Two Percent Nation

Rate your music on your iPod

I'm pretty sure this isn't news, but it's news to me.  Not that I'm an iPod expert, but I figure if I just found this out maybe I can inform some of you.  It turns out you can rate the songs on your iPod from the iPod itself and have those ratings sync back to iTunes.

I'd always been intrigued by the My Rating feature of iTunes (there's a built-in "My Top Rated" playlist on the iPod) but never found it that useful to me because I spend very little time listening to music while using my home PC.   This is one of the reasons I don't use the popular music recommendation service Last.fm.  Plus the idea of going through my songs one-by-one to rate them has never been that appealing.  Since most of the time I spend listening to my music is when I'm commuting and I have my iPod on shuffle, I always thought this would be the ideal time for me to rate my songs - especially because it would sort of force me to rate songs I don't like as much.  If I was just rating songs in iTunes without listening to them I  would probably just jump to the ones I really like. 

Turns out this is actually possible and probably has been for some time. Unfortunately Apple's release notes for iTunes are scant on details and practically nonexistent so it's hard to know how long this has been around.  Apple's support site also has very little info on this - I only found mention of it in the Fifth Generation iPod Features Guide - which makes me wonder if it was a new feature with these models.  Anyway, here are the instructions from the features guide:

Rating Songs
You can assign a rating to a song (from 1 to 5 stars) to indicate how much you like it.
You can use song ratings to help you create Smart Playlists automatically in iTunes.
To rate a song:
1 Start playing the song.
2 From the Now Playing screen, press the Center button until you see the rating screen
(showing either bullet points, stars, or a combination of both).
3 Use the Click Wheel to choose a rating.
Note: You cannot assign ratings to podcasts.

Something else I'll point out is that by default the scroll wheel controls the volume when you're playing a song.  You can hold down the back and forward buttons to fast forward within a song.  The firs time you press the center button you have a different kind of progress indicator - a diamond rather than a bar.  In this mode the scroll wheel controls fast forwarding and rewinding.  Pressing the center button again puts you into the 5 star rating mode.  Pretty cool.

Technocrati tags: iPod

iPod My Baby

It's been nearly three months since I've posted to this blog. Coincidentally, nearly three months ago my wife and I welcomed into the world our first child. So I thought it only appropriate that my first post since his birth be in some way related to him.

A month after our son was born our close friends also had a baby boy.  As longtime Mac and iPod fans, and with a last name of Cohen, they often joked before the baby was born that they'd name their baby either iPod Cohen or Owen Cohen. Around the time their baby was born I stumbled across the www.ipodmybaby.com website* and found the perfect baby gift.  ipodmybaby.com sells onesies and shirts for babies that have clickwheels silkscreened on the chest and come in the familiar iPod and iPod mini colors.  I ordered one right away for both our sons.

The onesies came earlier than promised (the site set low expectations for delivery time) which was right when our friend's baby was born.  I really wanted to have his onesie personalized with "iPod Cohen" on the back, just like Apple has laser engraving when you buy an iPod from apple.com, but ipodmybaby.com doesn't offer this.  I had one day to figure out how to get this done  because we were seeing them the next day and I wanted to give them the gift. 

I posted on Craig's List to see if I could find someone who could turnaround same-day embroidery for cheap.  While I didn't find someone that fit the bill someone did email me to suggest that I could find a shop in Manhattan's Garment District that would do just that.  Lo and behold I found such a place in Jonathan Embroidery on W. 38th St.  I brought in the onesie in the morning, worked with them to pick out the font that best matched the iPod font and at the end of the day they had embroidered iPod Cohen on the back for about $12.  Ah, the magic of Manhattan.

Below is a picture of our baby in his iPod onesie with the iPod mini he has appropriated from his mother.

*Notes:
1. The ipodmybaby.com people are also the people behind ipodmyphoto.com. 
2.  Since visiting the site to buy the shirt the site has been renamed to ipopmybaby - clearly the lawyers at Apple got to them.

Technorati tags: iPod

The $6.35 alternative to Apple's AirPort Express

Last week my wife through threw me a 30th birthday party at our home. While I helped out with all of the preparations my main concern was getting the music ready. 

For a while I've been using TiVo Desktop to stream music to my home stereo system via my wireless network.  I love this feature of the TiVo Series 2 as well as being able to view our digital photos on our TV.  The downsides of the Music feature is that it can't play music files with DRM and it can't play playlists (as far as I know). Since I purchase music from the iTunes Music Store fairly often this is kind of a hassle.

