the music from your hard disk and had iTunes move the songs files to your iTunes Music folder, your only copy will reside in your iTunes Library, so make sure you have such music backed up before you delete it if you might ever want it again.

Playing Music in Your Music Library

2010-02-28T06:55:00.000-08:00

Remember earlier when I said that you use the same listening techniques to listen to music in your Library as you do when listening to a CD? Now it’s time to prove my words.
When you listen to music in your Library, you start by choosing the scope of the music you want to hear. You do this by browsing or searching for music (if you don’t know how to do this, here’s a hint: Read the previous two sections).
After you have the group of songs to which you want to listen showing in the Content pane, use the listening tools you learned about in the previous chapter to listen to your music. For example, you can click Play to play the songs, use the Repeat button to repeat them, sort the Content pane by one of the column headings to change the order in which the songs play, and so on.

2010-01-31T19:54:00.000-08:00

You can use iTunes Search tool to search for specific songs. You can search for songs
by any of the following criteria:

■ All (searches all possible data)
■ Artists
■ Albums
■ Composers
■ Songs

To search for music in your Library, perform the following steps:

1. Select the source you want to search (in this case, click the Library source). As you might surmise, you can search any source in the Source List, such as a CD, playlist, and so on, by selecting it and then performing a search.

2. Click the magnifying glass icon in the Search tool. You will see a menu containing the list of data by which you can search.

3. Select the data for which you want to search in the menu. When you release the mouse button, the data you selected will appear in gray inside the search box and in regular text underneath it so you can see which data you are searching for. For example, choose Artists to search by the Artist field.

4. Type the data for which you want to search in the field. As you type, iTunes searches the selected source and presents the songs that meet your criterion in the Content pane. It does this on the fly so that the search narrows with each keystroke. As you type more text or numbers, the search becomes more specific.

5. Keep typing until the search becomes as narrow as you need it to be to find the songs in which you are interested.

After you have found songs, you can play them, use them in playlists, and so on. To clear your search, click the Clear Search button that appears in the Search tool after you have typed in it. The songs shown in the Content pane will again be determined by your selections in the Browser.

Browsing in the iPod Library

2010-01-31T19:48:00.000-08:00

You’ve already seen the Browser a couple of times. Now it is time to put it to work:
1. Select the Library on the Source List.

2. If the Browser isn’t showing, click the Action button, which is now labeled Browse (it looks like an eye). The Browser will appear. The Browser has three columns: Genre, Artist, and Album. The columns start on the left with the most general category, Genre, and end on the right with the most specific category, which is Album. If you don’t see the Genre column in the Browser, open the General pane of the iTunes Preferences dialog box and check the Show Genre when Browsing check box.
The contents of the “path” selected in the Browser are shown in the Content pane that now occupies the bottom part of the right side of the window. At the top of each column is the All option, which shows all the contents of that category.
For example, when All is selected in the Genre column, you will see the contents of all the genres for which you have music in the Library. At the bottom of the screen, you will see Source Information for the selected source.

3. To start browsing your Library, select the genre in which you are interested by clicking it. When you do so, the categories in the other two columns are scoped down to include only the artists and albums that are part of that genreSimilarly, the Content pane now includes only jazz music.

4. To further limit the browse, click an artist in which you are interested in the Artist column. The Album column will be scoped down to show only those albums for the artist selected in the Artist column. Also, the Content pane will show the songs on the albums listed in the Album column.

5. To get down to the most narrow browse possible, select the album in which you
are interested in the Album column. The Content pane will now show the songs on the selected album.

6. When you have selected the genre, artist, and album categories in which you are
interested, you can scroll in the Content pane to see all the songs included in the group of songs you are browsing.

To make the browse results less narrow again, choose All in one of the Browser’s columns. For example, to browse all your music again, click All in the Genre column.
Hopefully, you can see that you can use the
Browser to quickly scan your Library to locate music that you want to hear or work with. As you use the Browser more, you will come to rely on it to get you to a group of songs quickly and easily.

Importing Audio Files into Your Library

2010-01-31T19:44:00.000-08:00

Another potential source of music for your Library is the Internet. There are millions of audio files there, and you can download these files and add them to your Library.
Or, you might have lots of MP3 files on your omputer already. You can add all these to your Tunes Library so that you can use that music rom within iTunes as well.
You can add music that is stored on your hard drive to your iTunes Library by following these steps:

Locate the files you want to add to your ibrary. For example, find the MP3 files n your hard drive or go to a Web site hat has audio files, such as MP3 files, and download them to your computer.
In iTunes on a Windows computer, choose File, Add File to Library to ad ndividual music files or File, Add older to Library to add a folder full of usic files. On a Mac, choose File, Add o Library. If you used the Add Folder to ibrary command, you’ll see the Browse or Folder dialog box. If you used the Add ile to Library command, you’ll see the dd to Library dialog box.
Use the dialog box to move to and select he folder containing the files you want to add or to select the files you want to add to the Library.
Click Open, OK or Choose (the name of the button you see depends on the command you use). The files you selected will be imported into your Library. If you selected a folder, all the songs it contains will be added to your Library. You can also add song files to your iTunes Library by dragging them from the desktop onto the Content pane. This does the same thing as using one of the Add to Library commands.

Building Your iTunes Music Library in a Hurry

2009-12-31T13:46:00.000-08:00

The import process moves along pretty quickly, but you can make it even faster by following these steps:

Gather a pile of your CDs in a location close to your computer.
Set the import preferences (encoder and quality) for the import session.
Open the General pane of the iTunes Preferences dialog box.
Choose Import Songs and Eject on the On CD Insert menu. This causes iTunes to immediately begin the import process when you insert a CD. When the import process is complete, the CD will be ejected automatically.
Click OK to close the dialog box.
Insert the first CD you want to import. iTunes will start importing it automatically.When the process is complete, the CD will be ejected automatically.
Insert the next CD you want to import. Again, iTunes will import the music and eject the disc when it is done.
Repeat step 7 until all the CDs have been imported. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you can build a Library, even if you have a large number of CDs. When you are done batch importing your CDs, you might want to reset the On CD insert menu to Show Songs to prevent unintentionally importing a CD.

Adding Audio CDs to Your Library

2009-12-31T13:34:00.001-08:00

Use these steps to add a CD to your Library:

Configure the encoder you want to use for the import session.
Insert the CD you want to add to your Library. iTunes will attempt to identify it. When it does, the CD will appear in the Source List and will be selected. Notice that the Action button in the upper-right corner of the screen is now the Import button.
If there are songs that you don’t want to add to the Library, uncheck their Selected check box. Only songs with their check boxes checked will be imported. Unless you really hate a song or disk space is at a premium for you, it is generally better to import all the songs. You can use the Selected check box in another source, such as in your Library, to cause those songs to be skipped when you play that source.
Click the Import button. It will become highlighted, and the import process will start . If you left the Play songs while importing preference active, the music will begin to play as it is imported.

The Information window will show information related to the import process, such as the name of the song currently being imported and the rate at which the import process is happening. The rate of the import process depends on the hardware you are using and the import settings. In most cases, the import process will occur at a much greater rate than the playing process. For example, with moderate hardware, you can usually achieve import rates of 10, meaning 10 minutes of music will be imported in 1 minute of time. An orange circle with a “squiggly” line inside it marks the song currently being imported. When a song has been imported, it is marked with a green circle containing a check mark.
5. Eject the CD.

Configuring iTunes to Import Music

2009-12-31T13:30:00.000-08:00

When you add music to your Library, you start by choosing the import options (mainly format and quality levels) that you want to use. Here are the steps to follow:

Open the Importing pane of the iTunes Preferences dialog box
Select the format in which you want to add music to your Library on the Import Using menu. For example, to use the AAC format, choose AAC Encoder. To use the MP3 format, choose MP3 Encoder. The other encoder options are WAV and AIFF. For music, you should use AAC or MP3.
Choose the quality level of the encoder you want to use on the Setting menu. The options you see in this list depend on the format you selected in step 1. If you chose AAC Encoder, you have two quality options: High Quality and Custom. If you chose MP3 Encoder, you have four options: Good Quality, High Quality, Higher Quality, and Custom. The Custom option enables you to configure specific settings that the encoder will use. Because you don’t typically need to do this, we won’t explore doing so in this chapter. If you want to check it out, choose Custom on the Setting menu and explore the options you see. In the Details box, you will see a summary of the settings you have selected. For example, you will see the data rate of the encoder, such as 128Kbps, and the processor for which the encoder has been optimized. (Do you need to worry about these details? Not really.) If you use the AAC encoder, the High Quality setting will likely be all you ever need. If you use the MP3 encoder, try the High Quality setting. If music at this quality sounds good to you, try the Good Quality setting to see whether you can detect any difference. If not, use that setting. If the High Quality setting doesn’t sound good enough, increase the quality to the Higher Quality setting.
If you want music you add to your Library to play while it is being added, check the Play songs while importing check box. This is a personal preference, and it doesn’t impact the encoding process significantly.
If you want the files that iTunes creates when you import music to include the track number in their filenames, check the Create filenames with track number check box. Because this helps you more easily find files for specific songs, I recommend that you keep this preference active.
The Use error correction when reading Audio CDs check box causes iTunes to more closely control the encoding process. You should use this option only if you notice problems with the music you add to your Library, such as cracking or popping sounds. If that happens, check this check box and try the import process again.
Click OK to close the dialog box.

