How to fix your iTunes library with TuneUp

I have an iPhone and iPod and naturally I use iTunes to manage my music library through these devices. I am a neat person but for some reason until some week ago a lot of my tracks was mislabeled, without the album cover, hard to find and I didn't have the patience to fix them manually. So I searched for a solutions and I found TuneUp a great application for Mac and Windows that helped me clean and maintain neat my iTunes library searching for missing or inaccurate ID3 tags in my mp3 files. I bought a license some and the result has been really impressive.

TuneUp docks on the side of iTunes to make organizing your music easy. The only thing you have to do is to drag the track you want to fix into the TuneUp sidebar and the application fixes automatically your mislabeled music.

The Cover Art feature automatically searches your entire music collection for music files that are missing album artwork and fixes them. Cover Art lets you review all matches before the album art is saved to the file. Or you can take our first pick and "Save All." Now you can navigate iTunes using Cover Flow the way it was meant to be used.

Here is a screenshot of my iTunes library (click to enlarge)

TuneUp also enhance your listening experience with the Tuniverse feature that supplies you with the best music content on the web that's directly related to the track you're currently listening to in iTunes.

You can also stay tuned with the latest news of your favorite artists and buy tickets in just one click with the Concert feature.

TuneUp is available in two different options: a lifetime ($29.95) license or yearly license (price $19.95). You can also try a free version that cleans 100 songs and 50 album covers. I suggest you to try it!

 

How to fix your iTunes library with TuneUp

I have an iPhone and iPod and naturally I use iTunes to manage my music library through these devices. I am a neat person but for some reason until some week ago a lot of my tracks was mislabeled, without the album cover, hard to find and I didn't have the patience to fix them manually. So I searched for a solutions and I found TuneUp a great application for Mac and Windows that helped me clean and maintain neat my iTunes library searching for missing or inaccurate ID3 tags in my mp3 files. I bought a license some and the result has been really impressive.

TuneUp docks on the side of iTunes to make organizing your music easy. The only thing you have to do is to drag the track you want to fix into the TuneUp sidebar and the application fixes automatically your mislabeled music.

The Cover Art feature automatically searches your entire music collection for music files that are missing album artwork and fixes them. Cover Art lets you review all matches before the album art is saved to the file. Or you can take our first pick and "Save All." Now you can navigate iTunes using Cover Flow the way it was meant to be used.

Here is a screenshot of my iTunes library (click to enlarge)

TuneUp also enhance your listening experience with the Tuniverse feature that supplies you with the best music content on the web that's directly related to the track you're currently listening to in iTunes.

You can also stay tuned with the latest news of your favorite artists and buy tickets in just one click with the Concert feature.

TuneUp is available in two different options: a lifetime ($29.95) license or yearly license (price $19.95). You can also try a free version that cleans 100 songs and 50 album covers. I suggest you to try it!

 

How to implement a mobile version of your blog in three simple steps

After launching of the mobile version of woork I received a lot of messages from my readers that asked to me to dedicate a special post about this topic. So in this post I want to illustrate you a simple way to implement a mobile version of your blog/website in three simple steps using Mobify.me, an awesome on-line service that allow you to design mobile versions of a website just with some clicks.


Step 1: Select sections for your mobile layout
First thing to do is to create an account on Mobify.me. It's simple and free. Than you have to choose the URL of the website you want to "Mobify". It appears an interface that allows you to choose sections to add to the mobile version of your website. The only thing you have to do is to pass your mouse over a section (red borders appear automatically around the section) and click on to select it:

Remember that, in order to improve readability, templates for a mobile device have to be simple, preferably with a single-column layout. I suggest you to select only the section that contains your posts (selected in red in the previous image). You can add the header and footer in the next step using the Design view that allow you to have more control over the CSS and HTML code.

Step 2: Design CSS + HTML code
At this point you are ready to customize the layout of your mobile template using the Design view and adding for example a custom header and footer. How you can see in the following image, Design view is divided in two parts:

Left section contains the CSS code and right section a preview in real time of your website (you can choose several mobile devices such as iPhone, Nokia, BlackBerry). To customize header and footer choose the related link on the right menu. This is the window that appears:

You have only to add some lines of HTML code and press "save and close". Then you can add CSS code to customize all HTML elements of your template using the left section of the Design view:

How I said all changes you make to your code are in real time, so you can see how your template looks immediately in the right section of the Design view. When your code is ready click on the button save to save your mobile template.


Step 3: Publish your website
Now you are ready to publish the mobile version of your website. Publishing is very simple. You can publish your blog using your hosting service or directly Mobify.me hosting choosing an URL like this: http://yourname.mobify.me (if you use Blogger this is the best solutions!).

