Big PC Geek Tech Blog

If you are in a household with many computers all with their own iTunes libraries, there is a great way to share the music from one computer to another. ITunes now allows you to share your library over your network. Once configured, you will see the library available in the shared section of the left hand panel in iTunes.

Here is how to set it up:

From iTunes, select "Edit" and then "Preferences." Once the Preferences windows opens, select the "sharing" tab, and finally "Share my library on my local network." You are able to select various types of music, videos, and much more. At the bottom, you can also require a password.

All music should stream fine over a 54G wireless connection but you will want a physical connection for video.

Just as I told how to rip music with iTunes, Windows Media Player has some options that make ripping CD’s to your computer much easier than traditional methods. Sure everyone can do this but I want to make your life easier and more efficient with software, computers, and technology.

There are many many ways to do this but this is my method for when you have stacks of CD’s that you want to copy to your computer.

What you want to do is click options in Media Player. When you open up Media Player, there are buttons at the top called Now Playing, Library, Rip ect. What you need to do is click "More options" in the drop down menu that is found when you click a very small arrow under any one of these buttons.

When the options windows opens up, click the "rip music" tab. The first option you can change is the place where you rip your music. If you have a special place for your music, change it here otherwise the default will be the My Music folder. Next, under rip Settings you can select the format for the music and more. The rip settings is a place you want to pay attention to because it is where your life can get a lot easier if you have a stack of CD’s to rip. Click "Rip CD when inserted" and check "always." This basically means anytime you insert a CD in Windows Media player, it will copy the music to your computer. The other thing to do is check "Eject CD when ripping is complete." With this selected, you will notice the CD tray open after the computer finished copying the music. Now you can go about doing whatever you need to do and not worry about copying the stack of CD’s, just insert a CD when you see the tray open. Finally, the last part you can choose the the audio quality. The best level is the level you cant notice and change in your music so I would do a trial and error rip to make sure you are happy with the audio quality before you rip your entire collection.

One other thing I would suggest is clicking the privacy tab and check "Update music files by retrieving media info from the Internet" which will update your music track names automatically to their names.

Do you have a collection of CD’s and need to rip them into iTunes to fill up your new ipod? There is a hard way and an easy way. The hard way is not changing anything in iTune’s settings and ripping music the way it is set to. The easy way is to change settings in iTunes so that you can pop in a CD anythime and have iTunes rip your music automatically.

First, click edit on the upper left part of iTunes and click preferences. A windows will pop up and you need to click the advances tab at the top of the window and then click importing on a new set of tabs within the advanced tab. The next part is key. You need to select "Import CD and eject" in the drop down menu where it says "On CD Insert." After the first CD is inserted in your computer when iTunes is open, iTunes will automatically rip the CD and then eject the CD tray when finished. This is important because you don’t have to stay at your computer, just look over at your computer and insert a new disc anytime you see the CD tray open.

There are other very useful options that you can use here too. You can decide what format you want your music to be imported with which can save space or make your music work with more devices. Next, pay attention to the quality settings because it is not worth doing all this if the music sounds horrible afterwards. It is also probably important to uncheck the option to play songs while importing music. Another important setting to check is "Automatically retrieve CD track names from Internet." This feature is really nice because you don’t have to create the names of the tracks saving time and making file management much better. Also make sure "Create filenames with track number."

Computers are made to make your life easy, it is time to make them do it. You can also do this in Windows Media player with similar options.

I have been asked repeatedly how to put music that was purchased in iTunes into another music device other than an ipod such as a Zen, Zune, Sansa etc. The process is pretty Simple.

First, burn the music in iTunes onto an audio CD. Make a playlist if necessary, then click the burn CD button at the bottom of iTunes.

Second, open up the software that you wish to use to sync with your non-ipod device like Windows Media player.

Third, rip the music you just burned into the new players software.

You will now notice that you can sync the music on that was on the CD freely with the device you want. The type of file, mp3, ogg, etc. is up to you.

Some people ask me what type of MP3 player to get for themselves or for their kids. Usually, the question is, "should I get an iPod Nano or the iPod?" Most people are tempted to go with the full iPod because you just get more storage for the price.

My answer is: Depends on what you are going to do and how you are going to treat it. If you are getting the MP3 player for you kid or are going to use it while you are active, ie. the gym or jogging, you want to go with the Nano; but, if you are going to hoop it up to your car or use it while on a plane or home, go with the full blown iPod.

I have mentioned this sometime before but it is because the Nano uses flash memory and the full size iPods use a hard drive. MP3 players with flash memory have no moving parts and tend to take a beating much better than a music player with a hard drive. The full size iPod has a mechanical magnetic arm inside that can easily break when dropped hard enough or numerous times. Yes, when you think of price per GB or Gigabyte, the Nano is going to be much more money than the full size iPod but chances are it will last much longer when used by an active person or a child.