If you don't want to bother going through the inconvenient process of sync-ing your iPhone or iPod before you can enjoy any of your favorite tunes, Orb Networks has just the thing for you. The OrbLive iPhone application allows users to enjoy video content in any format - downloaded BitTorrent files, TiVo-to-Go files, DivX, Mov, MP4, even live video and TV streams - on their preferred Apple gadget. For more details on this neat app, check out our full article.

The MacWorld Expo 2008 got us - and maybe most everyone else - into an Apple groove. The Manila envelope-sized MacBook Air sure made our trusty PowerBook feel a bit envious and unloved (yes, our gadgets here in the QJ.NET blogging labs have feelings too), so we decided to revisit a couple of our other gadgets. Not least of all is the Headplay, of course. Hitting two birds with one stone, we weren't just able to dish out a review of the head-mounted display, but we also managed to squeeze out some time to catch some movies too! Pass the popcorn, please!


Originally posted on January 24, 2008 at 12:44 AM.

You've got to hand it to those indie developers, they always have something up their sleeve to give us more bang for our buck with the gadgets that we have. A free application called Dot.Tunes does that and more.

It basically extends the serviceability of your iTunes library so that you can stream it on the net and play it right off your PC. What the application actually does is turn your iTunes library into an SQL database and sends it from your PC to the web using an Ajax front-end and multi-layered security system.

While the basic service of the application is free, plug-ins to stream your iTunes through your Wii's, PS3's or PSP's browser are also available at US$ 10 a pop. Also, there's another plug-in available that gives you a custom interface for your iPhone which extends the amount of music you can fit in it for US$ 20.

DotTunes, an Australian-based company, encourages people to open up their iTunes library to friends through the use of their products. They had this to say regarding the matter:

Why pay to podcast or for internet radio streams, when you can publish your own radio shows, TV programs or music mixes directly to your loyal fans? Dot.Tunes is not some lightweight iTunes utility. It's a fully developed web server application that supports mp3, AAC, aiff, .wav, mpeg, mp4, and .mov files, allowing you to share your iTunes library contents with your friends in other cities, your classmates across the dorm or the coworkers scattered throughout the building.

For the PSP, iPod and Mobile phone videophiles out there, we've just picked news on a video converter you might wanna check out. ADS just announced the release of their new InstantVideo To-Go product, which allows for easy conversion to the H.264 (.mp4) format your PSPs and iPod can gobble up easy.

For use between your PC and your portable device, this USB key speeds up the painfully long download time you guys have probably experienced when trying to download your LOTR Trilogy into your iPod or PSP. ADS also claims that a five-hour encoding session can be done in as fast as 20 minutes. The other good news is that this hardware-based encoder should be easy to use even for guys encoding for the first time - most of the process is already automated, with it being able to handle the following formats: MP4, MP3, AVI, WMV, MOV, RM, JPG, and TIFF.

The bad news: Better start saving up, as this little device will go for US$ 79.95 - about the price of one Blu-Ray game for the PS3. Unless you're one rich dude with tons o' dough to throw around, then go ahead and get one.

Don't you just hate it when you're watching your media files and the titles are all wrong, and the information is whacked? It's far from organized and you can hardly do anything about it. Or do you?

Lowell Stewart released Lostify v0.4.1 to help you. It's a metadata tagger for MP4 videos and is compatible with iTunes, the 5th-gen iPod video, and Front Row. This means that after tagging your video with Lostify, it'll show up clean in your iTunes, iPod, etc.

The name of the program was born due to the developer's favorite show: "Lost". And when he ripped the season 1 DVD onto iTunes, the titles and categories didn't match with the season 2 he had bought from the iTunes Music Store. Hence, he wrote this program to lostify whatever other episodes he (and you) might have. Here's what's new:

• Integrated latest build of AtomicParsley (should fix problems on some Intel Macs, and handle MP4s from different sources better)

Oh, and you'll need Mac OS X 10.3.9 or higher.