At this point you have to add in the tag <head> of your original template some lines of JavaScript code that allows to redirect visitors that use mobile devices to browse your website. The code is very simple:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://yourname.mobify.me/mobify/redirect.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">try{_mobify("http://yourname.mobify.me/");} catch(err) {};</script>

Save your template and don't forget to publish it otherwise the redirect doesn't works! Ok, your mobile version is now ready! Take a look at the final result trying to load your website from a mobile device. Simple no? And also free! Try to take a look at the mobile version of woork loading woork from your mobile device and tell me what you think about.

Any suggestion about this topic? Please leave a comment, thanks!

External Links

- Mobify.me

Related Posts

- The mobile version of Woork is on-line with Mobify.me

How to implement a mobile version of your blog in three simple steps

After launching of the mobile version of woork I received a lot of messages from my readers that asked to me to dedicate a special post about this topic. So in this post I want to illustrate you a simple way to implement a mobile version of your blog/website in three simple steps using Mobify.me, an awesome on-line service that allow you to design mobile versions of a website just with some clicks.


Step 1: Select sections for your mobile layout
First thing to do is to create an account on Mobify.me. It's simple and free. Than you have to choose the URL of the website you want to "Mobify". It appears an interface that allows you to choose sections to add to the mobile version of your website. The only thing you have to do is to pass your mouse over a section (red borders appear automatically around the section) and click on to select it:

Remember that, in order to improve readability, templates for a mobile device have to be simple, preferably with a single-column layout. I suggest you to select only the section that contains your posts (selected in red in the previous image). You can add the header and footer in the next step using the Design view that allow you to have more control over the CSS and HTML code.

Step 2: Design CSS + HTML code
At this point you are ready to customize the layout of your mobile template using the Design view and adding for example a custom header and footer. How you can see in the following image, Design view is divided in two parts:

Left section contains the CSS code and right section a preview in real time of your website (you can choose several mobile devices such as iPhone, Nokia, BlackBerry). To customize header and footer choose the related link on the right menu. This is the window that appears:

You have only to add some lines of HTML code and press "save and close". Then you can add CSS code to customize all HTML elements of your template using the left section of the Design view:

How I said all changes you make to your code are in real time, so you can see how your template looks immediately in the right section of the Design view. When your code is ready click on the button save to save your mobile template.


Step 3: Publish your website
Now you are ready to publish the mobile version of your website. Publishing is very simple. You can publish your blog using your hosting service or directly Mobify.me hosting choosing an URL like this: http://yourname.mobify.me (if you use Blogger this is the best solutions!).

At this point you have to add in the tag <head> of your original template some lines of JavaScript code that allows to redirect visitors that use mobile devices to browse your website. The code is very simple:

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://yourname.mobify.me/mobify/redirect.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">try{_mobify("http://yourname.mobify.me/");} catch(err) {};</script>

Save your template and don't forget to publish it otherwise the redirect doesn't works! Ok, your mobile version is now ready! Take a look at the final result trying to load your website from a mobile device. Simple no? And also free! Try to take a look at the mobile version of woork loading woork from your mobile device and tell me what you think about.

Any suggestion about this topic? Please leave a comment, thanks!

External Links

- Mobify.me

Related Posts

- The mobile version of Woork is on-line with Mobify.me

ColoRotate: browse and create your color palette in 3D

ColoRotate is a free online service that has some similarities to Adobe Kuler, but is different in that it's in 3D. Users can browse color palettes, create new palettes, and share palettes with others in the ColoRotate community.

Using ColoRotate 3D interface, you can quickly see the multidimensional nature of your colors and the relationships between colors in a way that matches how your eye and brain perceive color and change your colors one at a time, blend two colors together, or transform a full palette of colors all at once with contrast and color joysticks � adjustments that previously have been beyond your reach. With ColoRotate�s quick drag-and-drop you can adjust hue, brightness, and saturation. Import and export in Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE). Soon, you�ll be able to save even more time with a Photoshop Plugin.

You can also post on-line your palettes, and tag palettes to engage with the ColoRotate community, or discussions. In the future, look for features like comments and ratings.
ColoRotate has an intuitive interface that eliminates the need to memorize or jot down color combinations or numbers. Indeed, you can traverse across an open three-dimensional color space and choose (or design) the color palette that fits your needs. In the process, you can uncover color relationships that give your designs an aesthetic balance that will please the most discriminating eye.

Related Content

- Best resources on-line for color schemes generators

ColoRotate: browse and create your color palette in 3D

ColoRotate is a free online service that has some similarities to Adobe Kuler, but is different in that it's in 3D. Users can browse color palettes, create new palettes, and share palettes with others in the ColoRotate community.

