Keep your iTunes Content Organized

Keeping your iTunes Content organized, especially Movies, TV shows  and the likes of it is a tough job  with a lot of upkeep required. Which is why , if you're a Television and Movie fan, you should read about the three apps and several tips that will make your life far far more... Organized. ( And easy )

Lets start with the basics. If you buy the Movie / TV Show from iTunes, you'll have no problem except a lighter wallet. But say, you get it from a different place say a DVD or downloaded from somewhere else. You first need to convert your movie to .mp4 the file format which is pretty much one of the only files iTunes accepts. For this I present to you -

1. iSkysoft iMedia Convertor - While it is a bit pricey at $49.99, it is an amazing application which allows you to convert to pretty much any format. It has predefined formats for specific devices such as iPad, Mac, Youtube, HD, Apple TV, iPhone, iPod and several others in addition to letting you make your own custom formats based on required video resolution, etc. You can also download a free trial version from here. A few free alternatives applications for the same purpose are Handbrake and iSquint.

Once converted, the Movies / TV Shows can now simply be dragged to iTunes where they will automatically import themselves into the Movies tab of iTunes. Now you can simply leave them there untouched. Or you could add artwork and make them look like above. To do so, select the Movie / TV Show, press command-I, go to the artwork tab, drag an image in there and click okay.

Now, if they're TV shows do you really want them in your Movies tab ? No. So you select one or all the episodes, press command-I, go to the options tab and change the media kind to "TV Show". If you wish to, go to the videos tab of the same window and type the name and season of the TV Show. Episodes of the same TV Show name get grouped together.

Next Up : TV Shows Application ( For educational purposes only )

TV Shows Application - This is an amazing application, free of cost. You simply choose from a MASSIVE list of TV Shows and it will download the newest episode of the show from torrents or any other source of your choice as soon as it is released. Also gives you the option to download HD versions of the show by default.

The third application -

VLC - Even if you have problems opening or playing the video with ANY other media player, which you most likely will, you won't have one with VLC. It is by far the most amazing application I have ever used for video playback. Its also quite useful if you're simply too lazy or if you don't have the patience to convert the video before watching. It can play ANY kind of video no matter what. I have one simple rule: If it doesn't work on VLC, its not a video.

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Color Up Your Mac

When you get bored of the traditional blue everything on your Mac, why not switch to red, or green, or orange or pink or any one of the millions of colors available on your Mac. So you're probably wondering which colossally sized application you have to download. Sadly, none. You go to System Preferences --> General ( in personal ) --> Change the Highlight Color and you're done !

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Alfred - A Must Have App

Spotlight is an amazingly useful feature of Mac and I used to find myself using it numerous times in a day. The convenience could actually be classified as overwhelming. Yet, there were some aspects of the search which would hamper this convenience. The small font, indexing time and inconvenient location for example. So, when I found Alfred, a simple search application which was far better on the eyes ( stunning ) and even somewhat faster than the native Mac search, I was mind blown. Not only does it provide all the functions of spotlight including dictionary and calculations, it is also located ( by default ) in the center of the screen, is bigger with better, crisper font and has numerous additional features such as the ability to give a command like “screensaver” or “sleep” straight from the app and information about its usage. And all this in one free lightweight package. Download it now or live with the inconvenience.

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5 Must-Have Mac Apps ( Free )

If you’re a new mac owner or switching to a mac, then these apps will make your life much easier -

1. Alfred – A beautiful search engine / productivity tool to change your life. It can search your mac, google, wikipedia, amazon, play songs, give commands to your mac like “sleep”, “shut down”, etc and is a lightweight application that looks absolutely stunning. Read more about Alfred or download Alfred.

2. Pop Clip – iOS like copy, cut, paste, dictionary, search, email all with one handy click. See screenshots above.

3. VLC – All in one cross-platform media player. To date, I have never come across a media file that VLC cannot play. Amazing software. Unlimited Options. For Mac, Windows, Linux and iOS .

4. Vuze – BitTorrent downloader. Of all the various torrent downloaders I have used, Vuze is by far the best. Exceeding all capabilities, in a simply but beautifully designed cross-platform application, Vuze is simply brilliant. Transmission and Miro are other alternatives for bitTorrent downloaders.

5. MagicPrefs - Customize your Mac with countless gestures for your Magic Mouse / Trackpad meant to enhance their utility and change your life.

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Disable the Blinding Photo Booth Flash

If you didn't know, Photo Booth uses an automatically enabled flash every time you snap a shot. This isn't really a flash. It merely simulates a flash by flashing a blinding white screen on your monitor when taking a photo. But sometimes the flash can get really annoying. Sometimes it may be blinding. At other times it may add unwanted highlights to your photo. So how do you disable it. In previous versions ( Tiger ), it wasn't possible to disable the flash. So to disable the annoying flash -

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