So I was considering getting the $129 Apple AirPort Express so I could stream all my music from iTunes and set up exactly the playlist I wanted for this party and others. I hesitated because I didn't really want to run the wire to my stereo and I kept thinking this was an overkill solution for our two-bedroom apartment.

And then it dawned on  me.  Why not just plug my iPod directly into my stereo?  This would have also required getting back behind my stereo for wiring except my VCR has RCA inputs in the front!  This way I could just set my VCR to the AUX input and set my stereo to play the audio from the VCR. So I went to Radio Shack and bought a 1/8" to RCA cable (specifically packaged for connecting portable music players to stereos) for $6.35.  The whole thing worked like a charm (see photo at left) and I played my party playlist straight from the iPod.  My wife was extremely glad she didn't buy me the Airport Express.

Technorati tag: iPod

DMB Randalls Island Rhapsody Sampler

Here's the DMB Randalls Island Sampler playlist I made using Rhapsody.

Description: A Rhapsody playlist featuring the artists appearing at the Dave Matthews Band Randall's Island Getaway in NYC on 7/30/05 and 7/31/05.

1. I Need More Love - Robert Randolph & The...
2. Just A Ride - Jem
3. Tremendous Brunettes - Mike Doughty
4. Celebrity - Barenaked Ladies
5. Busting Up A Starbucks - Mike Doughty
6. Trouble - Ray Lamontagne
7. White Lexus - Mike Doughty
8. What A Good Boy - Barenaked Ladies
9. Wish I - Jem
10. Shelter - Ray Lamontagne
11. They - Jem
12. Shoe Box - Barenaked Ladies
13. Squeeze - Robert Randolph & The...
14. Tripping Billies - Dave Matthews Band
15. Christmas Song - Dave Matthews/Tim Reynolds

How To Play This Music
To play this music, simply click on the playlist name above.
Don't have Rhapsody?  No problem.
Once you click, just follow the instructions to get the player and try Rhapsody for FREE.

Pocket Tunes Portable Music Subscriptions Support Released

The NormSoft Pocket Tunes upgrade I scooped last month was finally released yesterday.  Funny that the press release has a quote from a Palm exec but none from the NormSoft guys.

I'm really curious to see the uptake from Palm users and whether this can have a measurable impact on the portable music subscription market. Given the few Janus-compatible music players this significantly increases the market of compatible devices out there. HOWEVER, I was seriously bummed to find out the Pocket Tunes online music support is not available for the Treo 600, just the Treo 650. May tip me over the edge to finally upgrade to the 650 ... was really looking forward to syncing my Rhapsody subscription to my Treo.

Portable Music Subscriptions Coming to Palm Devices

On the last day of the Handango Partner Summit 2005, there was a Developer Showcase that gave a few software developers the opportunity to showcase their current mobile product or new and upcoming versions.  Far and away the most momentous of the four demos was the demo by NormSoft of the latest version of Pocket Tunes Deluxe due out in July. 

PocketTunes is arguably the most popular and succesful music player software for Palm devices (I'm ahead of the palmOne folks in dropping the "One").  Targeted at Treo owners, the current version was already innovative in its ability to let users listen to streaming mp3's via Shoutcast internet radio.  From a business standpoint they also had a major recent win by getting Palm to pre-install PocketTunes Basic on all of the new Palm LifeDrive devices (the ones with the 4GB hard drive).

The latest innovation from NormSoft is enabling Pocket Tunes compatibility with all major portable music subscription services.  While this RealNetworks press release hinted at this upcoming Pocket Tunes Deluxe release it only mentioned compatibility between LifeDrive devices and Rhapsody.  The demo from last Friday showed compatibility with Yahoo! Music Unlimited and the NormSoft representative said it would be compatible with all Palm OS 5 devices and all major subscription services including Napster, Yahoo! Music Unlimited and Rhapsody.

While I don't have the stats to back it up I'd argue there might be as many Palm OS 5 devices in the market as there are Janus-compatible digital music players, so this is big news for the portable music subscriptions business.

Can't wait to sync my Rhapsody collection with my Treo 600 so I can listen to the music I'm exploring while I'm on the go.  Still happy to use my iPod for my full music collection, though.  Just glad I don't have by another device . . .