Download: [Lostify v0.4.1]

Ever since Jobs decided to set the digital entertainment world on fire with his declaration of the (still temporarily code-named) iTV, the curious have been asking, "Well, what exactly is the iTV?" We ourselves, among many others, have only been able to give snippets of information as they came. And we're just as curious as you guys are.

Enter Macworld. Even they don't have as close a look as they would have liked of the iTV, but being the Mac experts that they are, have decided to proceed with what Steve Jobs has said about the iTV, gathered stuff from the September 12 presentation, and gave this FAQ on the iTV. So to all who've been asking what exactly is the iTV, here are highlights of their extensive FAQ:

• What is iTV? We've once called it the Living Room Mac, based on the educated guess of a New York Times writer, because it IS a Living Room Mac. It combines the digital media convergence of the Mac's Front Row - which connects your digital TV to a Mac CPU and to the Internet beyond - with the wireless ease of AirPort. A lot easier than hooking up the Mac Mini to the TV. iTV will stream iTunes media running off a Mac or Windows PC and can be operated with the Apple Remote.

• The "temporarily-named" iTV? It can change. Call it Apple's iDevice-prefixing penchant. The thing is, Elgato's already making the eyeTV, a digital TV receiver. Even Apple has an "iTV" branded accessory out there with the Monster iTV link. Steve Jobs called it an internal code-name. It is a snappy, albeit temporary, code-name, though.

Want to know more? Read the full article after the jump!

Just when you thought that the letter "i" can't be attached to anything else anymore, here comes yet another item that has been more than happy to jump in on the concept of the Age of the iPod.

Pottery Barn has recently started selling a line of furniture known as the "iChair" - and as promised, they do more than provide a  comfortable cushion for your behind.

The iChair comes with a pocket that you can place your precious iPod into, and then hook it up to the sound system that has been assembled into the chair itself. The semi-wrap-around headrest actually comes with a pair of high-quality speakers that are positioned on either side of your head, and a set of subwoofers right below your gluteus maximus makes for a VERY comfortable sound trip. A wood frame with a weighted base will keep you from tipping over to the side, and the cushions themselves are finished in faux suede for the luxurious feel.

Other features include a standard audio jack that makes it easy to connect to any game system or MP3 player, and a control panel at your right hand so that you can easily control the volume.

The iChair currently comes in Charcoal and Light Blue, and retails for $399. Now, if they just remembered to add a drink cooler, a remote control pocket and a massager somewhere in there, they may soon be running La-Z-Boy out of business.

Red Chair Software has released Anapod Explorer v8.8.2 for Windows. ?Anapod Explorer is the most advanced Windows iPod software available, offering full iPod management through full Windows Explorer integration under My Computer, easy drag and drop iPod transfer and iPod backup, PDA function support, web page interface access to your iPod through a built-in web server, powerful search and reporting capabilities using a built-in SQL database, and much more, all in one compact package.?

 

New Features:

• Anapod PhotoSync
  This release adds the ability for Anapod Explorer to transfer photos to the iPod Photo and iPod with color screen. To access this feature, click on the Sync button in the Anapod Explorer toolbar. PhotoSync works similarly to the photo synchronization feature in iTunes, allowing you to select a photo folder and individual albums to transfer to the iPod. Anapod PhotoSync supports the transfer of JPEG, PNG, GIF, and BMP images, full-resolution original image transfer, album grouping, and the full complement of iPod-supported image types including thumbnails, full-screen, slideshow, and NTSC TV display format.
• Support for Folder-Based Album Art
  In previous releases, Anapod would only automatically assign album art for files with embedded art. This release adds the ability for the user to specify a set artwork filename (e.g. cover.jpg, artwork.png). Anapod will then look for an artwork file by that name contained in the same folder as the audio file when transferring.
• Added "Play on Computer" feature for Anapod Shuffler.
• Added support for extracting album art from MP3 files with embedded BMP images.
• The Comment field is now available for use in MorphLists.