Using ColoRotate 3D interface, you can quickly see the multidimensional nature of your colors and the relationships between colors in a way that matches how your eye and brain perceive color and change your colors one at a time, blend two colors together, or transform a full palette of colors all at once with contrast and color joysticks � adjustments that previously have been beyond your reach. With ColoRotate�s quick drag-and-drop you can adjust hue, brightness, and saturation. Import and export in Adobe Swatch Exchange (ASE). Soon, you�ll be able to save even more time with a Photoshop Plugin.

You can also post on-line your palettes, and tag palettes to engage with the ColoRotate community, or discussions. In the future, look for features like comments and ratings.
ColoRotate has an intuitive interface that eliminates the need to memorize or jot down color combinations or numbers. Indeed, you can traverse across an open three-dimensional color space and choose (or design) the color palette that fits your needs. In the process, you can uncover color relationships that give your designs an aesthetic balance that will please the most discriminating eye.

Related Content

- Best resources on-line for color schemes generators

8 Interesting Adobe AIR applications for web lovers

I like Adobe AIR. With AIR you can develope rich internet applications that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems. In this post I want to share with you some really interesting Adobe AIR applications for web lovers: this list includes some social-network clients, developer tools, and mashup applications.


1. TIME 100 desktop application
TIME 100 allows you to access to the complete archive of past and present honorees on the TIME 100 annual list of the �World's Most Influential People�.

I think it's one of the most interesting applications actually in circulation. Take it a look!


2. DestroyTwitter
DestroyTwitter is a robust but compact Twitter application built on the Adobe AIR platform. It consists of a series of canvases that constantly update to keep tweets current and up-to-date using notifications that appear immediately after a new tweet arrives.

DestroyTwitter also features complete direct messaging functionality. Messages and tweets can be replied to with the original visible for quick and easy reference. A search function is also available to track anything that's being talked about.


3. Feedalizr
Feedalizr is a social media desktop client that keeps track of updates from friendfeed, twitter, facebook, Flickr, Twitpic & jaiku. It offers full support for these services so that users can interact, i.e. comment, like, favorite, tweet, reply etc. and their updates are instantly reflected on the services website and added to their stream.

4. Skimmer
Skimmer is an Adobe AIR desktop application designed to streamline, beautify, and enhance the experience of participating in your most frequently used social networking activities.

It improves upon your day-to-day interaction with multiple social networks, removing distractions and providing a rich experience that is particularly suited to multimedia content.


5. Icon Generator
Icon Generator is a little application that lets you generate a CS3 or Web 2.0 style icon, only 3 step. Pick color, type characters, and save it. Just create 4 different sizes of the icon.

6. Kuler Desktop
Kuler is an online application to create and share color harmonies. With this AIR application you can search and import Kuler themes directly into Creative Suite 3 Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop.

You can also view the highest tated, most popular, newest, and randomly selected themes. Drag and drop themes as transparent "tear offs," to scale and view over any application.


7. Lita
Lita is an administration interface for SQLite databases. It lets you edit your databases structure and data in a dedicated environment.

With Lita you can open, create, compact databases; create, rename, delete, and empty tables; Easily run, import and export your custom SQL statements.


8. Bookmash
Bookmash is a mashup application which allows you to find quickly videos, music, photos, people and news on line.

Any suggestions about other interesting AIR applications? Please leave a comment!

8 Interesting Adobe AIR applications for web lovers

I like Adobe AIR. With AIR you can develope rich internet applications that run outside the browser on multiple operating systems. In this post I want to share with you some really interesting Adobe AIR applications for web lovers: this list includes some social-network clients, developer tools, and mashup applications.


1. TIME 100 desktop application
TIME 100 allows you to access to the complete archive of past and present honorees on the TIME 100 annual list of the �World's Most Influential People�.

I think it's one of the most interesting applications actually in circulation. Take it a look!


2. DestroyTwitter
DestroyTwitter is a robust but compact Twitter application built on the Adobe AIR platform. It consists of a series of canvases that constantly update to keep tweets current and up-to-date using notifications that appear immediately after a new tweet arrives.

DestroyTwitter also features complete direct messaging functionality. Messages and tweets can be replied to with the original visible for quick and easy reference. A search function is also available to track anything that's being talked about.


3. Feedalizr
Feedalizr is a social media desktop client that keeps track of updates from friendfeed, twitter, facebook, Flickr, Twitpic & jaiku. It offers full support for these services so that users can interact, i.e. comment, like, favorite, tweet, reply etc. and their updates are instantly reflected on the services website and added to their stream.