Picking Song Quality Levels

2009-10-31T07:50:00.000-07:00

After you select a format, you decide the quality with which the music will be encoded. Higher quality levels mean better-sounding music, but larger file sizes. If file size is not a problem, then choosing a higher quality setting is the way to go. If you have relatively little disk space, you might want to experiment to see which is the lowest quality setting you can choose that results in music that still sounds good to you.
Note that when it comes to music, quality is in the ear of the beholder. Also, it heavily depends on the type of music you listen to as well as how you listen to it. For example, if you listen to heavy metal rock using a low-quality pair of speakers (in other words, cheap speakers), quality will be less of an issue for you because you likely won’t hear any difference anyway. However, if you listen to classical music on high-quality speakers, the differences in quality levels will likely be more noticeable.
The trade-off for quality is always file size. The higher the quality setting you choose, the larger the resulting files will be. If you don’t have disk space limitations and have a discriminating ear, you might want to stick with the highest possible quality setting. If disk space is at a premium for you, then consider using a lower quality setting if you can’t detect the difference or if that difference doesn’t bother you.

Choosing a Format Option

2009-10-31T07:47:00.000-07:00

Although I am sure that going into the specifications for each kind of format would make for fascinating reading, there isn’t really any need to get into that detail. Frankly, the benefit of using an application such as iTunes is that it manages all this complexity for you so that you don’t have to be concerned with it. If you are like me, you just want to work with the music, not diddle around with complicated settings.
Generally, when you add music to your Library, you should use either the AAC or MP3 format. Because the AAC format is better (with better meaning that it provides higher quality music in smaller file sizes), it is usually the best choice.

Setting Other Organization Preferences

2009-10-31T07:44:00.000-07:00

The location of the folder in which your music will be stored is likely the most important part of the organization preferences. However, you’ll need to understand a couple more preferences.
These are also located on the Advanced pane of the iTunes Preferences dialog box:

Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized—This preference causes iTunes to organize your music as described earlier—that is, by artist, album, and song. Because this is a logical way to organize your music files, I recommend that you leave this option active by making sure this check box is checked.
Copy Files to iTunes Music Folder when Adding to Library—This preference causes iTunes to make a copy of audio files that already exist on your computer (such as MP3 files you have downloaded from the Internet), and it places those copies in your iTunes Music folder, just like files you create by importing them from a CD.

If this preference is inactive, iTunes uses a pointer to song files you are adding instead of making a copy of the files; it doesn’t actually place the files in your iTunes Music folder. I recommend that you make this preference active by checking its check box. This way, all your music files will be in the same place, no matter where they came from originally. If you don’t have iTunes make copies when you add songs to your Library and then you delete or move the song files you added, iTunes will lose track of the song and you will experience the “missing song file” problem.

Configuring the Location of the Music Folder

2009-08-31T20:40:00.000-07:00

In most cases, the default location of your iTunes Music folder will be fine, and you don’t have to do anything about it. However, there are some cases in which you will want to change the location of this folder. For example, suppose you have several hard drives in your computer and the one on which the folder is currently stored doesn’t have a lot of room. Even though individual song files are relatively small, you are likely to end up with thousands or tens of thousands of them in your Library.
That can add up to a lot of disk space. You might want to change the location of your iTunes Music folder so that it is on a drive with more room.
To change the location of this folder, do the following:

Open the Advanced pane of the iTunes Preferences dialog box.
Click the Change button. On a Windows PC, you will see the Browse For Folder dialog box (see Figure). On a Mac, you will see the Change Music Folder Location dialog box
Use the dialog box to move to and select the folder in which you want your iTunes Music folder to be located.
Click OK (Windows) or Open (Mac). You’ll return to the Advanced pane, and the folder you selected will be shown in the iTunes Music Folder Location area.
Click OK to close the iTunes Preferences dialog box.

Working with the iTunes Music Folder

2009-08-31T20:28:00.000-07:00

As you import music into the Library, files are created for each song you add (whether it’s from a CD, downloaded from the iTunes Music Store, or imported from an existing file). When you first started the application, iTunes created a folder in which it stores all the music it manages for you.
The default location of this folder depends on the kind of computer you are using. On
Windows computers, the folder will be stored in a folder called iTunes Music, located within your My Music folder. On Macs, this folder is also called iTunes Music, but it is located in the Music folder within your Home folder.
To see the current location of the iTunes folder on your computer, open the iTunes Preferences dialog box and then open the Advanced pane (see Figure). At the top of this dialog box, you will see the iTunes Music Folder Location box. Within this box, you will see the path to your iTunes Music folder.
Just for fun, go ahead and open your iTunes Music folder so you can see it for yourself. Use the path you see on the Advanced pane to find it. If you haven’t added any music to your Library yet, it might be pretty dull. To see what a full folder looks like, check out Figure.
As you can see, within the iTunes Music folder is a folder for each artist. Within the artists’ folders, each album from which you have added music is shown. Within each of those folders, the tracks you have added are individual files.

Gathering Your Music from All the Right Places

2009-08-31T20:19:00.000-07:00

If you are going to add music to your Library, you have to get it from somewhere, right? The following are the three main sources of tunes for your Library:

Audio CDs—Who wants to bother with audio CDs? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could store all of the content of your CD collection in one place so you can listen to any music you want to at any time just by browsing or doing a quick search? Obviously, that is a loaded question because you already know you can use iTunes to do just that. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to copy the music from audio CDs into your Library so that you never have to use the original CDs again.
MP3 and other audio files—You can add audio files in just about any format to your Library. For example, there are lots of free and legal MP3 files on the Web that you can add to your own Library. In this chapter, you will learn how to add music to your Library in this way too.
iTunes Music Store—With the iTunes Music Store, you can browse and search among hundreds of thousands of songs.

When you find music you like, you can purchase an entire CD’s worth of songs or you can buy individual songs (can you say one-hit wonders!). When you buy a song, it is downloaded and added to your iTunes Library. Instead of ordering a CD or, even worse, buying one in a real store, your music is available to you instantly, and you don’t even have to import it. Because the iTunes Music Store is so cool,

Building, Browsing, Searching, and Playing Your iTunes Music Library

2009-07-31T23:04:00.000-07:00

Are you ready for some real iTunes? Here is where we start taking your iTunes game to the next level, hitting some home runs, scoring touchdowns, and some other sports clichés that all good books use. It’s time to start working with that mysterious Library I have mentioned a number of times but into which you have only had glimpses.
The iTunes Library is where you can store all your music, such as that from your audio CDs and the Internet, and where any music you purchase from the iTunes Music Store is stored. After you have added music to your Library, you never have to bother with individual CDs again because you can access all your music from the Library. And, you can use the music in your Library in many ways, such as to create playlists, burn CDs, and so on.
Right now, your iTunes Library is probably sort of sad. Like a book library with no books in it, your iTunes Library is just sitting there gathering dust on its digital shelves. You will change that shortly. The first step is to add music to the Library. Then, you’ll learn how to browse, search, and listen to the tunes you have added there.

Tips on Using iTunes

2009-07-31T22:54:00.000-07:00

By learning how to use iTunes to play audio CDs and Internet radio, you’ve picked up a lot more knowledge than you might realize. That’s because you use the same steps and controls to listen to other music sources, such as your Library, playlists, and so on.

Many of the controls in the iTunes window work just like similar controls on a CD player.
The iTunes Information window doesn’t look like a lot, but you’ll learn to really love it when you are building your Library.
If a song’s Selected check box is checked, it will play. If it’s not checked, the song won’t play.
You determine the songs you want to hear and the order in which you want to hear them for all your sources by the order in which they appear in the Content pane (except for the Radio source, which you have to take as it comes). Each time you insert a CD, iTunes remembers the settings you used last time and uses those settings again. Just wait until you get to playlists—you can take this concept to the extreme!
You can repeat or randomize the music in any source, such as a CD or playlist.
Don’t forget about the iTunes System Tray (Windows) or Dock (Mac) menu. This is a great way to keep iTunes music going while not consuming any of your valuable desktop real estate.
You can change the width of columns within the iTunes window, and you can also resize the iTunes window to make it the size you want. As you work through later, you’ll also learn how to customize the information you see inside the window as well.
Listening to the Radio source provides access to lots of music available on the Internet.
You can use iTunes Effects to control the gap between songs, to equalize the relative volume of songs, and to enhance the sound you hear.

Setting iTunes Effects Preferences

2009-07-31T22:47:00.000-07:00

You can use iTunes Effects to control how your music plays. For example, you can get rid of the gap of silence between songs or make songs play back at a consistent volume level. You can take advantage of these features by using the Effects pane of the iTunes Preferences dialog box. On this pane, you can configure the following effects for your music (see Figure):

Crossfade playback—This effect causes one song to fade out and the next one to fade in smoothly, eliminating the gaps of silence between songs. To activate it, check the Crossfade Playback check box and use the slider to see the amount of fade time. If you move the slider to the left, songs will fade out more quickly. If you set it to 0, there is no fading, and as soon as one song ends, the next one starts. If you move the slider to the right, the fades will last longer. Click OK and the effect will take effect.
Sound Enhancer—This effect is iTunes’ attempt to “add depth and enliven” the quality of your music. The actual result of this effect is a bit difficult to describe, so the best thing to do is try it for yourself. Check the Sound Enhance check box and use the slider to set the relative amount of enhancement. Click OK and then listen to some music. It if sounds better to you, increase the amount of the effect. If not, decrease it or turn it off.
Sound Check—This effect sets the relative volume level of all songs the same. It is useful if you have changed the relative volume level of songs (perhaps you cranked up your favorite classical tunes) and want to have all your music play at the same volume level. To implement this effect, check its check box and click OK.

