Sizzling Keys is an iTunes controlling application which I use everyday without even realizing it; It is that well integrated. It is not until I use a friend’s computer which does not have it that I realize how brilliant it is. In fact, it feels so natural, I wonder why Apple hasn’t incorporated it directly into the OS

What Sizzling Keys does is it assigns different functions of iTunes to certain customizable keystrokes which are accessible from anywhere on your computer, not just within iTunes. Typing an essay and want to listen to music? Just hit option+command+space, and get a song playing (default settings). If iTunes isn’t already open, it will open itself automatically. Hear a song you dislike? Then skip it with option+command+right arrow. Alternatively, if you decide to go back, hit left arrow instead of right.

It also has a little floater (above picture) which displays all the vital song information including album art and rating (which I don’t use so it’s not displayed)

Furthermore, it has a fully customizable interface that can be tweaked to your settings through its own preference panel on the bottom row of System Preferences.

Although its main purpose is to control iTunes, it is capable of even more. Under the Extras tab, you can assign functions such as “Lock computer” or “Put computer to sleep” to other key combinations

Ever since my friend first introduced me to Sizzling Keys over three years ago, it has become a part of my everyday life and I cannot imagine iTunes without it. It is a marvelous application that I strongly recommend to anyone with iTunes. Give it a try, you’ll never know how you lived without it.

Product Page: Yellow Mug

Note: I realize that with some tweaking, most of this can be done with Quicksilver but the selling point of this application is the floater. It pops up and shows the info of the current song then goes away… like magic!

The reason you can’t buy it is because it, like iSqunt, is free! Handbrake has the ability to rip a DVD to a plethora of formats including the near universal mp4. It is also extremely simple to use; just insert the DVD, open the program, and rip away.

In most cases, the default settings work perfectly; however, you can tweak the settings to your personal preference if need be by adjusting the quality (bitrate) of both the video and the sound. If hard drive space is an issue, you can limit the size of the file as well. Beyond basic quality and file size adjustments, there are dozens of other settings that I cannot begin to comprehend such as “B-frames”.

Handbrake is great application to have, even if you have no current plans to use it because you never know when you might need to rip a DVD.

Product Page: Handbrake

Technorati Tags: DVD, Movies, Ripper, Videos

A fun feature in iTunes for listening to music is Party Shuffle, which is iTunes’ way of putting your music into a continuously changing playlist that behaves a little differently from regular playlists or the music library. The amount of changes and customization possible with it is quite impressive.

To get to Party Shuffle, simply select it from the sidebar, under Playlists.

Source

From that default Party Shuffle page, there is a list of options at the bottom of the page. (Picture below.) The first option is what the source of the shuffled songs is. I personally usually select my Favorites folder, which contains playlists of all my favorite artists, as well as other miscellaneous favorites. The source can be any regular or smart playlist, any folder, the music library, or your purchased music playlist.

Select Higher-Rated Songs

The next option is whether you want to “[p]lay higher rated songs more often.” Like it says, checking this box will make Party Shuffle search for songs with higher ratings.

Display

To the right of the previous two options, iTunes offers two drop-down menus that let you choose how to display your music. The first asks how many recently played songs to display. Put more in and you’ll be able to find recently played stuff for longer. Of course, you can just use a simple Recently Played playlist for this. The second drop-down asks how many upcoming songs to show. If you put this at a higher number, you can look ahead and weed out songs you don’t want played sooner, or rearrange the play order more easily.

If you lower the recently played count and then raise it again, it will not show the old recently played tracks, but start from scratch.

If you lower the upcoming songs count, it doesn’t just stop displaying them, but actually takes them off the list. Once new songs appear or you extend the list, different songs will be added to the shuffle.

Refresh

To the right of those previous options is a Refresh button. Pressing it will re-shuffle the upcoming songs, as well as the current song, unless it is currently playing. It won’t, of course, remove the previously displayed songs.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iTunes, Smart Shuffle

In today’s world, there are way too many video files: MP4, avi, divX, wav, flv, swf, 3gp, mpg, and h.264 to name a few.

