I bought an iPod Touch as soon as they were released. I loved the capabilities of the device and was especially impressed with the battery life especially when watching movies or listening to music.

When Apple released the second generation with double the capacity I quickly purchased a second one passing the first generation down to my kids. While I love the device, I am also scared to death that I am going to scratch it or somehow damage the device.

I decided I needed to somehow protect the iPod and so began my quest for the perfect case. I have only a few requirements for the case. First it must protect the device. That may sound obvious but given the number of cases on the market you would be surprised how many of them do not protect the iPod front and back from damage.

The case must not impede the use of the device. It must not hamper the use of the touch screen or the buttons on the top and side of the device. It should also allow easy access to the headphone jack, the docking port, and all other controls.

The case must be durable. I take my iPod touch with me everywhere and the last thing I need is for the protective cover to wear out.

Another rather obvious requirement is that the case cannot damage or mar the iPod Touch in any way. You would think that would be a given but I have had cases in the past where dye from the color in the silicone case has bled onto the iPod Touch turning it a color.

Finally, the case must not add to the bulk of the device. One of the things I like best about the iPod Touch is the slim and sleek design. The last thing I want is to ruin that form factor with some large or bulky case.

Over the years I have gone through a plethora of cases. They have ranged from hard plastic to silicone skins to space aged polymer skins that adhere to the device. I purchased each of these cases with high hopes that it would be the perfect case. After limited use, each of the cases would fall short and my search would begin again.

After my latest case, the iSkin Duo, began to leave dye marks on the iPod and limited the use of the docking port I was once again in the market for a new case.

I happened into the local Apple Store once again searching for a case. After looking at everything on their display several times I was about to leave empty-handed when I spotted a metallic Air Jacket case by Power Support.

The Apple store had only one, an iridescent purple. I really didn’t want a purple case but I was intrigued by the Air Jacket. It is a plastic case that claims a maximum thickness of only 1 mm.

The case itself is plastic but feels nearly weightless in your hands. It protects the entire back of the iPod Touch. The corners on the face are exposed so you do have to be careful. The front of the iPod Touch is protected with a film that attaches to the front of the iPod Touch.

The film does offer protection and doesn’t seem to impede the touch sensitivity of the screen. The case comes with two front screen protectors. One is referred to as crystal while the other is an anti-glare screen. I chose to use the crystal. I personally believe the glossy face displays richer colors.

Installation of the screen protector and the plastic Air Jacket case were relatively painless. It may take a couple of tries to get the front protector on without any air bubbles and you do have to make sure the screen is dirt and lint free but overall it’s fairly easy to install.

While I am still not a big fan of the purple, the case is very nice and I have had several people comment on how great it looks. Besides the purple, the Air Jacket also comes in pink, gold, orange, and red.

If I had my choice I would have preferred the red but when you need a case quickly, you take whatever the store has in stock.

I’ve been using the Air Jacket case now for over a month. It has done an admirable job of protecting my iPod Touch. The case adds relatively no bulk to the device keeping the form factor the same as one without a case.

The screen protector has likewise done its job. It does tend to show finger prints more than the iPod Touch without a cover. I am willing to accept that to have the peace of mind that my iPod is protected.

I would definitely recommend the Air Jacket to anyone looking for a minimal iPod Touch case. The only thing that would have made this case better would have been if I could have found a red one rather than the purple.

Since purchasing the iPhone 3G when it was first released in 2008, I have gone through no fewer than eight cases. Each time I buy one I think this will be the one that will finally meet all of my criteria while still being stylish enough to carry.

Invariably though I find myself disappointed. With some cases they are too bulky turning the iPhone into a brick-like dimension. These cases do bring back a certain amount of nostalgia reminding the user what cell phone form factors used to be in the 1980’s.

Other cases are sleek and smooth but offer very little protection to the iPhone turning the user into a nervous wreck as they are afraid of dropping or damaging their phone. You can usually spot these users as they look like they are handling a core of Uranium 238.