Changing the Size of the iTunes Window on a Mac

2009-06-30T05:09:00.000-07:00

When you use iTunes on a Mac, you can change the window’s size in the following ways:
■ You can hide the application. Press „+H to hide the application. Its window will be hidden from the desktop. You can control iTunes by using its Dock menu. Click the iTunes Dock icon to show the window again.
■ You can toggle the size of the window. If you click the Toggle Size button (the green “light”) on the window’s title bar, the iTunes window will collapse so that only the playback controls and the Information window are shown. Click the button again to open the window to its full size.
■ You can change the size of the window. In either the full or collapsed state, you can change the size of the window by dragging its resize handle located in the bottom-right corner of the window.

Changing the Size of the iTunes Window on a Windows PC

2009-05-31T23:00:00.000-07:00

As you use iTunes, keep in the mind the following tips for keeping the window out of your way:

You can minimize/maximize the window. Use the standard Minimize and Maximize controls in the iTunes window to hide it or make it full-screen size.
You can make the window smaller. If the iTunes window is in the resize mode (click the Maximize button so the window’s size is maximized, then click it again), you can drag its resize handle to make the window smaller until it reaches the smallest possible size (see Figure). Then, you can slide the window out of the way.

Setting General iTunes Preferences

2009-05-31T22:45:00.000-07:00

On the General pane of the Preferences dialog box are several settings you might want to use:

Source Text—Use this drop-down list to change the size of the font of the sources shown in the Source List. The options are Small (default) and Large.
Song Text—This setting changes the size of the text used in the Content pane. Again, your options are Small and Large.
Show Genre When Browsing—Earlier, you learned about the Browser. This check box controls whether the Genre column appears in the Browser (the check box is checked) or not (the check box is not checked). I like the Genre column, so I leave this checked, but if you don’t, you can uncheck the check box.
Connect to Internet When Needed—If you don’t want iTunes to try to connect to the Internet automatically, such as when you are using it on a laptop, uncheck this check box. Because iTunes uses the Internet to get CD information, provide Internet radio, and access the iTunes Music Store, you should leave this check box checked whenever you are using iTunes on a computer that can connect to the Internet.

Playing Around with Internet Audio

2009-05-31T22:36:00.000-07:00

You can do a couple other things with Internet audio using iTunes. If you want iTunes to be used to play Internet audio by default, open the Preferences dialog box (Ctrl+, on Windows computers or „+, on Macs). Open the General pane. Then check the Use iTunes as the Default Player for Audio Files check box (Windows) or click the Set button (Mac). When your browser hits an audio file that iTunes supports, iTunes should play it.
You can also play audio streams for which you have a URL within iTunes. To do this, use the following steps:

Find the URL pointing to the stream to which you want to listen. Hopefully, you can copy the URL from the Address bar of the Web browser because that is a lot easier than trying to remember the URL or writing it down and then typing it in.
Choose Advanced, Open Stream. The Open Stream dialog box will appear.
Paste in or type the URL in the URL field.
Click OK. The stream will play.

Configuring iTunes for a Slow Internet Connection

2009-04-29T21:08:00.002-07:00

If you use a slow Internet connection, such as a dial-up account, traffic on the Internet can cause the stream of music to slow or even stop, resulting in pauses in the music, even if you choose a lower bit-rate channel, such as 32Kbps. If this is a problem for you, perform the following steps:

Choose Edit, Preferences (Windows) or iTunes, Preferences (Mac). The Preferences dialog box will appear.
Click the Advanced tab (Windows) or the Advanced icon (Mac). The Advanced pane will appear (see Figure).
On the Streaming Buffer Size dropdown list, choose Large. This increases the amount of buffer space used to store a stream before it actually starts to play.
Click OK. The dialog box will close.

Hopefully, this will eliminate any pauses in the streams to which you like to listen. If not, choose a different stream or one with a lower bit rate.

Refreshing Your Radio

2009-04-29T21:08:00.001-07:00

When you choose the Radio source, the Action button becomes the Refresh button. When you click this, all the genres are refreshed with the latest content. If you leave the Radio source selected for a long time, you might want to click the Refresh button once in a while to see if new channels become available. (Each time you select the Radio source, it is refreshed, so you don’t need to click the Refresh button if you have recently selected the Radio source.)

Playing Your iTunes Radio

2009-04-29T21:05:00.000-07:00

To tune in iTunes radio, perform the following steps:

Open iTunes and select the Radio source by clicking it. The Content pane will contain the list of genres available to you. The column headings will be updated to be appropriate to the content. For example, you will see Stream, Bit Rate, and Comment.
Click the expansion triangle for the genre in which you are interested (see Figure). iTunes will connect to the Internet to update the list of channels for the genre you selected, and the genre will expand. You will see the various channels it contains. Look at the stream name, bit rate, and comment for the channels to decide which you want to try. Usually, the comment will provide a description of the kind of music the stream contains.
To play a channel, select it and click Play or double-click the stream you want to hear. The channel will begin to play (this will be instantaneous if you have a fast connection to the Net, or there will be a slight delay if you use a dial-up connection). Just like when you play a song on a CD, the speaker icon will appear next to the channel to which you are listening. Also just like when you listen to a CD, information about the channel will appear in the Information window. This includes the stream name, the song currently playing, and the Web site with which the channel is associated.

You can use the Volume slider to change the volume level and the Stop button to stop playback. The Rewind and Fast Forward buttons work a little differently than you might expect. Rather than moving you in the selected stream, they instead take you to the previous or next stream, which makes sense when you think about each stream as being like a track on a CD.

Listening to Internet Radio

2009-03-30T21:56:00.000-07:00

iTunes supports Internet “radio” stations; you can choose one of the available stations and listen to its content similarly to how you listen to a radio station over the air. (The stations are actually Web sites that offer streaming MP3, but they are analogous to radio, so using that as a model is a good way to think about them.) iTunes offers a number of genres from which you can choose, such as Pop, Classic Rock, Jazz, and so on. Listening to one of these stations is much like listening to a CD (or any other source for that matter).

Controlling iTunes from the Mac’s Dock

2009-03-30T21:49:00.000-07:00

The iTunes icon on the Mac OS X enables you to control iTunes when it is in the background, when its window is minimized, or when the application is hidden. When you Ctrl-click the iTunes Dock icon (or right-click if you have a two-button mouse), the iTunes menu will appear (see Figure). At the top of this menu, you will see information about the song currently playing (the text is grayed out if iTunes is paused). You control iTunes by choosing a command on this menu. For example, you can pause the music by choosing Pause. After you choose a command, the menu will disappear, and you can get back to what you were doing.

Controlling iTunes from the Windows System Tray

2009-03-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

When iTunes is running on a Windows machine, an iTunes icon is displayed in the System Tray. Right-click this icon and you will see an iTunes menu (see Figure). At the top of the menu, you will see information about the song that is playing (if iTunes is paused, this text will be grayed out). You can use the commands on this menu just as you can from within iTunes itself. For example, you can skip to the next song by choosing Next Song. After you choose a command, you can move off the menu and it will disappear. This is a handy way to control iTunes without having to make its window active or even show it.
If you don’t want the iTunes icon to appear in the System Tray for some reason, you can remove it. Open the iTunes Preferences dialog box (Ctrl+,), click the Advanced tab, uncheck the Show iTunes Icon in System Tray check box, and click OK. The icon will no longer appear in your System Tray.

Repeating Tracks

2009-02-28T09:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, you just can’t get enough. In that case, you can set iTunes to repeat an entire CD once or to repeat only a single song. To repeat your tunes, check out these pointers:

To have iTunes repeat an entire CD, choose Controls, Repeat All or click the Repeat button located at the bottom of the window (third one from the left). The Repeat button will become highlighted to show you that it is active, and the CD will repeat when you play it.
To repeat only the selected song, choose Controls, Repeat One or click the Repeat button a second time. A “1” will appear on the Repeat button to indicate that only the current song will be repeated.
To turn off the repeat function, choose Controls, Repeat Off or click the Repeat button until it is no longer highlighted in blue.

Getting Random

2009-02-28T09:00:00.000-08:00

For a little variety, you can have iTunes play songs in a random order. This feature is called Shuffle. To use this feature, click the Shuffle button located at the bottom of the window (second one from the left) or choose Controls, Shuffle. The songs will be reordered in the Content pane and will play in the order in which they are listed (hopefully in a random fashion). The Shuffle button will be highlighted to indicate that it is active.
To return the CD to its natural order, click the Shuffle button again or choose Controls, Shuffle.

Choosing the Order in Which Songs Play

2009-01-14T19:25:00.000-08:00

iTunes determines the order in which songs play by the order in which they are shown in the Content pane, starting from the top of the pane and moving to the bottom. By default, songs are listed and therefore play in the order they appear on the CD, from track 1 to the last track on the disc. However, you can make songs on a CD play in any order you choose. You have a couple ways to do this. You can change the order in which songs are listed in the Content pane (and thus the order in which they play) by dragging the songs up or down in the pane (see Figure A). When you change the order of the songs in the pane, you change the order in which they will play.
You can also change the order of tracks by sorting the Content pane by the various attributes shown, such as Song Name, Time, Artist, and so on. You can do this by clicking the column heading of the attribute by which you want to sort the list. When you do so, the tracks will be sorted by that column (see Figure B). To change the direction of the sort (from ascending to descending or from descending to ascending), click the Sort Order triangle; the sort direction will be reversed, and the songs will be reordered accordingly. Just like when you manually move songs around, they will play in the order in which they are listed in the pane.

The column by which the pane is sorted is indicated by the column heading being highlighted in blue—this defaults to the first column, which is the track number. (When a CD is the source, the Track Number column is always the first or leftmost column in the Content pane, and it’s unlabeled.) When you select a different column, its heading becomes blue to show that it is the current sort column.
You can also tell which column is the sort column as well as the direction of the sort by the Sort Order triangle. It only appears in the sort column. When the triangle is pointing down, the sort is descending. When the triangle is pointing up, the sort is ascending.

