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itunes Update and the iTunes DJ


Monday May 21, 2012

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Apple released a new iTunes Update and the iTunes DJ. The iTunes Remote turns your iPhone or iPod touch into a dedicated, wireless remote control for any iTunes library on your local network, whether you’re running iTunes on Windows or OS X. Take control of your music via iPhone! iTunes DJ allows your friends and family to have a say in whats being listened to. Setting up Remote is simple and safe. A unique passcode pairs your iPod touch or iPhone with your computer and Apple TV.

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Apple’s iPad might have some competition in the coming months with the recent talk about a Google Tablet. Google just released the Nexus One which was their version of the iPhone in the US. It looks like Google now wants to curb the iPad (release date March 2010) sales with their own spin. Glen Murphy, Google’s user interface designer, presented what the Google Tablet might look like and created a video of how one will use the device. If I had to guess, the Google Tablet will possess many things that the iPad lacks.

In 2009 Google announced that they would be releasing an Operating System, Chrome OS, which would work and be based around a web browser. This would be mainly for small netbooks, which would have fast boot up times and give the user ease of access to the sleuth of Google applications. Along with releasing a Chrome Netbook this year, Google is considering applying the same platform to a tablet, desktops, and flat screen T.V.s. It will be very interesting to see how we will apply Chromium to our lives.

“Chrome OS is still in development and we are constantly experimenting with various user interfaces to determine what designs would produce the best user experience”. Now Apple and Google are in a feud! This is a good thing, because it will force them to one up each other which is great for the consumer. Without competition Apple could take its sweet time making the iPad the way that the users want it. Now Apple has to cater to the needs and demands of the consumer which is the way it should be. Apple will still be the powerhouse in this field of devices; they are ahead of the game in many ways. “It’s easy to do hardware, it’s really hard to create an ecosystem and Apple’s got a head-start on everybody because they’ve been doing this for four to five years, based around iTunes”, said Gartner analyst Robin Simpson.

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Create your own Unique Ringtone with Audiko, using their cut and share technology. Not only can you make ringtones from your own music, but you can extract music directly from YouTube videos. If you are like me and you think that paying to make a ringtone from a song you have already paid for through iTunes is not that great, then Audiko.net is your solution! Audiko has very simple user-friendly instructions for creating your own ringtones. Audiko will create your ringtone in the iPhone accepted format; all you need to do is drag the file into the Ringtones folder of iTunes and upload it to your iPhone.

Just see for Yourself:
Whiskey-Change-survival-of-the-fittest.m4r

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Recently my 30GB Video Ipod started giving me trouble. The sound into my headphones was reduced to ‘mono’, coming through only the left earbud. I then contacted Apple and figured out the ipod was beyond repair- and yes I tried multiple pairs of headphones, which is not the issue.

As a result I figured I needed a new mp3 player but I had a large percentage of songs on my ipod that are not in my library. Therefore, I figured my next steps had to be to backup all my ipod contents, again in order to not lose a significant amount of music.
Ipod Copy Expert is the tool I used to perform this task of allowing me to backup my data; kind of a reverse Itunes Library. In my own example this allowed me to then put my entire library of songs onto a new or in my case, my wife’s ipod. Many people who like this tool just want a backup of their data to cover a lost/stolen or broken ipod, etc.
There is a $20 charge to use the full version of this software, but that is the price of recovering just 20 songs; so for me this was a no brainer. The interface itself acts like your Itunes library and is very simply to operate.
Go try out the free version (below) and reply/comment with what you think and with what your experience was.