Fix the Missing Tags in your iTunes Library

Use TidySongs to Clean Up your iTunes Library

OVERVIEW: Learn how to use TidySongs to clean up the tags and album art in your iTunes library. .

Cleaning Up a Mess

Do you have thousands of songs in your iTunes library? Did you get them from (cough) various different places? Welcome to the club. As your collection of mp3′s grows and grows, you will probably have a bunch of songs with missing or incorrect tags. This can be a real mess.

You can use TidySongs (http://www.tidysongs.com) to work miracles on that messy library. TidySongs performs four functions that will whip your iTunes library right into shape:

Add high-resolution Album Art to your songs
Find and Remove Duplicate Songs
Fix Missing or Incorrect MP3 Tags
Organize your Music Genres

Getting TidySongs on your Computer

TidySongs will work on Windows and Mac operating systems (sorry Linux). Go to TidySongs.com to download the software installer. Follow the clear instructions in their installer to add the software to your computer.

Finding Missing MP3 Tags

When you start TidySongs it will search through your iTunes library. Click on the Start button to begin woking on your files. The Main Menu lets you select which aspect of your library that you want to fix.

Click the Fix Your Songs button.

Click the Select a Playlist to Fix button. You can select your whole library or just one playlist.

Choose whether to fix one song at a time or to run the whole playlist automatically and click the appropriate button. I like to just let it run automatically.

Any songs that matched your Confidence Threshold will be updated.

See TidySongs in Action

The video tutorial below shows how to use TidySongs’ features to tame your unwieldy iTunes library.

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So You Wanna Beat Google? – Buy Zoho and Aviary

Zoho Should Merge with Aviary to Own the Cloud

Who Owns the Web?

Google - They are the only company that can be considered as an answer. Their quest to create a true web-based operating system has seen them rapidly extend their tentacles into every corner of our lives on the web. Their forays into Search, Email, Productivity Apps, Video, etc. all lead back to one thing: Advertising Revenue. They are becoming a monopoly in ways that Microsoft never fathomed. If we don’t want to have the next decade be like the MicroSoftOpoly that the 90s were, somebody needs to offer up a little resistance.

How the Desktop was Dominated

If you look at a Windows computer, there are really two companies that can provide almost everything you need: Microsoft and Adobe.

Since computers are just electronic brains; I like to call Microsoft the left brain and Adobe the right brain. (see chart below)

Microsoft owns the Left Brain with their extended Office suite. Adobe owns the Right Brain with their aptly named “Creative Suite”. Yeah, there are a lots of other competitors, but none can claim such large chunks of real estate.

Who is Dominating the Cloud Based Desktop?

With the desktop software market being so mature, massive attention has turned to the largely untapped web-based application market. While nobody owns this market yet, it’s pretty clear that Google has a commanding lead.

Google Docs is currently the most popular web base Office suite. They also have the best webmail service (IMHO) in Gmail. They integrated Instant Messaging, Video Chat, and recently Voice phone calls into Gmail. They also have Calendar and Tasks applications to round out the productivity suite. (A very strong Left Brain)

On the creative side of things they have a more modest selection. The recently acquired Picknic allows you to edit pictures and Picasa allows you to store, manage, and share them. They have not integrated a good video editing tool into YouTube yet, but I’m sure they will eventually. (A fairly weak Right Brain)

Is there Any Competition?

Some of the other big names are chasing Google with varying degrees of success.

Microsoft - Office, Storage, Email, IM, Calendar, Contacts

Adobe – Documents, Storage

Yahoo – Email, Calendar, Contacts, IM

While Microsoft is the best of this sorry bunch, they are still waaaay behind Google.

Google’s Biggest Threat Comes from a few Little Guys

Google’s mix is currently the biggest game in town but it certainly isn’t the best. Strong Left Brain – Weak Right Brain. There are actually two small companies (Zoho and Aviary) that have been quietly building online homages to Microsoft and Adobe’s desktop portfolios.