Choosing the Songs You Hear

2009-01-14T19:21:00.001-08:00

Let’s face it, you probably don’t like every song on a CD no matter how much you like the CD on the whole. With iTunes, you can choose the songs that play when you play the CD. You can cause a song to be skipped by unchecking the Select check box (see Figure). When the CD plays, it will skip over every song whose check box is unchecked.
To have iTunes include and thus play the song again the next time you play the CD, simply check the Selected check box.

Viewing Information While Listening to Tunes

2009-01-14T19:17:00.000-08:00

You can view different information in the Information window, such as the name, artist, and album of the currently playing song. When you first view this window, it contains a timeline bar that represents the total length of the song being played (see Figure). A black diamond indicates the relative position of the music you are hearing at any point in time compared to the total length of the song. At the top of the Information window is a line of text. What appears here changes over time; it automatically rotates between the artist’s name, album name, and name of the song currently playing. You can freeze this display on a specific attribute, such as song name, by clicking the text.

Each time you click, the information will change from album to artist to song name. Whichever one you last clicked on will remain showing in the window. Underneath the album, artist, and song name line is the time information. This can display elapsed time (the amount of time a song has been playing), remaining time (the amount of time a song has left), or total time (the song’s total length). Unlike the name information, this display does not rotate among these values. You can set the value being displayed by clicking the text; each time you click, a different time value will be shown until you have rotated among all three values.
Finally, if you click the Change Display button, the display will become a graphical representation of the volume levels at various frequency groups. You can return to the title information by clicking the button again.

Lots more ways to control the tunes

2009-01-14T18:51:00.000-08:00

That’s it. You now know everything you need to listen to an audio CD. However, there are lots more ways to control the tunes, some of which are in the following list:

Double-click any song to play it. When you do that, the speaker icon will jump to the song on which you double-clicked and it will play.
When a song is playing and you click and hold the Rewind or Fast Forward button down, the song will rewind or fast forward until you release the button.
If a song is not playing or a song is playing but you single-click (but don’t hold the button down) the Rewind or Fast Forward button, the previous or next song, respectively, will be selected. You can also choose Controls, Next Song or Controls, Previous Song to move to the next or the previous song. And for yet another method to do the same thing, use the Ctrl+right arrow and Ctrl+left arrow keys on a Windows PC or the „+right arrow and „+left arrow keys on a Mac to move to the next or previous song.
You can set a default action for iTunes to perform each time you insert a CD into your computer. You do this with the iTunes Preferences dialog box, which you will be using throughout this part of the book. Choose Edit, Preferences (Windows) or iTunes, Preferences (Mac). The Preferences dialog box will appear. The Preferences dialog box has several panes that you access by clicking the related tab (Windows) or icon (Mac). Click the General tab (Windows) or General icon (Mac). Use the On CD Insert dropdown list to choose the default action iTunes should perform when it recognizes an audio CD. Show Songs just displays the list of tracks on the CD. Begin Playing starts playing the CD as soon as it is mounted on your computer (this does the same thing as clicking the Play button). Import Songs adds the selected songs on the CD to your Library. Import Songs and Eject does the same thing as Import Songs, but it ejects the CD when all its tracks have been added to your Library.
To remove a CD from your computer, select it in the Source List and choose Controls, Eject Disc, press Ctrl+E (Windows) or „+E (Macintosh), or click the Eject button located in the lower-right corner of the iTunes window.

Listening to an Audio CD with iTunes

2009-01-14T18:30:00.000-08:00

What iTunes has in common with its much less sophisticated cousins the boom box and the standard CD player is the ability to play audio CDs. Although the basic function is the same, iTunes has several tricks in its bag to make listening even better. So, grab a CD and give it a try:

Open iTunes.
Insert an audio CD into your computer. In a moment, the CD will be mounted on your computer, and it will appear and be selected in the Source List By default, iTunes will automatically connect to the Internet and attempt to identify the CD you have inserted. If it finds it, it will display the CD’s information, including CD name, track names, times, artist, and genre, in the Content pane (in Figure, you can see the CD’s information has been found). This is really cool because iTunes does most of the labeling work for you; this comes in very handy when you want to search or browse for music to create playlists or just to listen to specific tracks. If iTunes finds information for a CD, it remembers that information and displays it each time you insert the CD. At the bottom of the iTunes window is the Source Information display. This will show you the total number of songs on the CD, how long it plays, and the total disc space used. If the CD’s information isn’t located, you can add it yourself
To play the CD, do any of the following: click the Play button in the top-left corner of the window (when a CD is playing, this becomes the Pause button), choose Controls, Play, or press the spacebar. The CD will begin to play. As a song plays, a speaker icon appears next to it in the Content pane to indicate it is the current song, and information about that song appears in the Information window
Control the volume of the sound by dragging the Volume slider to the left to turn it down or to the right to turn it up. You can also control the volume by choosing Controls, Volume Up or Controls, Volume Down. For yet another option, use the Ctrl+up arrow and Ctrl+down arrow keys on Windows PCs or the „+up arrow and „+down arrow keys on Macs to set the volume from the keyboard. To mute the sound, choose Controls, Mute. On Windows PCs you can press Ctrl+Alt+down arrow, whereas on Macs you can press Option+„+down arrow to do the same thing.
To pause a song, click the Pause button, choose Controls, Pause, or press the spacebar.

Controlling Your Music

2008-12-31T04:06:00.000-08:00

Surrounding those panes are the controls you use to work with and get information about your music. At the top of the window, from left to right, you will see the following areas:

Playback controls—Here, you can see the familiar Play/Stop, Fast Forward, and Rewind buttons along with the Volume Control slider. These work as you probably expect them to.
Information window—In the center of the iTunes window is the Information window. In this area, you will see a variety of information about what you are doing at any point in time. For example, when you are playing music, you will see information about the music currently being played. When you import music, you will see information about the import process.
Search tool—You use the Search tool to search for songs.
Action button—The Action button changes depending on the context you are in. For example, if you have selected the Library, it becomes the Browse button, which you use to open or close the Browser. If you select a playlist, it becomes the Burn button, which enables you to burn a CD. When you move to the bottom of the iTunes window, you will see the following:
Add Playlist button—You can use this button to create your own playlists.
Shuffle and Repeat buttons—You use the Shuffle button to shuffle the music in the selected source so that it doesn’t play in the listed order. You can use the Repeat button to cause songs to repeat within a selected source.
Show/Hide Album Art button—Songs can have album art associated with them. When you click this button, you will see the Art Album box at the bottom of the Source pane. In it will appear any art associated with the song that is currently selected.
Source information—This information shows you the number of songs, total playing\ time, and disk space of the selected source. This becomes very useful at certain times, such as when you are burning a CD or building a playlist.
Equalizer button—This button opens the Equalizer window, which provides you with a graphic equalizer.
Visualizer button—Okay, this was one of the most promoted features of iTunes when it was initially released, but I didn’t get it then, and I still don’t today. When you click this, the iTunes window fills with a graphic display reminiscent of the 1960s.
Eject button—When you have selected an ejectable source, such as an audio CD, you can click this button to eject it.

Seeing Through the iTunes Window

2008-12-31T03:50:00.000-08:00

The iTunes window, like the windows on your house, consists of a number of panes (see Figure A). Let’s take a quick look at each of these. On the far left of the iTunes window is the Source List. On this list, as you might suspect from its name, are the sources of music with which you can work. To work with a source, such as a CD or the iTunes Music Store, you select it by clicking it. When you select a source, its contents will appear in the Content pane and Browser (if you have the Browser open for a selected source). In Figure A, I have selected the Library as the source; its contents are shown in the Browser at the top of the window while the list of individual songs that make up the Library is at the bottom of the window.
You will use many types of sources, including the Library, the Radio, the iTunes Music Store, audio CDs, playlists, and more. As we work though the rest of this part of the blog, you will get experience with all these kinds of sources.

The Browser presents the contents of the selected source at a summary level, by genre, artist, and album. You can view the contents of the selected source by clicking it in the appropriate column. For example, in Figure A, I have selected the Blues/R&B genre. The Artist column then shows all the artists whose music I have in the selected genre. The Album column shows all the albums for the selected artists. The Browser can be shown or hidden. For example, take a look at Figure B, which shows the iTunes window with the Browser hidden. At the bottom of the iTunes window (or filling it if the Browser is hidden) is the Content pane.
This area lists each song in the selected source. For each song, you will see a variety of information, such as Song Name, Track #, Time, Artist, and so on. You can even choose the information you see on this list. The order in which songs are listed in the Content pane is the order in which they will play when you play the selected source. Going back to Figure A, you can see that several songs by B.B. King and Dave McKenna are listed in the Content pane.

Downloading and installing iTunes on a Mac

2008-12-16T07:15:00.000-08:00

The process for downloading and installing iTunes on a Mac is almost identical to what you use to download and install iTunes on a Windows computer. To save a few trees, I haven’t included the steps to do this on a Mac. The most important difference is that you should choose to download the version for Mac OS X (as if you couldn’t guess that!). After that, just follow the onscreen instructions.
You have a number of ways to open iTunes on a Mac, including the following:

Click the iTunes icon on the Dock.
Open the Applications folder and double-click the iTunes icon.
Insert an audio CD into your Mac; by default, iTunes is set to launch whenever you mount an audio CD. The first time you open iTunes, you will need to work through a basic configuration of the application.