Enhancements and Bug Fixes:

• Restored Xtreamer capability for Anapod Shuffler.
• Fixed bug where connecting in Anapod could cause iTunes to unnecessarily resync some of the files on the iPod.
• Fixed bug where iPod could become unreadable by iTunes after editing podcast files using Anapod.
• Fixed bug where Anapod would remove podcast tracks from regular music browse categories.
• Fixed hang when connecting to iPod with an empty Play Counts file.
• Various stability improvements in reading tag information.
• Further refinements to tag reading routines for M4A, M4P, and MP4 files.
• Fixed crash when reading tag information from certain AAC files.
• Fixed problem where genre was not being read properly from some iTunes Music Store files.
• Fixed problem in auto-playlist creation during transfers where playlists could be deleted instead of updated properly.
• Fixed bug in playlist reordering where track at the move-to location could be deleted.

You can get it in our iPod Download section.

Unlike other iPod copy tools, iPod.iTunes checks which tracks and playlists on the iPod are not in the iTunes music library and only adds those seamlessly to the iTunes library, avoiding duplicates, saving your time. iPod.iTunes can also transfer data like "My Rating", "Last Played", "Play Count", etc...

• Simple one click synchronization or...

• Option to choose tracks manually if you don't want to synchronize them all. You can listen to tracks before you choose to transfer them.
• Tracks and playlist entries can be synchronized together or separately. If the tracks on the iPod are already in the iTunes library and you only want the iPod playlists, you can use the playlist synchronization alone.
• With every track synchronization iPod.iTunes creates a date&time stamped playlist in iTunes containing the tracks which were transferred. This gives the option to easily add those tracks to existing playlists or to create new playlists from the transferred tracks.
• Support for the iPod's "On The Go" playlist.
• Copies by default seamlessly to the iTunes music folder and creates a folder structure based on artist/album, as in iTunes (with options).
• File naming based on track number and track name, as in iTunes.
• File formats: MP3, AAC/MP4, Protected AAC (iTunes Music Store), Audible audio books, Podcasts
• Support for Windows-formatted iPods.
• iPod.iTunes can run directly from the iPod, so it's always there when you need it.
• Registration is independent from the computer. You can just connect your iPod to any Mac without registering every machine.

iPod.iTunes can be used to

• Keep music and playlists on different Macs up to date
• Do a full restore of tracks and playlists - i.e. after a hard disk failure
• Revert accident deletion of tracks and/or playlists in iTunes, if these are still on your iPod
• Clone an iPod
• Transfer an entire music library from one Mac to another via the iPod

What's new in this version:

• Version 2.8.7 introduced two bugs which could lead to the wrong message "No tracks on iPod" or copying tracks from the iPod already in the iTunes library. If this happened to you the copied tracks can be removed by sorting the iTunes library by "Date Added", then remove the tracks that where added during the last synchronization.
• PC-formatted iPods: since the iPod name must not exceed 11 characters, iPod.iTunes renames the iPod to match the iPod's disk volume name automatically now.
• Tools: The function to fix ID3 tags on the iPod could fail with "Parameter error -50". Fixed.
• Improvements in the user interface.

Product Requirements:

• Mac OS X 10.2 or higher
• iTunes 3.0.1 or higher
• iPod

Registration

iPod.iTunes was and is a lot of work and is therefore not free. If you like it, you can register [here]. iPod.iTunes can be tested without a registration to see it in action. The unregistered version skips about 50% of tracks during synchronization (the exact rate depends on the contents on the iPod). When registering later, iPod.iTunes will transfer the rest of tracks and/or playlists seamlessly to the iTunes library, without duplicates.

Registered users of iPod Free File Sync or iPod2iTunes 1.x may purchase iPod.iTunes 2.x for an upgrade fee.

You can get it in our iPod Download section.