I’ve tried several of the ice cream magic shell equivalent of cases. You know the chocolate coating that you pour over ice cream and it turns into a hard chocolate shell. In the case of iPhone cases these usually have the word “shield” in their names like GhostShield, InvisiShield, ArmorShield, etc.

The problem with these types of cases is that while they may protect the iPhone from scratches they have a tendency to peel off leaving the edges of the iPhone unprotected. They can also get expensive if you have them installed by the dealer with each charging between $10 and $20 per application.

What I needed was something with a non-slick surface that would protect the back of the iPhone with perhaps a removable face cover. I want the case to be stylish but not too thick. My quest to find such a case led me look at the iSkin product.

iSkin has long been associated with cases for the iPod market and I have used them in the past for my music player. I went to their web site and was intrigued by the iSkin Solo FX.

The iSkin Solo FX is a silicon-based case that gives the back of the iPhone protection with a silicon cover that comes in several different colors. They have added geometric shapes into the silicon giving it a unique look.

I purchased a Solo FX in the color Passion which is a translucent red. I have to admit, I was a little reluctant thinking my iPhone would be dressed in Passion Red but it was the closest thing to Arizona Diamondbacks Sedona Red so I guess it is fitting that it would be called Passion.

The cover came with two different front covers. One is a clear cover that protects the iPhone face while still allowing it to be touch sensitive. The second cover was a mirror finish. It is kind of cool giving the iPhone an almost stealth look.

For those of you who are international spies, the mirrored finish makes a great accessory that you can use to look around corners to make sure you are not about to walk into a terrorist cell ambush. Think of it as a national security preserver.

The iSkin Solo FX is relatively simple to install. You simply slide it on and roll the edges over the corners of the iPhone. There are openings for the headphone jack, the camera lens, the mute button, and the dock connector on the end.

The on and off switch and the volume controls are covered but the silicon is thinner there allowing you to press the buttons. The case does not add a lot of bulk to the phone and does provide a non-slip surface that makes it easier to hold in your hand while in use.

The opening for the docking port is adequately sized to allow easy connection to the cords. It is a much better than the touch Vibes case iSkin makes for the iPod Touch. That case requires you to manipulate the case and move the docking cord around to finally get a good dock connection.

The iSkin Solo FX has semi-transparent circle shapes in the back of the case. When you add the iPhone the black back of my iPhone shows through giving it a classy geometric pattern that other cases do not have.

The one negative I have with the iSkin Solo FX is that the dye used to create the case does have a tendency to bleed onto the back of the phone. If you have a black case that is not a problem but with the white iPhone you could end up with a pink back. Fortunately for me I still have an Invisishield on the back of the phone so the dye came off with the removal of the Invisishield.

The dye problem is not just with the red color. I bought my wife a blue cover and my daughter has an aqua color and each of them have also bled onto the iPhone case.

Overall the iSkin Solo FX has been a good case. I hesitate to say it is the perfect case. Although you can buy a separate belt clip it is not included with the Solo FX. The iSkin product line is also relatively expensive with the Solo FX listed for $32.99.

Fortunately iSkin offers discounts and sales fairly regularly so you can get it for less if you are willing to be patient and wait for it to go on sale. Delivery is quite fast, all of the covers I have ordered from iSkin have come via US Postal Service and are packaged quite well.

You should also remove the cover once and a while and clean the inside of the case and the iPhone. Dirt can sometimes get inside and could rub between the cover and the iPhone scratching the back. I have never had that happen with my iPhone or my iPods but it could so be forewarned.

This same problem can occur with any case and by no means is a flaw in the design of the iSkin Solo FX. If you are looking for a slim silicon case that gives your device a stylish look without adding a lot of bulk take a look at the Solo FX.

As 1999 was coming to an end I like most others in the Information Technology industry was preparing for the impending Y2K doom that was being predicted in the media. Of course nothing happened and that was a non-event.