Following are the steps you need to perform:

Launch iTunes. You will see yet another License Agreement screen. (I guess Apple was kidding with the others.)
Click Agree. You will see the iTunes Setup Assistant, which will guide you through the rest of the process .
Click Next. You will see the Internet Audio Settings window. These settings control whether iTunes is the default application for audio content from the Internet and if iTunes should automatically connect to the Internet when it needs to.
Click both Yes radio buttons and then click Next. You’ll see the Find Music Files window.
If you want iTunes to search for music on your Mac and then add that music to the iTunes Library, click Yes. If you don’t want this to happen, click No. Click Next. You’ll see the iTunes Music Store window.
Because we will explore the iTunes Music Store in detail later, click the No radio button and then click Done. The iTunes window will open and you will be ready to tour the application in the next section.

Installing iTunes on a Macintosh

2008-12-16T07:02:00.000-08:00

Because iTunes is developed by Apple, it is as integrated into the Macintosh operating system as much as any application can be. You have a number of ways to get iTunes installed on your Mac, including the following:

Install Mac OS X. When you install Mac OS X, iTunes is also installed, unless you specifically tell the Installer not to install it. If you have installed OS X on your Mac, you don’t need to do any installation, but you should make sure you have the current version installed
Buy a new Mac. Okay, this might be the most expensive option, but, hey, you get a free Mac with your copy of iTunes!
Install iTunes from the iPod Software CD. The software installation CD included with an iPod also enables you to install iTunes.
Buy a copy of the Apple iLife suite. In addition to iTunes, you’ll get iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, and Garage Band.
Download and install iTunes from the Internet. You can always download and install the latest version of iTunes from the Internet.

If you have installed Mac OS X on your computer, you probably don’t need to do any installation because it is likely that you already have iTunes installed on your machine.
To use one of the CD options, just insert the CD, launch the installer, and follow the onscreen instructions.
If you don’t already have some version of iTunes installed on your Mac, you can download and install a copy from the Internet. This is often the best option because you are sure to get the most current version of the application.

Launching and Performing the Initial Configuration of iTunes on a Windows PC

2008-12-16T06:57:00.000-08:00

Whichever path you have taken to this point, I am sure all is well and you are ready to start cutting your teeth on iTunes.
To open the application and perform the initial configuration (which you need to do only the first time you open the program), follow these steps:

Open iTunes. You have several ways to do this. You can use the desktop icon to open it (assuming you chose to have an icon placed there). You can also choose Start, All Programs, iTunes, iTunes to launch the application from the Start menu. Or, you can click the shortcut that was conveniently placed in the taskbar for you. After you have used one of these methods, the iTunes window will open. The first time you launch the application, the iTunes Setup Assistant will appear. The helpful assistant will guide you through the few configuration decisions you need to make before you start working with the application. As with other assistants, you will move through the iTunes Setup Assistant by reading its information, making choices, and using the Next button.
Click Next to move to the Find Music Files screen. The purpose of this screen is to indicate whether you want iTunes to search your Music folder to find any existing music and then add that music to your iTunes Library. If you have music in this folder, I recommend that you let iTunes add it to your Library. If you want iTunes to search for music on your computer, click the Yes radio button (which isn’t really necessary because it is the default selection) and then click Next. If you want to skip this search, click No and then click Next.
Use the Keep iTunes Music Folder Organized window to indicate whether you want iTunes to automatically rename and organize the music in your iTunes Music folder when you change that music’s information (such as genre). Unless you have a very specific reason not to want this feature, click Yes and then click Next. If you do have some reason why you don’t want iTunes to rename or move your music files, click No and then click Next.
Use the iTunes Music Store window to determine whether you want to move to the iTunes Music Store immediately after the Setup Assistant is done. Because you will learn about the iTunes Music Store in detail in Part III, “The iTunes Music Store,” click the No radio button and click Finish. The Setup Assistant will run and you will see the iTunes window . If you indicated that you want iTunes to find any music in your Music folder and add it to the iTunes Library, you will see the music that the application found.

Now you are ready to learn about the major elements of the iTunes window.

Downloading and Installing iTunes on a Windows PC

2008-11-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

It can be better to download a copy of iTunes from the Internet to install it on your computer even if you have a copy on the iPod CD. That’s because the application is periodically updated. When you download a copy from the Web, you get the latest and greatest version. When you install a copy from the CD, you get the latest and greatest version when the CD was produced, which might not be the current latest and greatest.
If you want to download and install a copy of iTunes, perform the following steps:

Open your favorite Web browser, such as Internet Explorer.
Move to http://www.apple.com/itunes.
Click the Download link. You will see the Download page.
Scroll down the page until you see the Download iTunes section
Click the Windows 2000 or XP radio button.
Enter your email address if you want to subscribe to any of Apple’s iTunes newsletters; if you don’t, you can leave this blank.
Enter your first and last name if you want to (this is optional information).
Choose the area in which you live in the drop-down list.
Check the boxes for the Apple newsletters you want to receive (or uncheck the boxes for any Apple newsletters you don’t want to receive). For example, the New Music Tuesdays newsletter lets you know about music that has been added to the iTunes Music Store.
Click Download iTunes. In most cases, you will see the Security Warning dialog box. If you don’t have your Web browser configured to present this, you will move directly to the Save As dialog box, in which case you can skip the next step.
In the Security Warning dialog box, click Yes to indicate that you want to install and run the iTunes Installer. The InstallShield Wizard will open and start the installation process. After a moment or two, you will see the iTunes for Windows window
Read the information in the Installer window and click Next.
If you have a lot of time and patience, read the license agreement; when you are done, click Yes if you agree or No if you don’t. (Of course, if you don’t agree, you can skip the rest of these steps and the rest of this part of the book because you won’t be able to use iTunes.)
In the resulting Information window, you can read information about iTunes, such as what it can do and what you need to install it. Because you have this book, you don’t really need to read this information, but it can’t hurt to do so! When you are done reading, click Next. You’ll see the Setup Type window (see Figure 13.3) .
Check the following options to make them active or uncheck them to make them inactive:

Install desktop shortcuts—This option places a shortcut to iTunes on your desktop. Unless you don’t like desktop shortcuts for some reason, you should usually leave this option checked.
Use iTunes as the default player for audio files—This option causes iTunes to be used to play most audio files that you will access on the Internet, your computer, CDs, and so on. If you prefer to use another application, such as Window Media Player, uncheck this check box. However, I recommend that you leave it checked for now. You can always change the default application to be something else after you have become comfortable with iTunes (not that you’ll want to!).
Use QuickTime as the default player for media files—If you choose this option, the QuickTime Player application will be used when you view video or other multimedia content. Just like the previous option, if you prefer to use a different application, uncheck this check box.

Click Next. You’ll see the Choose Destination Location dialog box.
If you don’t want to accept the default installation location (which is C:\Program Files\iTunes\), click the Browse button and choose the location you do want to use. Then click Next. You’ll see a window advertising the iPod.
Click Next. As the Installer starts to work, you will see the Setup Status window. This window provides you with information about the installation When the process is complete, you will see the Installation Successful window.
Click Finish to restart your computer and complete the installation process. When your computer restarts, iTunes will be ready for you.

Installing iTunes on a Windows PC

2008-11-30T06:54:00.000-08:00

Over the years, Apple has produced a few applications designed for both Windows PCs and Macintoshes. Thank goodness for Windows users that iTunes is also in this group. (None of the others are worthy of much mention, but iTunes is definitely a crossover hit!)
In order to use iTunes on a Windows computer, you must be running Windows Vista or Windows XP. If you are running Windows 98, Me, or 95, you are out of the iTunes game. (Of course, those older versions of Windows are really old and you should be using a newer version for more reasons than just the ability to run iTunes!)
You have two primary ways to get a copy of iTunes and install it on your computer. (The good news is that neither way will cost you any more money than you have already spent.) First, if you have purchased an iPod, which is a likely case given that you are reading a blog about iPods, a copy of iTunes is provided on the CD included with every iPod. Second, if you don’t have an iPod or if you don’t have the CD that came with it for some reason, you can download iTunes from the Internet.

The iPod and the iTunes Music Store

2008-11-30T06:50:00.000-08:00

When it comes to citizenship, iTunes definitely gets an A+ because it plays so well with others.
If you have read Part I, “The iPod,” you know that the iPod might just be the coolest portable electronic device ever to hit the streets. Although the iPod is indeed an awesome piece of technology, it wouldn’t get very far without a tool to manage the music it contains. iTunes is that tool. iTunes and the iPod go together like a 1-2 combination punch, peanut butter and jelly, jalapenos on a pizza, Bing Crosby and Bob Hope (well, you get the idea). Using iTunes, you can determine which parts of your music library are on the iPod. iTunes manages moving the music files to the iPod and organizing them, so the process is quite simple (from your perspective anyway).

In fact, iTunes will manage the process for you automatically if you prefer; when you connect your trusty iPod to your computer, iTunes will recognize it and then synchronize the music it has in your Library with that on your iPod. You will learn in detail about the last part of the digital music triumvirate: the iTunes Music Store. With the iTunes Music Store, you can shop for music to add to your Library. When you find songs you’d like to have, you can purchase and download them into your iTunes Library with just a couple mouse clicks. And you can do all this from within iTunes itself. It feels like the iTunes Music Store is just an extension of iTunes, which, in fact, it is. You access the iTunes Music Store from within iTunes, and the Store uses an interface that looks very similar to iTunes. So, once you know iTunes, you won’t have any problems with the iTunes Music Store.

