This isn’t so much a design related post, but if you’re like me, music is something that strongly supplements creativity and inspiration. I recently made the switch from PC to Mac so these kinds of things might be old news, but I’d like to share none-the-less. Take a look at some of these iTunes add-ons… maybe you’ll find something useful too. Oh, and they’re all free.
1. iConcertCal
This one just blew me away. I never have really come across one amazing source for finding out both new cd releases and concerts around me until I came across iConcertCal. What makes it so impressive is that it looks at the artists in your iTunes library and automatically fills a calendar in your iTunes visualizer (View > Visualizer > iConcertCal).
The visualizer then shows you both CD releases and any concerts near you. All you do is set a city and a radius in miles (A). It’s simply amazing: iConcertCal
2. AutoRate
I am one of those people who keeps an extremely clean and organized iTunes library. Call it obsessive compulsive or whatever, but every song must be spelled correct, capitalized, classified, labeled, etc. and yes rated.
Sometimes my ratings are pretty biased but AutoRate takes your metadata and automatically rates your songs based on how you listen to them.
It takes data such as play count, skip count, and how often you listen to a song. I tried it out and it is incredibly accurate. It also gives you the ability to customize how it rates (B) and there’s also more advanced settings too. It makes creating playlists much easier (and better!): AutoRate
Here’s another handy hack that I recently read about. To enable half-star ratings on a Mac (C), close iTunes, open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal) and type “defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE” and hit enter. Reopen iTunes and click between the stars… sweet! If you decide later that you don’t want them, use “FALSE” instead of “TRUE”.
3. Last.fm
I’m brand new to this and I’m liking it more and more everyday. Last.fm automatically keeps records of your listening habits and recommends bands that aren’t in your library but are similar to those that are. It also supplies some detailed information about the bands as you listen to music from your iTunes (D). It’s pretty cool… I’m finding more features in it everyday: Last.fm
That’s it…. hopefully you’re as excited about these things as I am.
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