When the clock counted down the final seconds of the 20th century I wondered what life would be like in the next century. I envisioned life being like the Jetsons with flying cars that folded up into briefcases and we would all live in apartment complexes catered to by Rosie the Robot.

Unfortunately as I sit here now I wonder if anything really has changed at all? It feels as though life as we know it really hasn’t changed that much; or so I thought. When ABC News posted a news story naming The Top 10 Products of the Decade I was curious whether these products would be revolutionary or just an updated of version of something that has been around for ages.

Reading over the list I was shocked that many of the products listed have become a part of my everyday life. I don’t think of these things as the amazing 21st Century technology that I had been anticipating. Strangely I could not think of living a day without them they have become so much a part of my daily life.

The list of products ABC News identified as the best of the last decade are:

1. Apple iPod
2. GPS Devices
3. The Blackberry
4. Digital Camera
5. TiVo Digital Video Recorder
6. Nintendo Wii
7. USB Flash Drive
8. iPhone
9. E-Book Readers
10. Netbooks

Perhaps the first thing to note is that without exception I own or have owned every single one of these products during the past decade. I am not sure whether that means I have successfully helped select these products or if it just means I am a techno-geek that buys way too many toys. If you ask Trina she will definitely say it is the latter.

When I stood back and pondered these products I realized that without exception each of these have changed the way I live my life now versus before they were developed.

I remember when I began college in 1980. I saved up my money and made the splurge buying my first Hewlett-Packard calculator. It was the size of a brick and came with a one line LED display that was painfully difficult to read unless you were in a dark room.

This calculator was my constant companion throughout college and I truly thought I was on the cutting edge of technology. I took great care with the calculator as it cost as much as a semester of tuition.

At the end of my first year of college Sony introduced the Walkman that would allow me to take a cassette with me around campus and listen to music while I studied. It was an unheard of concept and changed the way I listened to music.

Fast-forwarding to this past decade I suddenly realized how much things have changed. My iPod now holds 36 times more than my first hard drive the Apple Profile. Now I not only can listen to my music but I am able to take my entire library of music and videos with me at all times and go days without having to recharge the battery.

I no longer wait for the local disc jockey to introduce me to new artists and music. Instead my iPod and iPhone recommend music to me based on what I have listened to in the past. Music has become files where it used to be tapes or discs.

My phone and my car can now tell me within 10 feet where I am on the planet regardless of how far away I am from my destination. It can tell me where traffic is the worst and what is the best route to get to my destination all without stopping to ask for directions.

Phones have morphed into multi-tasking devices and I communicate with voice, video, email and text all from a handheld unit that has more computing power than the combined first ten computers I owned.

My first computer had 4K of memory and I had to program it each time I booted. When Apple introduced the cassette tape storage device I was in heaven. Now I have a USB drive with no moving parts that is the size of a quarter and holds the equivalent of 12 CDs of information. I can move the data from computer to computer simply by inserting the drive into a USB port.

When the decade first began most homes in America still had a VCR, which flashed 12:00. Although it was possible to record television to tape it was a complicated process that always ended in frustration. Now with my TiVo it not only records all of my shows without me having to feed tapes to the machine but it also finds shows I might like based upon my previous viewing habits.

On those occasions when I forget to tell TiVo to record a program I can still do it even if I am not at home. I simply open an application on my iPhone and give instructions to my TiVo even if I am hundreds of miles away from home.

I have always been a book connoisseur and have literally hundreds of books around my house. Now I find myself buying less paper books instead relying on electronic books such as the Amazon Kindle to provide reading materials.

I can still flip through the pages but now I can house several books in a single form-factor. For those trips where I normally take 2-3 books to read I now pack just my e-book reader. If I run out of reading material more books are available if I can find a wireless network.

Looking back over the past ten years clearly we have made tremendous technological advances. So while I still don’t have a flying car or a robot maid my life is much easier than it ever has been in my life. I can hardly wait to see what advances are made in the next ten years.

