Download CD Album Covers - Get Album Artwork Automatically With an iTunes Organizer

Having to download CD album covers for a massive iTunes library can be a dreadful process. I've been an avid iTunes user since I first got my iPod back in 2004. Everything about iTunes works perfectly except for one minor detail. Over six years of importing songs from CDs and mix tapes I'm stuck with a plethora of songs without the right album cover, or even any type of album cover at all!

The whole album cover debacle isn't as bad as my major pet peeve, missing song info! I was tired of looking through my songs and having them come up as Track 01, or just a song title and no artist information. I took to the internet to try and find a solution to this problem and after wading through so many programs that failed to deliver on their promise I stumbled across this nice little app called an ID3 tag editor.

This new mp3 manager was able to download CD album covers for all of the tracks that I had, and I really do mean all of them. Aside from being able to get album artwork, it was even able to find and remove duplicate tracks, leaving me with the higher quality song file. So all of these perks, and this program still has more to offer.

A quick rundown of features are as follows:

1. Download CD album covers


2. Find and remove duplicate tracks


3. Fixes song details (adds in details such as artist, album title, genre)


4. It's all automatic!

The iTunes organizer gives you a chance to clean up your music library without all the time and hassle it usually takes. I'm really happy I found this little gem of a program, I'm positive I did not want to sit down and sift through more than a thousand songs in an attempt to get my iTunes organized. And now I don't have to!

Mondays worrying story - FP Tech Desk: Apple iTunes user accounts hacked: reports

FP Tech Desk: Apple iTunes user accounts hacked: reports

JOHN D MCHUGH/AFP/Getty Images

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Jameson Berkow  July 5, 2010 – 2:27 pm

If you are an Apple developer having a hard time getting people to purchase your app, one way to convince them would be to hack into their iTunes accounts and make the purchase for them.

That is presumably the strategy of a rogue Vietnamese developer named Thuat Nguyen. According to several blogs, Mr. Nguyen reportedly hacked into an unknown number of iTunes user accounts over the past few weeks in order to facilitate the purchase of his own apps. By Sunday, Engadget reported that Nguyen apps accounted for 42 of the top 50 books by revenue in the Books section of the iTunes App Store.

On Monday, TheNextWeb Apple blog reported the problem was not limited to a single hacker, saying that several Asia-based developers are using similar tactics to force users worldwide to download their apps. The goal of the strategy is not only to boost sales of their own apps, but to increase their popularity rank on the app store in hopes of encouraging other users to purchase their apps legitimately.

Users posting on Twitter and message boards have reported anywhere from under US$100 to over US$1000 being spent through their accounts without their knowledge.

“Yesterday my credit union contacted me saying there was suspicious activity on my debit card. Sure enough over 10 transactions in the $40-$50 area all on iTunes equaling to $558.” reads a recent post on the MacRumors forum.

“Most of the 15 purchases where for items that I don’t even own i.e. iphone (I have a blackberry) and iPod (I’m 47 and I still use a radio for my music). I was able to verify the $70.15 charge via mobile banking and immediately called my bank” reads another.

The breach was first noticed by two competing Apple developers, both of whom grew concerned when the popularity rankings of their own apps started to slip. After being informed of the suspicious activities, Apple has removed all apps authored by Thuat Nguyen and several other developers from the app store. While the tech giant has not released an official statement or responded to media requests for comment (including one from Financial Post), several users have reportedly been told to change their passwords.

News of a possible security breach could not be coming at a worse time for the world’s largest tech firm, already facing one of its worst public relations fiascos ever over reception issues with the new iPhone 4. Without an official statement from Apple, it is impossible to know with any certainty how many of the more than 100 million active iTunes accounts are at risk.

That said, Apple’s original advice is still correct: If you have an iTunes account, change your password and keep a close eye on those banking statements.

jberkow@nationalpost.com

Posted in: FP Posted, FP Tech Desk  Tags: FP Tech Desk, Apple Inc., iTunes, App Store, iPhone 4, Engadget, MacRumors, TheNextWeb

Apple Working On Cloud Capable iTunes

Apple Working On Cloud Capable iTunes

News of iTunes receiving a big upgrade late this summer introducing cloud capability have been running rampant recently. The update isn’t exactly a surprise for anyone as such a development has been widely anticipated for what seems like forever now but there are still doubts about a September rollout. A Boy Genius Report indicates the new cloud capabilities for iTunes will be partitioned into three groups:

1. Streaming music and movies from Apple’s servers to your computers, devices, etc.


2. Streaming music and movies from your home computers to your other computers, remote devices, etc.


3. Wireless iTunes syncing with devices.

Although all these features sound good, getting them up and working might take Apple longer then expected because some of them includes issues beyond Apple’s control that can continue to delay the iTunes update. An example of these issues include, licenses that Apple will need to obtain from a variety of content providers, including the top four music labels in the US. Although the company has been hard at work on the major iTunes tweaks since last Winter, it is possible that Google’s rumored and much discussed iTunes competitor (streaming music, with songs for download) could be released before iTunes gets the cloud capability that everyone has been anticipating.

Finally some good news - Is Apple poised to launch cloud-based iTunes service?

Is Apple poised to launch cloud-based iTunes service?