Playlists: Customize Your Music Experience

2008-11-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

I’ve saved one of the best features of iTunes for nearly last—playlists. Playlists enable you to create custom collections of music from the songs in your iTunes Library. (If you think of a playlist as a custom CD without the disc, you will be very close.)
When you create playlists, you can mix and match music to your heart’s content. For example, you can build your own “greatest hits” collections that include multiple artists, music genres, and so on. You can repeat the same song multiple times in the same playlist. You can also get rid of songs you don’t like by not including them in the playlists you listen to. What’s more, you can create a playlist to include a specific amount of music from a single CD or endlessly repeat all the music in your Library.
Basically, you can use playlists to organize a collection of songs in any way you choose. You can then listen to your playlists, put them on a CD, or move them to an iPod.

Where Does All That Music Come From?

2008-11-30T06:41:00.000-08:00

You have three primary sources of the music and sounds from which you will build your iTunes Library:

Audio CDs—You can add music from your audio CDs to the iTunes Library. In iTunes lingo, this process is called importing.
The Internet—You can download music and other audio files from the Internet and add those files to your iTunes Library.
The iTunes Music Store—Using the iTunes Music Store, you can search for, preview, and purchase music online and add that music to your Library.

AIFF and iTunes

2008-11-14T02:21:00.000-08:00

The Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) provides relatively high-quality sound, but its file sizes are larger than MP3 or AAC. As you can probably guess from its name, this format was originally used to exchange audio among various platforms. As with the WAV format, because the MP3 and AAC formats provide better sound quality in smaller file sizes, you aren’t likely to use the AIFF format very often. The most likely situation in which you might want to use it is when you want to move some music or sound from your iTunes collection into a different application that does not support the MP3 or AAC format.

WAV and iTunes

2008-11-14T02:19:00.000-08:00

The Windows Waveform (WAV) audio format is a standard on Windows computers. It has been widely used for various kinds of audio, but because it does not offer the “quality versus file size” benefits of the MP3 or AAC formats, it is mostly used for sound effects or clips that people have recorded from various sources. Millions of WAV files are available on the Internet that you can play and download.
You can load WAV files into iTunes, and you can even use iTunes to convert files into the WAV format. However, because MP3 and AAC are much newer and better file formats, you aren’t likely to want to do this very often. Occasionally, you might want to add WAV files to your iTunes music collection; this can be easily done, as you will learn later in this blog.

AAC and iTunes

2008-11-14T02:14:00.000-08:00

The newest digital audio format is called Advanced Audio Coding or AAC. This format is part of the larger MPEG-4 specification. Its basic purpose is the same as the MP3 format: to deliver excellent sound quality while keeping file sizes small. However, the AAC format is a newer and better format in that it can be used to produce files that have better quality than MP3 at even smaller file sizes. Also, as with MP3, you can easily convert audio CD files into the AAC format to store them on a computer and add them to an iPod. What’s more, you can convert AAC files into the Audio CD or MP3 format when you want to put them on a CD to play on something other than your computer, such as a car stereo.
The AAC format also enables content producers to add some copy-protection schemes to their music.
Typically, these schemes won’t have any impact on you (unless of course, you are trying to do something you shouldn’t).
One of the most important aspects of the AAC format is that all the music in the iTunes Music Store is stored in it; when you purchase music from the store, it is added to your computer in this format.

MP3 and iTunes

2008-11-14T02:10:00.000-08:00

Even if this blog is your first foray into the wonderful world of digital music, you have no doubt heard of MP3. This audio file format started, literally, an explosion in music technology that is still reverberating and expanding today. MP3 is the acronym for the audio compression scheme called Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) audio layer 3. The revolutionary aspect of the MP3 encoding scheme was that music data could be stored in files that are only about one-twelfth the size of unencoded digital music without a noticeable degradation in the quality of the music. A typical music CD consumes about 650MB of storage space, but the same music encoded in the MP3 format shrinks down to about 55MB. Put another way, a single 3.5-minute song shrinks from its 35MB on audio CD down to a paltry 3MB or so in MP3 format. The small size of MP3 files opened up a world of possibilities.
For example, MP3 enabled a new class of portable music devices. Because MP3 files can be stored in small amounts of memory, devices with no moving parts can store and play a fair amount of music; these were the early MP3 players, such as the Rio. Then came other devices containing small hard drives—can you say iPod?—that can store huge amounts of music, enabling you to take your entire music collection with you wherever you go. These devices are extremely small and lightweight, and their contents can be easily managed.
You will encounter many MP3 files on the Internet, and with iTunes, you can convert your audio CDs into the MP3 format so that you can store them in iTunes and put them on an iPod.

CD Audio and iTunes

2008-11-14T02:07:00.000-08:00

The CD Audio format was the world’s first widely used entry in the digital audio format life cycle. The creation of this format was the start of the CD revolution. Instead of vinyl albums, which were a pain to deal with and included lots of hisses, pops, and other distractions when played, listeners began enjoying digital music. In addition to being much easier to handle than LPs, CDs provided a much better listening experience and were—and are—much more durable than records.
They also sounded much better than cassettes and could be just as portable.
Eventually, CD Audio made its way to computers, which now can provide all the music-listening enjoyment of a home stereo plus much more, thanks to applications such as iTunes.
Although you can use iTunes to listen to your audio CDs, typically you will just convert those CDs into one of the newer digital formats and store that content on your computer’s hard disk so you don’t have to use a CD when you want to listen to music. You will also make use of this format when you put your iTunes music on your own audio CD so that you can play your iTunes music when you are away from your computer.

Audio File Formats You Might Encounter When You Use iTunes

2008-10-31T03:38:00.000-07:00

As you work with digital music and other audio files, you’ll encounter a number of different file formats that you need to understand. This is important because each of these formats offers specific benefits and limitations that impact what you do with your music. For example, some file formats offer better music quality versus file size than others. You definitely don’t need to have all the specifications for each of these formats committed to memory; instead, all you need to be able to do is to distinguish between them and to be able to choose the format that is the most appropriate for what you are trying to do.
Most audio file formats are encoded. What this means is that specific compression algorithms are used to reduce the size of the audio file without, hopefully anyway, lowering the quality of the resulting sound very much. The higher the compression that is used, the lower the quality of the resulting music when it is played back. Note that the words higher and lower are relative. Often, it takes a musical expert to tell the difference between encoded and unencoded music, but even if it is imperceptible to us mere mortals, it does exist.
When it comes to digital audio files, one trade-off always has to be made. And that is file size versus sound quality. When you add thousands of songs to your iTunes Library, you can easily consume gigabytes of disk space. Although you might have a humungous hard drive in your computer, you might also have other files you want to store on it, such as photos, Word docs, and so on. Even I realize that computers can be used for more than just music.
To keep the amount of disk space required to store your music to a minimum, you will encode it. When you do, you choose the settings you want to use to encode that music. The more encoding you apply, the less space the music will consume, but the lower quality the playback will be. You will quickly find a happy medium between file size and how the music sounds to you.

What You Can Do with iTunes?

2008-10-31T03:31:00.000-07:00

Following are some examples just to whet your appetite:

Listen to audio CDs.
Listen to Internet radio.
Store all the music you like in a single place so you never need to fuss with individual CDs again.
Search and organize all this music so that listening to exactly the music you want is just a matter of a few mouse clicks (and maybe a few key presses).
Create custom albums (called playlists) containing the specific songs you want to hear.
Create custom albums (called smart playlists) that are based on a set of criteria, such as all the Jazz music you have rated at four or five stars.
Use the iTunes built-in Equalizer to make your music just right.
Burn your own music CDs to play in those oh-so-limited CD players in your car, a boom box, or in your home.
Share your music collection with other people over a wired or wireless network; you can listen to music other people share with you as well.

Getting Help with iPod Problems

2008-10-31T02:57:00.000-07:00

Apple maintains an extensive iPod Web site from which you get detailed information about iPod problems. You can use this information to solve specific problems you encounter (that aren’t solved with the information in the previous sections, such as a reset).
To access this help, use a Web browser to move to www.apple.com/support/ipod. On this page, you can search for help, read FAQs, and get other information that will help you solve iPod problems .There are a number of other Web sites that might be helpful to you as well. These include www.ipodlounge.com and www.ipodhacks.com. You can also use www.google.com to search for other iPod information; you’ll find no shortage of it.

Restoring an iPod

2008-10-31T02:55:00.000-07:00

As you read earlier, you can also use the iPod Software Update application to restore an iPod. When you restore an iPod, its hard drive is erased and a clean version of its software is installed. The purpose is to configure the iPod with factory settings that will likely solve many problems you are having.

How to reset an iPod?

2008-10-31T02:38:00.000-07:00

If you can’t get an iPod to do anything (and you’ve checked the Hold switch) or if it is behaving badly, try resetting it. When you reset an iPod, its temporary memory is cleared, but your data won’t be affected. Follow these steps:

Connect the iPod to the power adapter using the FireWire cable and then plug the power adapter into a wall outlet.
Move the Hold switch to the On position and then slide it to the Off position again.
Press and hold both the Menu and Play/Pause buttons down for about five seconds until you see the Apple logo on the iPod’s screen. This indicates that the reset process is complete.
Try to use the iPod to do what you were trying to do when you noticed a problem. If resetting your iPod solves your problem, you are home free. If not, you might want to try restoring it.

Checking the Basics iPod Malfunction

2008-10-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

We all do things that can be classified as dumb once in a while. And using the iPod can result in a few of these events, so use the following list to make sure you haven’t done anything to shoot yourself in the foot:

If the iPod won’t respond to any controls, make sure the Hold switch isn’t active. The Hold switch does just what it is supposed to—it prevents everything from working. It can be rather embarrassing to panic that your precious iPod has suffered a major failure only to realize that the Hold switch is on. (Of course you understand that this has never happened to me.)
If the iPod won’t turn on, connect it to the power adapter or to a computer using a six-pin FireWire connection. It might simply be that the battery is out of power. Remember that the iPod uses some battery power when you aren’t using it, and after 14 days or so, it might not have enough battery power to wake up. Sometimes the empty battery icon will appear when you try to turn on a fully discharged iPod and sometimes it won’t.
Try connecting the iPod to a computer. If it mounts, you probably just need to do a minor reset to get it to work again.