I am not unfamiliar with the migration from one format to another. Each time I bought into the argument that the new format was better than the last and I would finally hear the music the way the artist and producer had expected.

I loved the clarity and durability of the CD format but I struggled with the idea of taking all of my music with me or even a good chuck of it necessitated having binders of discs with the accompanying cover art and liner notes.

It is not just the music that is important but also the things that go with it. Whether it is the album art that attempts to graphically connect the listener to the music or the notes booklet that contains the lyrics and words of the artists. All of these things together make up the listening experience for me.

When the iPod came along it changed music listening. At first it was just the songs. There was no way to even maintain the album art. The music became impersonal and was deduced down to a series of zeroes and ones. Before long, Apple recognized the need to have the other aspects of the music experience.

Album art was the first ancillary artifact to find its way into the equation. Sites sprung up that would allow you to search for album art and attach the graphics to the sound files through tags. Soon other tag data would follow with users having the ability to add additional information about their music.

Lyrics are a big part of the music listening experience. So many times with today’s music it is hard to decipher what the exact words are within a song. During my album and CD days I would reach for the liner notes that included the lyrics to the songs.

With digital downloads and CDs ripped into an electronic file, the liner notes have seemed to become less important; less important to everyone except the consumer. I still find myself wondering what the words are that are being sung.

The problem is, the music industry for whatever reason has decided that the lyrics are top secret and should be guarded like national secrets. They have made it nearly impossible to easily add lyrics to the music files.

Each time a new program or service attempts to make it easier for the consumer to add lyrics the music industry swoops in and shuts them down threatening legal action against the developer. I find it extremely frustrating and confusing as to why they would treat the music customer so haphazardly.

It is not like we are stealing the lyrics and reusing them in some way to cheat the artists out of their just rewards. We are simply trying to quickly and easily add lyrics to those music files that we rightfully have purchased.

There are now rumors running ramped around the Internet that the music industry is working on a model where they will charge the general public to access the lyrics. These lyrics files, which were included in the price of an album or CD suddenly, have become a hot commodity and a value add.

The customer is left frustrated having to go to numerous locations trying to find these simple lyrics files. It is decisions such as these that makes the consumer want to see the music industry fail. It is based on antiquated business models and no one seems willing or able to find a model that will work.

I have to believe that this is how the dinosaurs must have died. Their inability or unwillingness to adapt to the changing environment will ultimately kill them and the artists that they represent. On that day I will gladly dance upon their graves singing the lyrics that I had to search an hour to find and enter by hand.

Recently for my son’s birthday I bought him an iPod Touch with 16GB of memory and a touch screen and built-in wireless networking. When I gave him the gift it came with yet another story of my childhood. I explained to him that when I was a kid there was no such thing as a personal computer. I may as we have just admitted that I was actually an alien and was transported to this planet in some kind of time vortex.

He had no concept of not having a computer. I went on to explain that the iPod he was holding in his hand was exponentially more powerful than the first computer I owned after I graduated from college.

I remember the first time I sat down at the keyboard of my Apple ][. It had a whopping 48K of memory and could display a full line of 40 characters all upper case. The monitor was a huge 12 inch CRT and I had my choice when I bought it. I could have green letters on a black background or the cutting edge orange text on black background.

Storage on this device was a cassette player and I was grateful for that. Before I hooked up the cassette player I had to program the computer every time I booted. I remember the day that the 5.25 inch floppy drive was introduced. I could not imagine filling an entire disk. I mean 160K was like having the entire world on a drive.

My son’s mouth dropped open as I described what I thought were the good old days but to him sounded more like I had been sent to Hades to live out eternity. “What kind of games can you play on a machine like that?” he asked.

What kind of games? As far as I was concerned that era produced the greatest game ever created. “We played Zork!” I stated quite proudly. “What’s a Zork?” he asked. How oh how could I have failed as a parent that my son had no idea what Zork was?

