Ever since iTunes allowed the cover flow option in iTunes I’ve wanted an easy way of getting all of my album art together. Luckily I found this program for Mac users.

Fetch Art is a little utility program that does what the name implies: fetch your album art. It essentially uses Amazons XML interface to find the album art to match the info already in your iTunes library. The program is controlled through the iTunes script menu. It allows you to preview album art it finds so that you can make sure it’s the correct picture. Here’s a little screenshot:

thanks to Macupdate.com for the picture

Click here to download

Are you a college student like me who has a different schedule every day?

While I’m usually pretty good about setting my alarm clock for the right time, it doesn’t hurt to have a backup plan.  I have come across a nice piece of software every student Mac owner should have.

Aurora is an alarm clock that runs on your Mac. It even integrates with iTunes on your Mac. You can set an alarm that goes off at a different time for every day if you want.

Want to sleep in on the weekend, but afraid you might forget to set your alarm for that 8am class on Monday? Aurora solves that problem. But what if your Mac is asleep? Or the volume is muted? Aurora will wake your computer and even unmute it if it has to.

Aurora even has a fade in option to ease you out of that deep sleep if you’re into that sort of thing.

Thanks to versiontracker.com for the images.

The newest version of Aurora costs 15 EUR at the project’s homepage. Of course there is a 14 day trial period before you have to buy a license.  There is even a 20% (3 EUR) student discount.

However, if you would like to try an older version of Aurora for free, here is the download link.

Amarok, a familiar name from the Linux community, has decided it’s newest release will be available to all you Windows users. But what is Amarok? Amarok is an open source, extremely popular music player. It’s current version is only available in Linux, in fact I’m listening to my music through Amarok right now. Before I switched to Linux I was a heavy iTunes user but now I’d rather use Amarok. I can’t really pin-point anything that makes Amarok so much better than iTunes, I guess it’s just that I’m comfortable with Amarok now. For all you iTunes haters, Linux lovers, or people looking for a decent music app, Amarok is worth a good look. A list of what Amarok has to offer:

• Quick and simple drag and drop playlist creation
• Super eye-candy interface
• Multiple backends supported (xine, NMM and Helix)
• 10 band equalizer
• Automatic cover art download using Amazon services
• The unique and powerful Context Browser
• Automatic play-statistics generation (iRate style)
• Full lyrics download
• Funky visualisations from libvisual and XMMS
• Streaming from any KIO source
• Crossfading
• Fully configurable translucent OSD for track changes
• K3B (CD-burning) integration
• KDE integration
• Style your Context Browser with custom CSS styles.
• Save space in your Context Browser with collapsable boxes
• Show the Context Browser without amaroK open through the konqueror sidebar!
• Full support for last.fm! Share your music taste with friends on the net
• Generate dynamic playlists based on last.fm suggestions
• Support for sqlite, MySQL and PostgreSQL databases ensuring fast collection access
• Support for iPod®, iRiver® and generic UMS mp3 players with the all new media-browser
• Powerful scripting interface, allowing for easy extension of amaroK
• Complete DCOP access
• Translated into more than 35 languages, thanks to the KDE internationalization team.

I know a few of these don’t apply to Windows users, but most of these features will be included in the Windows version for Amarok2.

Here’s a quick screenshot I borrowed from the Amarok blog:

For more information about the Amarok2 development for Windows, check out the Amarok blog.

There are rumors that Apple is currently in negotiations with major record labels to discuss a new option that would give customers unlimited downloads from the iTunes music store. You would only get the unlimited download option if you paid a premium price for an iPod or iPhone. The idea is not only great for customers but would also help Apple as well since Apple does not make as much money from its song sales as it does from its hardware. I would be willing to pay a reasonable $50-$100 more for an iPod if it allowed me free access to all that iTunes has to offer. I would probably look at the higher capacity 160GB iPod since I would be able to download all that I want.

Apple is supposedly looking at offering subscriptions for its iPhone customers. Since the iPhone has a monthly plan, the subscription would just be added onto your wireless bill. While this is a good idea for iPhone users, I hope Apple will be able to come up with a subscription service for its iPod customers as well. The subscription service might be a good option if they are unable to agree with music labels about the unlimited download option discussed above. It might also be a good option for those customers who already have an iPod and are not willing to upgrade just yet.

pictures credited to http://www.apple.com

So you’re thinking of buying Apple’s new 40/160 GB Apple TV. The concept is great, but there are a few drawbacks that are keeping me from buying one. If you don’t know what the Apple TV does, here’s a quick summary. The Apple TV is essentially a small computer that you connect to your TV so you can watch all those movies you’ve been downloading through iTunes.

Picture taken from www.apple.com/appletv/specs.html

The device itself can connect to the internet using either a wireless connection or your basic Ethernet cable. It will connect to your home computer and get your iTunes content from there and it supports streamed content from sites such as YouTube. With Apple’s new rental service, you don’t have to go down the street to Blockbuster, or wait a few days for that Netflix DVD to arrive. The biggest plus is that it supports content up to 720p, so that high def video you downloaded (or rented) can be watched on that nice HD plasma of yours.

So by now you’re thinking, I think I’ll drive down to that Apple store and get one of these things, but here come the drawbacks. You’ll have to create, convert, or buy compatible formats so that your videos will work with the Apple TV’s limited number of formats. Watching those YouTube videos on some of the larger TV’s can look absolutely horrible. You can’t connect to network storage devices or even to other Apple TVs. Connecting a keyboard is also impossible, so you’ll have to make do with that little remote they give you. You can only sync with one computer, so if you have media on multiple computers and you can’t put all of it onto one computer then this isn’t a viable solution for you.

All-in-all: If you’re looking for a small device that is as simple to use as that iPod in your pocket, then this could be the device for you. I, however, would rather build a media computer and connect that to my TV. With a media computer I can do much more and have as much storage space as I want. With 500 GB drives at around $100, you could have 2 terabytes of space quite easily.