Updating or Restoring an iPod’s Software

2008-10-19T06:11:00.000-07:00

Apple is continually improving the iPod’s software to add features, make it even more stable, and so on. You should periodically check for new iPod software and, when you find it, install it on your iPod—this is called updating the iPod’s software. When you are having major problems with your iPod or just want to completely reformat it, you can also restore its software to return it to factory settings.
You do both of these tasks in the same way, as the following steps show:

Open a Web browser and move to www.apple.com/support/ipod/. You’ll see the iPod Support page
Locate and click the link for the latest iPod or iPod mini software for your computer’s OS, such as Mac OS X or Windows XP. You’ll move to the iPod Software Update page.
Complete the form, click the radio button for your OS, and click Download Update. The update will be downloaded to your computer. Notice the name of the application you download and where you store it on your computer.
Launch the iPod Update application— in some cases, it will run automatically after you download it. On the Mac, you’ll see the iPod Software Updater application. On Windows PCs, you will have to restart your computer after running the Setup application. Then, choose Start menu, iPod, System Software, Updater. You’ll then see the Updater application for Windows.
Connect the iPod you want to update or restore to your computer.
If you want to install the latest version of the iPod software on your iPod, click the Update button. If you want to restore your iPod, click Restore instead.
Follow the onscreen instructions to complete the update or restore process.

After you have updated your iPod, you can continue using it as you did before the update.
If you restored your iPod, you will have to perform an update from iTunes to load your music back onto it. You’ll also have to replace any calendar or contact information you want to store on it.

Getting Help from Apple for iPod Battery Problems

2008-10-19T06:08:00.000-07:00

If your iPod doesn’t play for the expected time, the battery probably needs to be replaced. If the iPod is still under warranty (one year without the AppleCare Protection Plan or two years with it), Apple will replace the battery for free. If the iPod is not under warranty, Apple will replace the battery for you (currently this costs $99 plus $6.95 shipping). To get more information and start this process, go to www.apple.com/support/ipod/power/ and click the iPod battery service request form link.
If you are comfortable working with electronic devices yourself, you can replace the iPod’s battery on your own. How to do this is beyond the scope of this book, but you can purchase a battery and get help on the Web at places such as www.ipodbattery.com and www.ipodresq.com Replacement batteries cost from $60 to $80, including tools and instructions.
Although being a bit more expensive, sending the unit back to Apple is probably a better way to go in most situations. (Who knows, if you have an old iPod, you might get a better unit back in return!)

How to Test iPod’s Battery?

2008-10-19T05:58:00.000-07:00

If your iPod doesn’t seem to play for a reasonable amount of time, you should test it to get an idea of what its current battery life is.
Test your iPod by performing the following steps:

Fully charge your iPod.
Remove the iPod from the charger so that it is running on battery power.
Make a note of the current time.
Use the Settings commands to turn off the Equalizer and Backlight.
Set Repeat to One.
Select an album or playlist and play it.
Let the iPod play until it runs out of power. While the iPod is playing, don’t use any of its controls. Anytime you cause the iPod to perform an action, you cause it to use additional power. In this test, you are attempting to determine what its maximum life is so you can compare it to the rated life.
When the iPod stops playing and the low power icon appears in the display, make a note of the time.
Calculate the battery life by figuring out how much time passed since you started the iPod playing (compare the time you noted in step 8 with what you noted in step 3). If you iPod plays for four hours or longer on a full charge, Apple considers that its battery life is acceptable. If the iPod won’t play for more than four hours, it likely has a problem and needs to be replaced.

How to Get More Life Out of an iPod’s Battery?

2008-09-29T23:07:00.000-07:00

The iPod uses a lithium-ion battery. Any battery, including the iPod’s, will eventually wear out and no longer provide the power it once did. In my research, most lithium-ion batteries are rated for 300–500 charges. In this context, a charge can’t be precisely defined, but it does include a full discharge and then a full recharge. A partial charge doesn’t “count” as much, but the precise relationship between amount of charge and how much that charge “counts” can’t be specified. Batteries like that in the iPod actually last longer if you don’t let them fully discharge before you recharge them. Frequent “topping off” will not reduce the battery’s life and in fact is better for your battery than letting it run very low on power before you recharge it.
Every 30 recharges or so, do run your iPod until it is completely out of power and then perform a full recharge. This will reset the battery’s power gauge, which tends to get more inaccurate if the battery is never fully discharged.
It doesn’t hurt the battery to do frequent and short recharges, such as by placing the iPod in a Dock every day after you are done using it.
However, you should make sure to run the iPod on battery power for significant periods of time. If you constantly run the iPod from the power adapter or while it is in the Dock connected to a power source, the iPod’s battery’s performance will degrade.

Tips for charging iPod battery

2008-09-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

Fortunately, there are a number of ways to charge your iPod’s battery, including the following:

Use the included FireWire power adapter.
Connect the iPod to a six-pin FireWire port either directly with a cable or via a Dock.
Use a power adapter designed for 12-volt sources, such as the power outlets in your vehicle.

There are two different ways that the iPod lets you know it is charging. When your iPod’s battery is charging via a FireWire connection to a computer, the Battery icon will include a lightning bolt symbol and will include a filling motion from the left to the right of the icon. When the battery is fully charged, the icon will be completely filled and the motion will stop.
When you charge your iPod’s battery through a separate power adapter only, the battery icon fills the iPod’s screen and flashes. When the process is complete, the battery icon remains steady.
According to Apple, it takes only an hour to charge a drained battery to 80% of its capacity. It can take up to four hours to fully charge a drained battery.

How to Maximize and Monitor iPod Battery Life?

2008-09-13T21:06:00.000-07:00

The Battery icon in the upper-right corner of the screen always tells you what your battery’s status is at any point in time.
When your iPod is running on battery power, the amount of shading within the icon provides a relative—and I do mean relative—indication of your battery’s current state. As you use battery power, the “filled in” part of the battery will decrease until your iPod runs out of gas. When it does, you’ll see an icon of a battery with an exclamation point that indicates your iPod is out of power, and the battery will have to be charged before you can use the iPod again.
To maximize your iPod’s playing time per battery charge, you can do the following:

Keep the iPod’s software up to date.
Use the Hold switch to prevent your iPod from being unintentionally turned on when you carry it around. You’d be amazed how easy it is for the iPod to be turned on and start to play without you knowing it, especially if you carry it in your pocket, backpack, or computer bag. (It’s no fun trying to listen to tunes only to find out your iPod’s battery has been accidentally drained—not that this has ever happened to me of course.)
When you aren’t listening, don’t keep your iPod playing. Use the Pause button when you aren’t listening to music. Playing music uses power at a greater rate than not playing music.
Put your iPod to sleep by turning it off when you aren’t using it. The Sleep, or Off, mode uses the least amount of power. (You can press and hold the Play/Pause button to turn the iPod off. You can also add the Sleep command to the Main menu if you prefer to use that instead.)
Keep backlighting at a minimum level. Backlighting is very helpful to be able to see the iPod’s screen, especially in low-light conditions. However, it does use additional power, so you should use it only as needed to maximize battery life. When you don’t need it, such as in daylight conditions, turn it off. When you do need it, set it such that it remains on only a few seconds when you press a control.
Minimize track changes. Each time you change tracks, the iPod uses more power than it would just playing tracks straight through.
Turn the Equalizer off. The Equalizer uses more power than playing music without it.
Every 30 recharges or so, fully drain and recharge the battery.
Keep the iPod at a comfortable temperature. Using the iPod in very cold or very hot conditions lowers its battery life.

Moving Images from an iPod to a Computer

2008-09-13T21:02:00.000-07:00

To move images that you have stored on the iPod to your computer, connect the iPod to the computer on which you want to place the iPod’s images. Open the DCIM folder and you’ll see subfolders that contain the images you have downloaded. Open the folder containing photos you want to work with and you’ll see those photos.
You can then open them or import them into the application you use to work with digital images. After you have moved the images from your iPod onto your computer, delete the images from the iPod to free up disk space. You can do that by using the Delete command on the iPod’s Roll Information screen or by deleting the image folders from the iPod from your computer’s desktop.

Storing Photos on an iPod

2008-09-13T21:00:00.002-07:00

To store images on an iPod, perform the following steps:

Use a digital camera to capture images.
Remove the memory card containing the images you want to move to the iPod.
Open the card slots on the Media Reader by sliding its protective cover open.
Insert the memory card into the appropriate slot in the Media Reader. Insert the card with the label side up.
Fold the Dock connector out of the Media Reader to expose it.
Connect the Media Reader’s Dock connector to the iPod’s Dock Connector port. The Media Reader will start communicating with your iPod, and you’ll see the Import screen. On this screen, you’ll see the number of photos on the card along with information about the amount of memory being used and the amount of memory available on the card.
Highlight Import and press the Select button. You’ll see the Import Progress screen, which displays the progress of the import process. When all the images have been moved from the memory card to the iPod, the Import Done screen will appear.
When you are done importing, highlight Done and press the Select button. You’ll move to the Photos screen on which you see the photo files you have imported onto the iPod in rolls.
To view information about a roll of photos, select the roll in which you are interested and press the Select button. The Roll Information screen will appear.
When you are done viewing information about a roll, choose Cancel. You’ll return to the Photos screen.