I tried to explain the concept of interactive fiction and how the developers at Infocom had taken the original Adventure game and created an alternative universe. I explained to him that you typed in responses to text prompts and became part of the story.

Clearly I had completely lost him. He had no frame of reference that would be equivalent in his terms. Kids have become so used to realistic graphics and quick action that the thoughts of reading a screen of text and trying to visualize where you were in a story were completely foreign to him.

It was a fairly depressing conversation as he commented on more than one occasion that I had to be making this up, there was no such thing as Zork. I have to admit, after the snipe incident I did lack some credibility with him. Still I was determined to prove to him that Zork existed and show him what he was missing.

After a brief search on the Internet I learned that Infocom actually have the Zork series available for download for Macintosh. The downloads included Zork I, Zork II, and finally Zork III. There is also an online version based upon the original MIT version of Adventure.

I was glad to learn that I was not the only person who grew up playing Zork. The games have gotten almost a cult following. Still if I was going to win over my son it would require that the game be available on his iPod Touch.

After a little research I found that there was a tool in place that basically gave the iPod Touch a Z-machine interpreter that would allow the iPod and the iPhone to run interactive fiction programs. I headed to the App Store on iTunes and found Frotz a form of the sourceforge Z-machine interpreter. Not only did Frotz give you the interpreter but it also came with Zork?

In just a few short minutes I had installed Frotz on his iPod Touch and launched Zork. The screen went dark and words appeared.
West of House
You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.

It was as if I had been teleported back in time. I remembered the countless hours wandering through mazes and figuring out clues.

After a few short moves came the inevitable “You’ve been eaten by a Grue”. I wonder if I can get my family to put that on my headstone when I die. Now that would be funny.

Besides the iPod offerings, Apple also introduced iTunes 9 which sports a new interface to the iTunes Store as well as other long-requested features. For iPhone and iPod Touch users the new iTunes offers a way to manage applications and introduces Genius for applications that will suggest applications based on what you have previously purchased.

One feature of iTunes that continues to be left out is a better rating system for content. Since its inception iTunes have provided the user with the ability to rate content using a five-star scale. Approximately five minutes after the first user downloaded iTunes they began complaining that five stars were not enough to catalog their content appropriately.

Over the years there have been Apple Scripts and other hacks that would circumvent the five star scale into more options. The most often used are scripts that will allow the user to assign half-star ratings. Until now these solutions were not very elegant and met with limited results.

Over the past couple of weeks I have run across a couple of solutions that make the implementation of half-star ratings a little easier. Since my household includes both Macintosh and Windows computers running iTunes (my Linux box does not have iTunes), I needed a solution that could be implemented on either platform.

The Macintosh solution to allow half-stars is one simple line that can be entered in Terminal. In order to implement this hidden feature you will need to close iTunes on the Macintosh and open Terminal (/Applications/Utilities). With Terminal opened type the following command followed by the ENTER key:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars –bool TRUE

You may then close the Terminal window and launch iTunes. When you want to rate a song you can drag across the rating field and you will see the stars appear. Dragging between two stars will enter a ½ in the rating field. If you ever decide you do not want half-star ratings you can enter Terminal again and type the same command replacing TRUE with FALSE and it will disable the half-star rating.

For Windows users the implementation of half-stars is simply a matter of adding a few lines to a hidden preference file. After closing iTunes on your Windows computer navigate to the iTunesPrefs.xml file. This file is normally located in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Apple Computer\iTunes for Windows XP users or C:\Users\Username\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\iTunes for Windows Vista. The Application Data folder is generally hidden so you will need to make sure you have “Show Hidden Files” selected in Folder Options.

Open the iTunesPrefs.xml file with a text editor such as Notepad or Wordpad and search for “User Preferences” Find the place in the iTunesPrefs.xml file that says:

<key>User Preferences</key>
<dict>

Below that line type the following:

<key>allow-half-stars</key>
<data>
dHJ1ZQ==
</data>

Save the iTunesPrefs.xml file and launch iTunes. You will be able to click between the stars in the ratings field to rate content by half-star. If you ever want to disable this ability just edit the iTunesPrefs.xml file and remove the lines you entered.