Apple is poised to launch a cloud version of its iTunes software, possibly providing a host of new services for the company’s dedicated users, according to Boy Genius Report.

Boy Genius said it believes the cloud-based service is coming soon. The rumor of the cloud version of iTunes has been around for a while and was fueled after Apple bought the Lala streaming music service. With cloud computing, the software for iTunes would reside in centralized servers in data centers, rather than on a specific user computer.

The advantage is that Apple would be able to use the cloud to stream music to a user, regardless of which device the user happens to be using. As long as the connectivity is decent, Apple could stream the music to an iPhone, iPad, Mac, PC, or any other web-connected device.

For users, cloud-based software could liberate them from having their music collections tied to a single computer. Boy Genius also said that you will be able to wirelessly sync iTunes to mobile devices, presumably via Wi-Fi connections. That gets rid of the hassle of tying your iPod or iPhone to a computer every day. Rdio has already launched a cloud-based music service, as have others (Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody), and Apple should do the same just to stay competitive. Fans have been asking for it for a long time.

We have sent a query to Apple for comment.

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Tags: itunes

Companies: Apple, lala

Puzzling itunes rumors: iTunes U Reaches 250 Million Downloads

iTunes U Reaches 250 Million Downloads

Note: This is a Page 2 News Item

The Loop reports that Apple's iTunes U channel for distributing educational content via the iTunes Store has surpassed 250 million downloads since its inception.

Everyone knows about the success of the iTunes Store and the amount of of music, video and apps that are downloaded, but there is a lesser known part of iTunes that is equally successful in its market.

Apple told me on Tuesday that iTunes U, the part of iTunes dedicated to educational content, has just surpassed 250 million downloads from users around the world.

The milestone appears to represent a significant acceleration in usage for iTunes U, as it was only six months ago that the service passed 100 million downloads.

iTunes U debuted in October 2005 as a partnership with Stanford University before officially launching in an expanded form in mid-2007. A number of prominent colleges and universities have joined the program to offer content over the years, with Harvard University notably coming on board in March of this year.

HP buys mobile music company Melodeo: Does anyone else feel worried

HP buys mobile music company Melodeo

Computer giant Hewlett-Packard has acquired Melodeo, a Seattle-based start-up that specializes in music applications and services for mobile devices, the companies confirmed on Wednesday.

Terms of the deal weren't disclosed, but an anonymous source told TechCrunch that the price was around $30 million. The acquisition vaults HP into the battle for mobile music services.

Shown here, Melodeo's Nutsie for Android lets users access iTunes playlists on their mobile phone. HP has acquired the company, and now could bring the service to its WebOS mobile platform.

(Credit: Melodeo)

I've written about Melodeo's products a couple of times, most recently in January, when I got a demo of a forthcoming update to Melodeo's Nutsie app for Android phones. Nutsie (the name is an anagram of iTunes) runs on several mobile platforms, and gives users a way to get music from the iTunes library on their computer to a mobile device over the air. Unfortunately, the current version of Nutsie only allows users to transfer iTunes playlists, not full libraries, and users can't navigate to single songs. It's more like Internet radio based on each user's personal iTunes library than true portability.

This was supposed to be fixed in the update I saw, which would let users upload their entire iTunes libraries to Nutsie's servers, then let Android phones access those full libraries over the air. Basically, Melodeo was building an online music locker, like what MP3Tunes offers. It sounded like a great solution for Android's weak spot in music, and I even speculated that Google might acquire Melodeo. But the updated Nutsie app hasn't come out yet, and when I contacted a spokesman about two weeks ago, he told me that Melodeo had some big news coming up that was delaying its product plans. This was it.

So what's HP going to do with Melodeo? My guess: it's going to build a music streaming service for the WebOS mobile device platform, which HP gained in its acquisition of Palm earlier this year.

All of the big mobile players are positioning themselves for a world in which consumers stream music from the cloud rather than downloading it directly to their devices. Apple bought streaming music company Lala in 2009 and shut the standalone service down in May, and it's reportedly in negotiations with record companies about using Lala's technology to build some sort of online music service. Google announced big music ambitions for Android at its I/O conference in May, including the acquisition of Simplify Media (which had an application for users to stream iTunes libraries directly from their computer to a mobile phone, with no online service in between), as well as plans to build an online iTunes competitor. Microsoft's Zune Pass subscription service is coming to Windows Phone 7 later this year, and the company could build a music locker service on top of SkyDrive, which offers 25GB of free online storage.

HP has technology called iStream for streaming music from its MediaSmart Server (based on Microsoft's Windows Home Server technology) to an iPhone. HP also teamed up with U.K.-based Omnifone in January to offer a subscription-based music service to PC users in Europe. But Melodeo ups the ante: HP now has the technology and people to help build its own online music service, competing with whatever the other big mobile players come up with.

The acquisition also has implications for smaller companies trying to come up with similar solutions, like HomePipe, which lets users stream music from their home computers to various mobile devices, and ParkVu, which just today announced its Music WithMe BlackBerry app that lets users upload iTunes music directly to their BlackBerry phones. Consolidation is underway, and companies like these may have to find a big benefactor to thrive in the coming mobile music battle.