Zoho – They have an enormous Office / Productivity suite that seems to improve daily. (The Left Brain) While Zoho’s suite is definitely less popular than Google Docs; it dwarfs them in breadth and depth. The product line, feature set, and interoperability is astounding. They also build everything with the idea of integrating third party applications/tools in mind. Their stuff plugs into other systems very well.

Aviary – Aviary is a free suite of powerful online creative tools. They have an equally impressive set of apps that also regularly improves. (The Right Brain)

If these two virtuosos ever combined forces, it would create a web-based version of a Microsoft-Adobe merger.

Do we even need this?

Well, if anyone wants to put up a fight before Google goes all skynet on us, this is the best shot. You need to have a technically better product to even start the conversation. In fact, you really need somebody with the money and muscle to push these services into the mainstream. This could actually steal back much of the territory that Google has gobbled up in the last few years.

A merger of these suites would (at least temporarily) blow Google out of the water. Now who would be logical suitors?

Basically it has to be one of a few Tech Giants. (Microsoft, Adobe, Yahoo, or Apple)

Here’s why each company should and shouldn’t listen to me.

Microsoft

Pro – They have the cash. Zoho integrates with Office already. They have the missing cloud storage tool (Skydrive).

Con - They’re not that good at the whole “web thing”. People love to hate on them.

Yahoo

Pro – They have a big customer base of web app users (Mail, calendar, Flickr).

Con – They’re low on cash. They screw up every acquisition they make.

Adobe

Pro – They could make a compelling case for taking your design work with you everywhere. This would let them instantly become a player in a space where they are currently no-shows.

Con – They would probably jam so many bloated, unnecessary features in that it would take 15 minutes to log in.

owned it.

Apple

Pro – It would be a nice way to make stupid Mobile.me actually worth something. Picture seeing Steve Jobs and his minions all updating the same spreadsheet in real-time. Simply Amazing! Besides, they have to do something with that $40 billion of excess capital.

Con – They haven’t exactly dominated the cloud like they have the gadget world.

What about the Enterprise Application Vendors

Oracle, IBM, and SAP are already peddling their wares to tons of medium and large companines. Imagine the prospect of taking a company completely out of the desktop computing game.

Done properly, this could be a pretty compelling solution for the enterprise. All software upgrades are seamlessly done on the server, so nobody ever has to go out to do desktop visits.

You could place barebones, terminal-like machines on desks and control everything from their data center. If someones machine breaks – simple, drop another $100 nettop on their desk and let them log back in. My department at work gets charged $100 every time a guy has to stop by my desk for any reason.

Oracle

Pro – Nobody shops like Oracle. They’ve averaged 1 acquisition per month over the last 6 years. Zoho already integrates with Open Office. It would actually help drive people to that suite. They have a ton of web-based apps installed at companies like yours. Why not let them handle your productivity apps too?

Con – They would probably piss off the entire user base, then forget that they even own the products. Then they would slap some marketing term like Fusion on it and never deliver it. Probably a job for the PeopleSoft team.

IBM

Pro - ???

Con – If Bloatus Louts ever got their useless hands on things they would instantly be rendered useless. The Worst Software Company EVER!!!

SAP

Pro -

Con – They would just figure out some way to make things super powerful, but unusable. Then they would brag about how they were better than Oracle.

Conclusion

In this era of Mergers & Acquisitions replacing Research & Development don’t be surprised if you see somebody gain a strong foothold in the fight against Google’s online dominance by acquiring rather than building a better suite of tools. Let’s just hope that it’s someone with enough sense not to screw up some really great tools.

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How to Create an Interactive YouTube Video

Let your Viewers Create their Own Journey

OVERVIEW: You will learn how to Create an Interactive Video using YouTube’s Annotation links.

What are Interactive YouTube Videos?

YouTube has a feature called Annotations which allows you to create links from one video to multiple others. You can use this feature to create a sort of interactive navigation path through a series of videos. The whole process allows for a lot of interesting possibilities; such as interactive games, story telling, training sequences, or product overviews.