These patches work with both iTunes 8 and the new iTunes 9 versions. I didn’t have any earlier versions so I am not sure how far back this hidden feature actually existed.

One thing I have noted is that even without these patches loaded iTunes will display half-star ratings, it just cannot set them until the patches are entered. The iPhone and iPod will accept the half-star ratings but will not display them on the screen. It will round the rating down to the next whole star.

With this simple patch you have just doubled the number of rating criteria than you had below. Hopefully this will be enough to keep users satisfied until Apple can implement a better rating system.

It would seem logical that we should expect a new set of iPods. The “Back to School” event will end today meaning that the stock levels of iPods are probably at one of the lowest levels of the year.

Apple insider sites and other rumor mongers are throwing out several theories of what could be announced at tomorrow’s event. They run the gambit of yet another iteration of the iPod Nano with an even larger display to a new iPod Touch with photo capabilities and larger capacities.

Some are reporting a new device that would compete with the netbook offerings. Sort of a super sized iPod touch tablet. It is probably doubtful that this device will make its entry now. It is more realistic that we would see such a device in the February timeframe or just in time for the Consumer Electronics Show.

With Apple no longer a part of the Macworld conference I would expect them to make a bigger splash at CES and what better way to do that than with a brand new form factor tablet computer.

The impending Apple event means I will spend the night taking inventory of all the Apple devices I currently have and begin forming my justification that I will use shortly after tomorrow’s event to explain to my wife why I simply cannot live without the newest Apple gadget regardless of what it is.

I’m hoping for a larger capacity iPod Touch perhaps 64 GB which would double the size of the 32 GB device I currently have. Better battery life would also be a welcomed addition as my son is constantly draining his iPod touch through constant playing of the games and music. His barely lasts a day before needing recharging. Even a modest increase in battery would be greeted with excitement in our household.

The rumors or including a camera with the next version of iPod Touch don’t really interest me. I already have an iPhone in addition to the various point and shoot cameras at my disposal. Until either the iPhone or iPod Touch has an optical zoom they are of limited use to me as a camera.

Having the ability to take video similar to the iPhone 3Gs could be interesting but again I’m not sure how useful that may be with limited optics. It will again come down to battery efficiency as to whether I would consider such a device.

Tonight will be one where I’ll dream of the future and hope that Apple and the returning Steve Jobs will have “one more thing” up their sleeve to make this an event to remember and rocket Apple products back to the top of my Christmas list.

While the iPod itself is an incredible device that has changed the way many of us listen to music, an equally important aspect of the experience is iTunes. For all that it does, iTunes is many times maligned. I am sure that if you ask any iTunes user they could produce a laundry list of features or changes they would make to this application yet very few people actually go as far as replacing iTunes with a different application for managing their music files.

I count myself among those users who sometimes have a love/hate relationship with iTunes. I absolutely love the user interface and the ease of use decisions that went into the design of this software. On the other hand I am constantly frustrated by the lack of advanced search criteria or the ability to build more intelligence into a Smartlist.

Perhaps one of the most confusing points of iTunes is the seemly haphazard way it manages your music files and the difficulty users have in migrating their iTunes library from one location to another.

Having been using iTunes for several years now and being a self-proclaimed music pack rat I have somehow accumulated a fairly sizable music library consisting of roughly 12,500 individual songs.

It’s not just the sheer number of music tracks that is alarming to me. It is also the fact that I have spent countless hours managing the data associated with each song. I suffer from some sort of personality defect which causes me to spend enormous amounts of time making sure each track has as much associated information as possible such as composer, lyrics, album art, etc.

Given the amount of time I have spent making sure each track has the most accurate data possible you can imagine my nervousness when it came time to migrate my iTunes library from one computer to another.