4. Skimmer
Skimmer is an Adobe AIR desktop application designed to streamline, beautify, and enhance the experience of participating in your most frequently used social networking activities.

It improves upon your day-to-day interaction with multiple social networks, removing distractions and providing a rich experience that is particularly suited to multimedia content.


5. Icon Generator
Icon Generator is a little application that lets you generate a CS3 or Web 2.0 style icon, only 3 step. Pick color, type characters, and save it. Just create 4 different sizes of the icon.

6. Kuler Desktop
Kuler is an online application to create and share color harmonies. With this AIR application you can search and import Kuler themes directly into Creative Suite 3 Illustrator, InDesign, and Photoshop.

You can also view the highest tated, most popular, newest, and randomly selected themes. Drag and drop themes as transparent "tear offs," to scale and view over any application.


7. Lita
Lita is an administration interface for SQLite databases. It lets you edit your databases structure and data in a dedicated environment.

With Lita you can open, create, compact databases; create, rename, delete, and empty tables; Easily run, import and export your custom SQL statements.


8. Bookmash
Bookmash is a mashup application which allows you to find quickly videos, music, photos, people and news on line.

Any suggestions about other interesting AIR applications? Please leave a comment!

My Tiny TodoList | A simple open source todolist written in PHP and jQuery

My Tiny TodoList is a totally free, simple open source todolist written in PHP and jQuery released from Max Pozdeev and based on my original MyToDoList application.

Using MyTiny TodoList you can add, modify or delete tasks, mark a task as completed and set task priority. Max improved a lot the interface with some nice jQuery effects and other general improvements. The result is very interesting and I suggest you to take it a look.

Max Pozdeev MyTinyTodoList Website
MyTinyTodoList Demo




Some screenshots:

Install My Tiny TodoList

1. Download, unpack and upload to your site.
2. If you want to use Mysql database instead of Sqlite - uncomment the line begining with $config['mysql'] in file 'init.php' and specify your settings as described in file.
Otherwise sqlite database file 'todolist.db' will be created in directory 'db'. If no - create it manually and make it writeble for webserver/php.
3. Open in your browser file 'dba.php' from your site and create tables in databse.
4. Open 'index.php' in your browser to run the application.

My Tiny TodoList | A simple open source todolist written in PHP and jQuery

My Tiny TodoList is a totally free, simple open source todolist written in PHP and jQuery released from Max Pozdeev and based on my original MyToDoList application.

Using MyTiny TodoList you can add, modify or delete tasks, mark a task as completed and set task priority. Max improved a lot the interface with some nice jQuery effects and other general improvements. The result is very interesting and I suggest you to take it a look.

Max Pozdeev MyTinyTodoList Website
MyTinyTodoList Demo




Some screenshots:

Install My Tiny TodoList

1. Download, unpack and upload to your site.
2. If you want to use Mysql database instead of Sqlite - uncomment the line begining with $config['mysql'] in file 'init.php' and specify your settings as described in file.
Otherwise sqlite database file 'todolist.db' will be created in directory 'db'. If no - create it manually and make it writeble for webserver/php.
3. Open in your browser file 'dba.php' from your site and create tables in databse.
4. Open 'index.php' in your browser to run the application.

Two fantastic free services to enrich your blog

Today I want to suggest two fantastic free services which can help you to enrich your blog adding new interesting contents on your pages: Apture to add multimedia content on your website (photo, text, links...) and blipBack a nice widget to receive video comments from your friends.

Apture: I discovered this great service some day ago and I like it immediatly. What is Apture? Apture is a free service to add multimedia to your website with one click, integrate text, images, video, maps, music, documents, presentations and more from 20+ sources. In this way you'll keep visitors on your site, instead of sending them away.

But how does Apture work? Before to use it you have to sign-up, create for free your own account and add one o more websites. Second step is to install Apture code on your pages. Installation process supports the most popular blog platforms and doesn't require particular knowledge of HTML... so you can add Apture on your website just with one click! After installing you are ready to add all media you want on your pages. When you browse your website a little window like this (Apture Dashboard) will appear on pages. The only thing you have to do in order to add a link to a multimedia content is to select a text with your mouse and choose the source you want to link from the search window. The result? Take a look for example at the following links: usability, or at Barack Obama or Delicate.

blipBack: blipBack is a new service which allows you to add a video comment system on your website or social profiles (Facebook, MySpace...). In this way anyone with a webcam or video-enabled phone can leave a video message on your pages. The only thing you have to do is install the code or embed this widget into your pages.

Any suggestions? Add a comment!

Related content

Free online services to bring more value to your blog