Creating an interactive video series in YouTube is actually pretty simple. You need to break the process into the key parts:

• Sketch out a Story Board
• Create your videos
• Upload all videos to YouTube
• Create Annotation Links between videos
• Take viewers to your Starting Video

How Do Interactive YouTube Videos Work

Watch the video below to see a quick overview of the entire process.

Planning Everything Out

Before you create or upload any videos, you need to lay your navigation path out. I just start with a piece of paper and list out my individual videos. Then I decide where the Navigation Decision Points are located. For instance, when I get to the end of video 1 do I want to go straight to video 2 or give the viewer multiple choices? Do I want to let the viewer go back and review previous videos? What do I want viewers to do at the end (if there is one)?

Here is a typical Navigation Path drawing that helps me understand how my videos are going to work together.

Notice how I show where I want the viewer go at the end of each video.

Creating the Videos

Now that you have your series all planned out; you’re ready to create your individual videos. Just remember to leave a "Decision Period" or 10 second block of time at the end of each clip. This is where you will place your Annotation Links that direct viewers along your path.

Upload All of your Videos

When you are all done creating your individual clips, just upload them to YouTube. After all of your videos are uploaded and processed, you can see them on your My Videos page. Go to the top, right corner of the screen and click on your User Name. Then, select My Videos from the dropdown list. You will see all of your videos. (Newest to oldest)

I like to open all of the videos in the series in their own browser tabs and arrange them in chronological order. You are going to need the URLs from each of your videos to create the Annotation Links. I find it’s helpful to paste them all into a text file for quick copy and pasting later.

Creating Annotation Links in YouTube

Now you’re finally ready to link up all of your videos in YouTube. Go to your first video and click the Annotations tab.

When you see the Annotations Settings screen, click the Add Highlight icon. This will place the Annotation Link tool on your video. Drag the larger, top box over the "click" area of your video. Then, populate and position the Enter Text area.

There are yellow calipers along the timeline below your video. Adjust these to control the stop and start time of your Annotation Link. You will also need to put the URL of the video that you’re linking to into your Annotation. Click the Link icon on the link toolbar to enter your link.

Paste the URL of your destination video into the URL field and click the Save button. Your annotation has been added. You can add additional Links by repeating the same steps. When you have all of you links added, click the Publish button to make your Annotations live. Now, when your video gets to the point where your link is added, users will be able to click it and jump to the next video.

Just repeat this process to make your videos match up to your Navigation Path and your done. Now you can direct viewers to the first video in the series to let them start their own interactive journey.

See the Process in Action

Launch the following videos to see how to create your own interactive YouTube video.

See the Finished Product

If you would like to see the series of videos that I created while documenting this process, play the beginning video in the series below

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iPhone 4 Review

Much Better – Still Not Perfect

OVERVIEW: This is a product review of my new iPhone 4. I cover the Hardware,Camera, Operating System, and Applications that show off its best improvements.

Out with the Old, In with the New

I purchased my iPhone 3G about one and a half years ago. For the most part I was very happy with it, but I felt like I wanted to upgrade. The biggest feature of the iPhone 4 that got me to pull the trigger was the new HD Video camera and iMovie software ($5 download). I will be basing most of my opinions on a direct comparison with my old iPhone 3G.

Highlights

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

Pros - Far faster performance due to the new processer. Still and Video camera is excellent. Nice upgrade to the speaker phone performance.

Cons - The Antennagate issue is 100% real. While I was waiting for my free case to arrive (Over 1 week) I dropped numerous calls. This thing is FAR worse than Apple would lead you to believe. The FaceTime “feature” is useless.

A. It only works with other iPhone 4′s.

B. It only works if both parties are connected to wifi.

C. If I am on wifi (work or home), why wouldn’t I just just Skype Video on my computer?

Worth Upgrading? Definitely!!!

Hardware

Let’s start with the look and feel. It looks gorgeous as expected. The feel is another thing entirely. The new sharp corners on the back edges are terribly uncomfortable. It also feels very “slippery” in the hand. I constantly feel like I’m going to drop it. Bring back the rounded back plate please.