I initially made a fairly naïve assumption that I could just copy the music files from one computer to another and all of my data would magically appear including playlists, track play counts, and track ratings. When I copied the files and opened iTunes on the new computer I nearly fainted when I saw this data had all disappeared. This was clearly unacceptable and I began searching for a solution that would allow me to successfully migrate iTunes from one computer to another. What I have come up with is a workflow that works for me. I am sure there are several ways to solve this issue but this one worked for me so I thought I would share it in case others find themselves in a similar dilemma.

The first step I took was to set a few preferences in the iTunes located on the computer I was migrating from. If you are fortunate enough to have all of your music located in a single location; I want to congratulate you. Unfortunately for many of us long-time users the music location has changed through the years and because of this we have music spread across our computer landscapes.

One of the great things about iTunes is that it will keep track of where your music is located. It stores the file location for each of the tracks so when you click on a song it will know exactly where to find that file to begin playing it. The key to migrating to a new computer though is to gather all of this music together through a sort of an iTunes cattle drive.

Within the iTunes preferences screen under the Advanced tab are two check boxes that need to be selected. “Keep iTunes Music folder organized” will allow iTunes to create folder structure under your iTunes Music folder by artist and album folders and will go a long ways to making the migration easier. The second preference, “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” will allow iTunes to move your music files into the iTunes Music folder thereby neatly putting all of your music in a single place for migration. The key to both of these of course is having accurate data in your iTunes library for artist and album otherwise the files will be consolidated but into a filing system that might be difficult for you to find anything later.

Once you have set both of these check boxes you are ready for iTunes to do some heavy lifting. Hidden under the File/Library menu in iTunes is a gem named simply “Consolidate Library”. What this option does is essentially consolidate all of the files listed in your iTunes library into the iTunes Music folder as defined in the iTunes preferences. It will copy the files from their current location into the iTunes Music folder renaming them with the track name and organizing them into a folder structure of ARTIST\ALBUM. Depending on how large your iTunes library is, this step could take a while as it moves all of your songs to a single location. It should also be noted that you need to make sure you have adequate space on the drive where your iTunes Music folder is located.

Once the Consolidate Library option has completed running, your iTunes music files will all be located in the iTunes Music folder ready for migration. You will then need to copy the iTunes Music folder contents from the old computer to the new computer. I used a portable external hard drive to move all of my music. I simply copied the iTunes Music folder to the drive then disconnected the drive and attached it to the new computer and copied the folder to its new location.

Merely copying the files from one computer to another is not enough. If you stopped here the music files would be on the new computer but the new iTunes may not be able to find them and even if it did you would lose ratings and play counts at a minimum.

Going back to the computer you are migrating from, launch iTunes. Under the File/Library menu you will find an entry called “Export Library”. This will create an XML file with all of the information iTunes knows about your music files. This is a key piece that we need to take with us to the new computer. The XML file that is created will have the song information but will be pointing to the file locations on the old computer. We need to edit this file to tell iTunes where to find the songs on the new computer.

An XML file can be opened in any text editor such as TextEdit or TextWrangler. Opening the XML file you will notice an entry for each song file that shows its location. Using the global search and replace function of your text editor, change the disk and folder names from the old system to the new location on your new computer. Once the replacement is completed; save the XML file and transfer it to the new computer.

On the new computer open iTunes and go to the Preferences screen. Under the Advanced tab enter the location where you want your new iTunes Music folder to reside. While on that screen make sure that “Keep iTunes Music folder organized” and “Copy files to iTunes Music folder when adding to library” are both checked.

The next step is to actually import the XML file that we created above. It took me quite a while to figure this part out as it was not as logical as I would have expected. Under the File/Library menu you will find a menu option called “Import Playlist”. I know what you are thinking, we are not importing playlists, we are importing an XML file. Believe me, I didn’t think that was right either but you have to trust me on this.

In the dialog box select the XML that you modified with the new file location and let iTunes do its thing. It will parse the information contained in the XML file and in the end you should see all of your songs listed in the library with their associated ratings, play counts, and other data.