The great new is, you don’t have to deal with them!With iSquint, one of my favorite pieces of freeware, you can convert virtually any video file to the iPod/iTunes friendly .mp4 (or h.264). Just drag and drop, choose the desired quality, press start, and wait. A while later, you have a fully Quicktime/iTunes compatible video.

Although the interface is simple, it is robust as well. If you click “Advanced” you are presented with a the option of cropping the video, changing the bitrate and framerate, as well as the audio quality and the final resolution. Be forewarned, I have not yet found a way to convert Real Media (.rm/.ram) yet.

Product Page: iSquint

Technorati Tags: converter, iPod, iTunes, video

One of the cool features in iTunes is that you can tell it to start any song any given amount of time after the actual beginning and/or to stop it before the end.

To do this, simply Control-Click a song and select “Get Info” or press Command-I after highlighting the song. Then, select the “Options” pane and enter your new start and end times in the appropriate boxes. Make sure that the appropriate check boxes are checked, otherwise the new times will not take effect.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iTunes, OS X, Start Time, End Time

When creating a Smart Playlist for your music, sometimes some video files manage to sneak in there. To get rid of them, simply add “Video Kind is not Movie,” “Video Kind is not Music Video,” and “Video Kind is not TV Show” to the criteria for the Smart Playlist, and make sure the playlist is set to match “All.”

Technorati Tags: Apple, iTunes, Smart Playlist, Sorting

I personally am a complete freak about having my whole iTunes library (30 GB+) perfectly formatted, and put in a lot of time to keep the files conformed. In order to deal with formatting thousands of songs and videos, I use a few tricks. One trick is the powerful Smart Playlists feature in iTunes.

If you want to find all of your non-MP3 or non-AAC (whichever format you prefer) files and convert them from their current state, you can set up a convenient little Smart Playlist that lets you deal with this.

Simply press File, then “New Smart Playlist….” (On Mac, the keyboard shortcut is Command-Option-N.) In the criteria menu, specify “Kind,” “is not,” and then type in your preferred format. This will create a live-updating playlist of all the songs that are not in your preferred format that need fixing. Annoyingly, iTunes names the playlist after the format you disapprove of, so you’ll probably want to add a “Non-” prefix to the beginning.

Technorati Tags: Apple, MP3, Smart Playlist, iTunes, Keyboard Shortcut

Quicksilver, a ridiculously powerful application-launcher, can be used to set up iTunes keyboard shortcuts. To set up these “triggers,” launch Quicksilver and click on its menu bar icon or control-click its dock icon and select “Triggers….” Then, select iTunes in the bar on the left. This brings up a list of every shortcut you could possibly set through the application. Click in the “Trigger” column of whichever triggers you want to use, then enter the keyboard shortcut.

Personally, I use these:
Next Song: Option-M
Previous Song: Option-N
Pause: Option-P
Play: Option-[
Set Rating to 0-5: Option-0-5

Technorati Tags: Apple, Quicksilver, iTunes, Keyboard Shortcuts, OS X

When in the iTunes mini-view, select iTunes and hover the mouse over the window.To easily shift the volume up and down, scroll up or down to turn the volume up or down, respectively. Another way to do this is Command-Up Arrow and Command-Down Arrow.

Technorati Tags: iTunes, keyboard shortcuts, iTunes Shortcut, Volume

There are a couple ways you can go about this process. If your songs are too quiet you can adjust their volume in iTunes.

This is easily done with selecting the songs you want to boost (Control+Click, Shift+Click or ).

Control+Click or right click and select Get Info. Select the checkbox and slide the volume bar up to 100%. Select OK and your songs will be updated. Be sure to sync your iPod with the new songs.

If your iPod is too quiet, there is a program out there called goPod that will increase it’s volume.

Technorati Tags: ipod volume, itunes volume, godpod