Storing Photos on an iPod

2008-09-13T21:00:00.001-07:00

To store images on an iPod, perform the following steps:

Use a digital camera to capture images.
Remove the memory card containing the images you want to move to the iPod.
Open the card slots on the Media Reader by sliding its protective cover open.
Insert the memory card into the appropriate slot in the Media Reader. Insert the card with the label side up.
Fold the Dock connector out of the Media Reader to expose it.
Connect the Media Reader’s Dock connector to the iPod’s Dock Connector port. The Media Reader will start communicating with your iPod, and you’ll see the Import screen. On this screen, you’ll see the number of photos on the card along with information about the amount of memory being used and the amount of memory available on the card.
Highlight Import and press the Select button. You’ll see the Import Progress screen, which displays the progress of the import process. When all the images have been moved from the memory card to the iPod, the Import Done screen will appear.
When you are done importing, highlight Done and press the Select button. You’ll move to the Photos screen on which you see the photo files you have imported onto the iPod in rolls.
To view information about a roll of photos, select the roll in which you are interested and press the Select button. The Roll Information screen will appear.
When you are done viewing information about a roll, choose Cancel. You’ll return to the Photos screen.

Choosing Card Reader for Your iPod

2008-09-13T19:43:00.000-07:00

To be able to store images on an iPod, you need some way to move the images from the camera’s memory card onto the iPod’s hard drive. At press time, there is only one device that allows you to do this: the Belkin iPod Media Reader. This very versatile device enables you to read files from the most common types of memory cards used in digital cameras, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, Memory Stick, or MultiMediaCard.

Using an iPod to Store Digital Pictures

2008-08-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

If you have ever been taking photos away from your computer and run out of room on your camera’s memory card, you’ll immediately understand why being able to store images you take on your iPod is a good thing. You can quickly upload images from your camera’s memory onto your iPod and erase the card so that you can take more pictures. When you get back to your computer, you can upload the images from the iPod to your favorite photo application.

To be able to store images on an iPod, you need some way to move the images from the camera’s memory card onto the iPod’s hard drive. At press time, there is only one device that allows yo to do this: the Belkin iPod Media Reader. This very versatile device enables you to read files from the most common types of memory cards used in digital cameras, including CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, Memory Stick, or MultiMediaCard.

Working with Sound You Have Recorded

2008-08-27T17:38:00.000-07:00

There are a number of things you can do with sounds you have recorded. These include the following:

You can play sounds you have recorded by highlighting the sound you want to hear on the Voice Memos screen and pressing the Play button. You’ll see the Now Playing screen, and the sound will play.
You can delete sounds you have recorded by highlighting the sound you want to delete and pressing the Select button. You’ll see a screen with Play and Delete options. Select Delete and then select Delete Memo on the resulting screen. The sound you recorded will be deleted.
The next time you connect your iPod to your computer, the sounds you recorded will be uploaded into your iTunes Library. To find them, search for the dates on which you recorded the sounds, and the sounds you recorded on those dates will be shown in the Content pane. After a recorded sound is in your Library, you can work with it just like the songs in that Library. For example, you can play the sounds, add them to playlists, put them on CD, and so on.
You can also access the recording files you made directly by connecting the iPod to a computer and opening it as a hard drive from the desktop. Then open the Recordings folder, and you will see one WAV file for each recording stored on the iPod. You can play these WAV files or import them into an audio application for editing or other purposes.

How to Record Sound on an iPod?

2008-08-27T17:36:00.000-07:00

To record sound, use the following steps:

Move to the Voice Memo screen; if you aren’t there already, choose Main menu, Extras, Voice Memos, Record Now.
Highlight Record and press the Select button. Your iPod will begin recording, and the counter on the Voice Memos screen will begin counting the time of the current recording. At the same time, the Pause and Stop and Save commands will appear on the screen
Speak into the voice recorder. Whatever sound you make will be recorded.
To pause the recording, highlight Pause and press the Select button. The counter and recording will pause.
To resume recording from where you left off, highlight Resume and press the Select button. Your iPod will start recording again.
When you are done recording, highlight Stop and Save and press the Select button. The recoding process will stop, and you’ll move back to the Voice Memos screen on which your recording will be listed. It will be named with the date and time on which you made it. You can repeat the previous steps to continue recording sound until you have captured all that you are interested in or until you run out of disk space to store the sound you have recorded, whichever comes first.

Choosing a Voice Recorder for an iPod

2008-08-27T17:33:00.000-07:00

In order to record sound on an iPod, you need to obtain a voice recorder accessory. By the time you read this, there should be at least two of these units available: the Belkin Voice Recorder for iPod and the Griffin Technology iTalk iPod Voice Recorder. Only the Belkin unit was available when I wrote this, so that is the unit I focus on here. This unit retails for about $50 and enables you to access the recording features that are already built in to the iPod’s software.
Installing the Voice Recorder couldn’t be easier. Simply plug the unit inato the iPod’s Headphones and Remote ports. When you do so, you’ll see the Voice Memo screen. That’s all there is to setting up the voice recorder.

Using an iPod with More Than One Computer

2008-08-27T17:28:00.000-07:00

Because the iPod is so very portable, you might use it with more than one computer. And because iTunes is free, there is no reason you can’t install it on every computer you use. Using an iPod with more than one computer only presents one minor complication: When you configure an iPod to be automatically updated, you link it to the iTunes Library on the machine you configured the update on. When you connect the iPod to another machine that also has automatic updating set, you will see a warning prompt that explains that the iPod is linked to another iTunes Library If you click Yes in this prompt, the music currently on the iPod will be replaced by the music stored on the computer to which the iPod is connected and the link will be changed to the current iTunes Library.

If you don’t want to replace the iPod’s music, click No.
Because you can link the iPod to only one computer at a time, you might want to use the iPod to move music from the “nonlinked” computer to the one that is linked with your iPod. If you have music on one computer that you want to store in the Library on another computer, do the following steps:

Mount the iPod as a disk on the computer that has the music you want to move to another computer.
Create a folder on the iPod called “Music to Move” or something similar.
Copy the music you want to move into the folder you created in step 2.
Connect the iPod to the computer to which it is linked.
Copy the music files from the iPod onto the computer.
Add the files you copied to the iTunes Library on that computer. (The next time you update the iPod from this computer, the music files you added to the Library will be placed in the iPod’s music collection if they meet the update’s criteria.)
Delete the music files you copied onto the iPod from the iPod.

Using an iPod as a Hard Drive

2008-08-15T09:38:00.000-07:00

After you have enabled this functionality, you can use an iPod as a disk by performing the following steps:

Connect your iPod to your computer. iTunes will open, and if you have configured automatic updating, the iPod will be updated.
On your computer’s desktop, open a new window and select the iPod, which will be listed just like other hard drives in your system.
To copy files onto the iPod, drag them from other locations on your computer and drop them onto the iPod.
When you are done moving files to or from the iPod, eject it. You can do this from the computer’s desktop by selecting the iPod and choosing the Eject command or from within iTunes by selecting the iPod on the Source List and clicking

the Eject button. The iPod will be unmounted, and you can disconnect it from your computer.

Enabling an iPod to Be Used as a Hard Drive

2008-08-15T09:35:00.000-07:00

To be able to use an iPod as a hard drive, you need to configure it within iTunes by using the following steps:

Connect your iPod to your computer. iTunes will open, and your iPod will be shown in the Source List.
Select the iPod and click the iPod Options button. You’ll see the iPod Preferences dialog box.
Check the Enable disk use check box.
You’ll see a warning prompt that explains that if you enable disk use, you’ll have to manually unmount the iPod before disconnecting it.
Click OK to close the warning prompt.
Click OK to close the iPod Preferences dialog b

Using an iPod as a Portable FireWire/USB 2 Hard Drive

2008-08-15T09:33:00.000-07:00

Here’s some news for you: The iPod is a fully functional, portable FireWire/USB 2 hard drive. In addition to using the iPod’s hard drive to store music, you can also use it just like any other hard drive you connect to your computer. Because you use FireWire or USB 2 to connect it, an iPod has speedy performance, too.
The uses for an iPod as a hard drive are almost endless; following are a few examples:

A transport drive—Have files you want to move from one computer to another? No problem. Connect your iPod to one computer, copy files to it, connect it to the second computer, and copy files from the iPod onto that computer.
Extra storage space—Need a few extra GB of disk space? No problem. Connect your iPod and you have it.
Temporary backup drive—Have some important files you want to back up? Place them on an iPod and there you go.

Reading Notes on an iPod

2008-08-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

After you have placed text files in the Notes folder, you can read them by choosing Main menu, Extras, Notes. You’ll see the Notes screen, which contains a list of all the text files in the Notes folder on your iPod. To read a note, highlight it and press the Select button. You’ll see the note’s text on the screen. Scroll down the screen to read all of the text if you need to.

Moving Notes to an iPod

2008-08-15T09:19:00.000-07:00

Connect your iPod to your computer and place the text file you created in the Notes folder on the iPod’s hard drive. (To do this, you need to configure your iPod so it can be used as a hard drive.)

Creating Notes for an iPod

2008-07-29T05:44:00.000-07:00

You can also store and display text files on your iPod. For example, you might want to store instructions to perform a task that you have trouble remembering how to do or the directions to a location on your iPod for easy reference.
To create a note on an iPod, use any word processor or other application that can create a text file (filename extension should be .txt). Create the text you want to store on the iPod and save it as a TXT file.

How to View Your Contacts in iPod?

2008-07-29T05:41:00.000-07:00

To view your contacts, perform the following steps:

Choose Main menu, Extras, Contacts. You’ll see the list of contacts sorted by your sort preference.
To view a contact’s detailed information, highlight the contact in which you are interested and press the Select button. You’ll see a screen showing all the information for that contact.
Scroll down the screen to see all the information for the contact.