Once done, you should probably review your library and remove any redundant files. I haven’t had a problem with duplicates showing up in this process but if you had multiple copies of some of your music files it could have introduced duplicates during the library consolidation step.

That’s it; you should now have all of your music files with their associated meta data on your new computer and be ready to once again enjoy your music. These steps should work regardless of whether you are transferring your library between two PCs, two Macs, or between PC and Mac. The only differences may be where you find the iTunes preferences. Good luck, hopefully this will make your iTunes transfer less painful and reduce the level of stress in your life.

I had an 8-Track recorder for recording music and I own a Sony Betamax VCR because the technology was better than VHS. Not all my choices were wrongly placed. I have one of the early Blu-Ray players as I felt that technology had more capabilities than what HD-DVD could provide. I realized early on the power of digital photography and have a fairly large collection of digital cameras of various sizes and capabilities. I could make a nearly endless list of technology and gadgets that I have accumulated over the years. A few weeks back I began going through the stack of hardware I have accumulated trying to decide how to dispose of some of these relics. As I looked at each device I tried to categorize it. What I found was that I have an abundance of devices dealing with audio. These included phonographs, 8-Track players, cassette recorders, Walkmans, Mini-Disc players, Compact Disc players, and now several generations of iPods from the original all the way up to the latest iPod Touch.
I had not realized how important music had been in my life nor had I realized how many different formats I had migrated from to maintain my music collection. I initially had a collection of vinyl albums but those were migrated to 8-Track tapes due to the ease with which those could be portable. Those 8-Track tapes were in turn repurchased or migrated to cassette tapes to allow further mobility and to reduce storage space. My cassette collection turned into compact discs again reducing storage but more importantly to increase quality. This format put my music into a digital format and gave me a fairly sturdy medium to keep and maintain. From the CDs I would create Mini-Disc recordings to take with me and later would rip the songs into a format that could be transmitted to my iPod. To me compact disc was the appropriate trade-off between quality and storage. As iTunes began to grow and the MP3 format proliferated I refused to move to a totally electronic model. I didn’t care much for the quality of MP3 sound. Its lossy format degraded the sound to the point that I didn’t care for it at all. I chose instead to migrate my music to a lossless format such as Apple Lossless MP4, APE, or Windows Media Player lossless. None of electronic outlets were willing to provide this level of quality so I continued to purchase compact discs. I honestly don’t remember the last time I put a CD in my stereo system as a playback mechanism. Mostly I buy the CD then rip it into a lossless file and then store the CD for safe keeping. This has worked out quite well and I am content with the workflow I have developed.
Lately I have noticed that the CD and music sections of most major stores have begun to shrink. Beyond a few new releases the number of compact discs has begun to diminish. I still have a few older format media that I would like to move to CD and I am not having a harder time finding these as a CD. I can find the electronic MP3 songs but not a CD pressing of the album. I’m ok with technological shifts as long as it brings an increase to quality or somehow edifies my way of life but when technology changes for the sake of reducing the quality of a product I am not happy. Lately I have begun channeling my grandfather. Each time one of my kids comes to me with a new MP3 file they have downloaded that sounds muddled and of low quality I find myself starting sentences just like my grandfather, “Back in my day…” followed by a long explanation of how audio quality has declined since the invention of the CD. The next thing you know I’ll be telling stories about having to walk 20 miles to school in the snow and how we had to eat dirt because we couldn’t afford anything else. The most telling sign happened with my daughter Mallorie who at 22 is now feeling old. For the first time in her life she said, “back in my day Pluto was a planet” whereby I responded, “back in my day Pluto was a dog”. I guess everything is relative. I’m just not sure I am ready for my music to take a step back from a quality perspective. I’ll stick with the compact disc until someone can convince me that they can provide a high-quality lossless file in downloadable electronic format. Until then don’t take away my CDs sonny!