The Speaker Phone sounds a lot better and louder than my iPhone 3G. This is a welcomed improvement.Voice calls also sound better on the handset too. Nice! The earphones/headset is another nice improvement. The inline volume and pause buttons work almost as good as my 3rd generation iPod remote did.

The “Retina” display is as beautiful as they stated. When I watched NetFlix or YouTube videos they look great. If I show the same image or video side by side on my 3G iPhone it looks like an Atari video game.

Camera

Still Camera - Wow! What a nice improvement. The image sensor, megapixel boost, plus flash really help you get very nice pictures. I love the pictures that I can get now. When you pair it with a nice image editing app like Photoshop or Camera Bag it’s very impressive.

Video Camera - This is actually the feature that I was most excited for. The ability to create podcast videos on the go was very appealing. So far, I’m not disappointed. The recording interface and video quality is great. I really love the video camera. Well Done Indeed!

I filmed, edited, and uploaded the following movie all using my iPhone.

Operating System

The new iOS4 is not that much of a jump up in my opinion. There are a few nice tweaks, but no big deal. The addition of Folders is a really nice feature. I like having all of my apps right on the first home screen.

Best Apps

iMovie - This is a nice tool to accompany the beautiful HD video camera. You can capture great footage and turn it into a decent movie right on the spot.

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How to Write a Simple Sincere Thank You Note

I work on lots of projects in a very large group. I am always collaborating with several people in order to get things done. One of the things that I have always done well is maintaining positive, productive work relationships. If I could boil my secret down to its most elementary terms it would be" "Please and Thank You". When you need someone else to do something, say please. Be respectful of their time and workload and let them know who much you appreciate their time.

When they take care of it, make sure that you say Thank You. This is even more important than the Please part. You don’t have to go crazy with flowery praise, just let them know that you appreciate their time and effort.

Today a colleague asked me to "help her write one of those nice thank you notes that I’m always sending." She received some valuable help on a project and wanted to let the people know how much it was appreciated.

Here is my secret

When I want to write a simple, effective thank you email to people I use a technique that I learned called Situation Behavior Impact (SBI).

What is SBI?

SBI is a way to deliver positive and "constructive" feedback to people in a concise, effective manner. Think of something good or bad that you need to address with someone. If you break it down into three pieces it is easy to deliver.

Situation –
When did it happen?
What was taking place?
Who was there?

Behavior –
What did the other person do or say?

Impact –
What positive or negative impact did the behavior have on the outcome?

Here is an example:
        SITUATION                                                 BEHAVIOR                        IMPACT
During the staff meeting this morning – your software recommendation – helped us find a great solution to our problem.

Change the Behavior and Impact statements and it works for negative situations too.
       SITUATION                                                 BEHAVIOR                        IMPACT
During the staff meeting this morning – your constant interruptions – kept us from covering the full agenda.

They might not like it, but they’ll understand it.

I have given and received good and bad feedback using this method and it usually works very well.

Making it Your Own

Here’s my secret: I usually use the SBI (Situation Behavior Impact) approach when I do my thank you notes.
I just add in my own casual style to make it feel more human.

For instance:

Here is the behavior:
I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated all of the help that you gave me on the "YOUR FAVOR HERE" the other day "EXACT DAY HERE".

Then I drop the Situation into the next part:  (Not "The Situation" from the Jersey Shore, just the regular one.)
Putting together the "YOUR TASK HERE" was pretty rough. Your support made a big difference.

Now here’s where I bring it on home:

I really appreciate the time and energy that you put in.

THANKS!!!
Count the exclamation points. One – Two – Three. Any less than that makes you an ungrateful taker. Any more and you’re a butt kissing phony.

Here it is all together:

I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciated all of the help that you gave me on the "YOUR FAVOR HERE" the other day "EXACT DAY HERE".
Putting together the "YOUR TASK HERE" was pretty rough. Your support made a big difference.
I really appreciate the time and energy that you put in.

Thanks!!!

That’s it. Three simple sentences make a huge difference. Now, the next time you need a favor, you’ll have someone who is much more willing to help.

By the way: Today, when you took the time to read my article, it made me very happy. Thanks!!!

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