Several years ago I switched to using iTunes for managing my music library about the time I got my first iPod. Now that I’ve developed a few good techniques for organizing things efficiently, I can’t imagine doing it any other way. Since then, I’ve added videos, movies, TV shows, and Audiobooks to the media which I keep organized with iTunes.

When I first started, I had a directory tree full of mp3 files with very inconsistent ID3 tags. Many of them were wrong or missing song titles, artists, album names, etc. So, before importing them into the iTunes library I used the Music Brainz Tagger to try to identify songs and clean up my metatags. It works very well and you end up contributing a lot of good information back to the Music Brainz project by using it. Album art came later, but you can use newer iTunes versions to find most of the art and the Yahoo! Widget called “iTunes Companion” to fill in the rest.

Now that you have the meta-data as accurate and complete as possible, I recommend you set your iTunes Music Library directory and import the entire “old” directory of mp3s. Before you do, turn on the options to allow iTunes to keep your music folder organized and to copy the file to the library. You will end up with a consistent directory structure based on artist, album, and song. By copying the files to your library, iTunes will prompt you to also delete the underlying file when deleting a song from the library rather than removing the link and leaving the file. You can clean up the “old” directory later.

Now it’s time to decide how you want to organize your collection. I organize by the types of media I may want to consume at any given time:

• Podcasts
• Music – Clean
• Music – Explicit
• Standup Comedy
• Purchased Music
• Childrens
• Audiobook
• Movies
• TV Shows
• Music Videos
• and so on…

These will be populated to the grouping field and along with the genre, artist, playcount, and a few other fields let me create smart playlists for almost any type of situation.

• Each audiobook gets it’s own playlist – (title contains “iTunes of Dummies”) AND (grouping is “Audiobook”) and (playcount is 0). Also be sure to check “Remember playback position” and “skip when shuffling” for best results.
• All music – (grouping contains “Music”)
• Clean music (grouping is “Music – Clean”)
• Podcasts – (podcast is “true”) and (playcount is 0)
• and so on..

So if grouping is so important, how can you go through your entire library if you have thousands of songs? It takes time, but I developed a simple system for it. First, I set the grouping on all songs to “Music – Check”, reset the playcount to 0, and set the rating to 3 stars. Another smart playlist and I have a way to know which songs haven’t yet been checked.

As I’m listening on my iPod, I can use the rating system to mark how I want to classify a song.

• 1 star – delete altogether
• 2 stars – explicit lyrics
• 3 stars – default
• 4 stars – clean lyrics

The next time I synch my iPod, the ratings will be updated and I can sort by rating to bulk update grouping fields. Eventually your “unchecked” smart playlist will be whittled down to nothing.

I know it’s made my life easier to have my iTunes library organized in a way that I can quickly find what I want based on my current mood. Give it a try!

I caught up on podcasts today from when I was out of town last week. The last four I watched/listened to mentioned twitter in some fashion: Ask a Ninja, TWiT, Buzz Out Loud, and even Rocketboom.

Maybe it’s fallout from SXSW last week since everyone was talking about it there… or maybe it’s something bigger. A meme. Yeah, that’s it.

I dunno.. no one can explain the appeal of Twitter. Everyone says, “that’s stupid” when they first hear about it but most everyone comes around eventually to finding something compelling about it.

Go watch Twittervision and see for yourself.

I really do it right.

No one knows this, but we recorded episode 101 on February 26th of the Bits of Silicon Hell podcast. I posted it the next day, but somehow it got marked as private. So, it looks like no one actually downloaded as far as I can tell. I noticed this because all of the podcasts sites were showing out latest show as 100 from February 17th. The post for 101 was showing to me because I was logged into WordPress.

The weird thing I usually catch it when a post gets marked as private because it doesn’t download in iTunes and get put on my iPod (I always listen to every show on the iPod just to verify all of the plumbing is working). However, even when I changed the post back to published iTunes didn’t download 101. It just downloaded 102, which I just posted tonight. How is that possible? iTunes can’t be logged into wordpress. Plus, the RSS feed is sanitized through feedburner even if iTunes could login to wordpress.

So, we recorded episode 101 but didn’t post it (essentially) and then due to real-life commitments didn’t do a show for two weeks. It’s a wonder anyone is still subscribed!

*shock* *horror* Twitter is down. Going to Twitter.com just takes you to blank page. Even Twittermap and Twittervision have no new updates!

What am I going to do now?!

I try to be very careful about my ‘online identity’ (i.e. Google vanity search). I prefer to find only profession/professional type entries when I vanity search my full name. This is especially important because I have a very unique last name and any entries associated with it would definitely be me. So, I want any potential employer, client, creditor, whatever to be able to find only most positive and professional information about me.

I discovered several weeks back that doing a vanity searched revealed a) I produce a podcast and b) a link to my last.fm profile. I found this out because a vendor I was meeting with (to potentially purchase their product) had done his homework and started asking me about the podcast. The podcast isn’t so bad because it’s tech-related, but I still don’t want my current employer to connect the two. I wouldn’t want them to worry I’m going to say anything I shouldn’t. Not only that, but my employer doesn’t need a list of music I listen to. I want to share my music with my friends, not with my employer.

I’ve heard too many stories of things people said online (myspace, blog, forum, mailing list, etc) coming back to haunt them. Granted, I’m not all that controversial of a guy, but it still makes me nervous. What if I said I disliked something Google did and they offered me a job tomorrow? Ooops!

A couple of years back, I stupidly used my work e-mail address in a mailing list posting. The e-mail had my full name as well. That mailing was archived on the web by at least 12 different sites and all of them were indexed by Google. Shortly after they were indexed by Google, my boss was doing searches about the company and came up with my mailing list posting. He thought it would be funny to play it off as if I was in trouble for posting the message (which was work related). He’s got quite a sense of humor, but who’s to if my next boss will?

Slightly related topic, but not really. Twitter. I don’t know what to say about it other than Leo Laporte does twitter so why not? I set up my twitter feed up on my the sidebar, but I haven’t found a way to put it on my Vox blog yet. Maybe it’s not even possible.

I’ve actually taken some time off work to head down to my parent’s place just north of San Antonio and give my dad a hand with moving his business from one location to another. We’re talking 30+ pieces of large equipment such as backhoes and Bobcats to be moved about a mile and a half. Should be fun.. takes me back to the days of the Tonka Trucks.

Actually I’m lying, that’s just the story I told my wife. What I’m really doing is going down to SXSW which is happening in Austin during the same time. I mean, Austin is only 45 minutes from my parent’s place. Why not?

I’ll just keeep telling myself that..