iTunes Tuesday: New This Month June 30th, 2009 @ 6:23 am PDT
Sometimes you just want to be able to quickly get to the new stuff. That’s why I have a Smart Playlist called “New This Month”. This playlist contains all the tracks I’ve added in the last month, and I keep it synchronized with both my iPhone and with my iPod Nano. I always have all […]
iTunes Tuesday: Groupings June 23rd, 2009 @ 5:30 am PDT
In which I explain how to easily tag tracks in iTunes
iTunes Tuesday: Show Minibrowser June 2nd, 2009 @ 7:30 am PDT
You know that cool minibrowser that you see at the top of your Music library? You can use it to see all the genres, artists, and albums in the current group of tracks. It’s a pretty handy way to “drill down” into your collection. By default it does not display when you’re viewing one of […]
iTunes Tuesday: Beatles and Bob May 26th, 2009 @ 7:34 am PDT
If you put a gun to my head and forced me to pick my favorite band, I’d have to go with The Beatles. (You could just ask me, though. What’s with the gun? Chill out, psycho.) I have — as far as I know — every track they ever recorded, and it’s not a stretch […]
iTunes Tuesday: Unranked Songs May 19th, 2009 @ 6:00 am PDT
One of the keys to being able to build useful smart playlists in iTunes is having your tracks ranked. (It’s so important that I made it #4 on my Five Tips for Smarter Playlists a few years ago.) I try to be vigilant when it comes to ranking my songs, but (a) I need to […]
Running Playlist January 7th, 2009 @ 10:39 am PST
My five-mile time last night was 47:16. That’s not exactly stellar, but I’ll take it. Thirty miles down, 1,795 to go. I have a playlist on my Nano with about 75 songs on it. They’re all great “running” songs, either because of the tempo or just because they’re motivational. Here are the tracks I heard […]
Not Quite Genius September 9th, 2008 @ 11:24 pm PDT
So Apple released a new version of iTunes today. Version 8 includes a new feature called “Genius”. Play a song, click the Genius button, and iTunes creates a playlist of other songs from your library that go great together. This sounds like a cool idea, although I consider myself already pretty handy at creating smart […]
Build Better Smart Playlists August 26th, 2008 @ 12:28 am PDT
There is a secret to creating killer Smart Playlists in iTunes. You have to know what not to play. The best way to do that is with an “ignore list”. And I’m going to show you how to make one. For several years now iTunes has given you the ability to use playlists themselves as […]
Using Last Skipped in Smart Playlists April 10th, 2008 @ 10:24 am PDT
Bryan has posted an elaborate examination of the “Play Count” metric used by iTunes. I, too, use the “Play Count” metric as a component of many of my Smart Playlists, so I was interested in his research. I agree with one of the comments on his post, though, and think that iTunes really simply considers […]
Creating Smarter Playlists June 14th, 2007 @ 8:55 pm PDT
In which I explain some iTunes tricks
