Episode 3 - Managing Your Digital Music Library

Most of us have an extensive digital music library. Often our mp3’s are scattered all over our hard drive. Today I’m going to teach you how to label and organize them.

Windows has playback software built in called Windows Media Player, but it doesn’t have very useful library management.

Microsoft’s Zune Software was created to sync with the Zune Portable Media Player, but works for playback and library management even if you don’t have a Zune. You’ll need to have a Windows Live ID to download it.

The first time you run the Zune Software you’ll be asked to start playing or to change the default settings. If all your music is in the Windows default music folder you can click start. If you have your music somewhere else like an external hard drive click settings and choose which folders to include. Zune Software will then import your music. Click Collection and you can then choose between artists, genres, albums, songs and playlists.

Some of your songs may have the wrong genre or extra information in the title field. You can edit the track’s tag info by right clicking on it and selecting edit. You can then fill in the proper information.

Creating playlists can be done manually or automatically.

You can select a range of songs, right click on them and select add to playlist, a window will pop up and you can name your playlist.

In my opinion the better way is to create an automatic playlist by clicking playlists, then click New Autoplaylist.

You can then name the playlist and select your criteria. I like to create an automatic playlist for each genre.
Zune Software will import all the songs that meet your criteria.

Zune Software has a marketplace that you can purchase content from. You can buy music, videos, subscribe to podcasts and purchase apps for your Zune through this portal.

Apple’s  iTunes, like Zune software was created to sync with Apple iPods and iPhones, but works for playback and library management even if you don’t have and iPod.

The first time you run iTunes it will scan your music folder and import any music it finds. It will convert your wma files to a format that can be played on an iPod. Once it has finished importing your music it will attempt to download album art.

By default iTunes show your music library in grid mode, which shows you pictures of all your albums, you can double click on an album and see the tracks inside. I prefer to have a list view of all my songs. You can change your view by clicking view and selecting as list.

You can edit track information by right click a file and selecting get info then selecting the info tab. Now you can fill out the details.

Playlists can be created manually or automatically in iTunes as well.

For a manual playlist click file and select new playlist. Name the playlist.

Click music, select the songs you want to include then drag and drop them onto the new playlist.

To create an automatic playlist, click file and select new smart playlist. Fill out the criteria and iTunes will pull in all the tracks and will live update so that any new songs you purchase or rip that meet that criteria will be automatically added to the playlist.

iTunes also has a store that you can purchase music, movies, TV shows, apps for iPhone or iPod Touch, and audiobooks from. You also use the iTunes store to subscribe to podcasts.

My personal favorite music manager software is Songbird. It has the features I like from Zune and iTunes and supports add-ons. Songbird is open source so that means people can add functionality to it and create plugins such as lyrics and iPod support. Under bookmarks click Songbird Add-ons. You can sort by browsing the different categories or by keyword.

 

One of my favorite features is the folder watch feature. When you first run Songbird when you choose the directory to import you can click a checkbox that will tell Songbird to watch this folder so any files that are added to that folder will automatically be imported into Songbird next time it’s run.

You can filter your music library by genre, artist or album. Editing the tag information is done by right clicking a track and selecting edit metadata, editing the information and clicking OK.

Like iTunes and Zune software, Songbird allows you to create both manual and automatic playlists. Much like iTunes you click file and select either new playlist or new smart playlist.

Songbird doesn’t have a store built in, but you can choose one of many by installing an add-on.

This last tool isn’t a library manager, but I feel it’s essential to having an organized music library. It’s called TagScanner and it’s used for editing the tag information on multiple tracks at once.

Have you ever ripped a CD and opened the exported folder only to be greeted by Track1, Track 2, Track 3 and so on?

Renaming those files one at a time is annoying and is time consuming, but with TagScanner’s music renamer you click one button and each file is renamed automatically.

With the Tag Editor function you can edit every detail of an individual file or multiple files.  Things like changing the genre of a whole album can be done quickly and easily.

 

The Tag Processor feature is used for taking information from the filename and adding it to the tag information. For instance let’s say you ripped a CD, but when you import the songs into your library manager the song title and artist are blank. You can use Tag Processor to fill that information in automatically.

 

Next week my topic will be managing your digital photo library.

Please send your questions to questions@thegeekdownthestreet.com

Episode 2 - Backing Up Your Data

The best strategy for backing up your important data is to use a combination of local and off-site storage. In the case of a catastrophe such as fire or theft you want to have a copy somewhere away from your home. An example of this might be to use two external hard drives, take one to work and keep one at home and rotate them weekly. Another way to have a local and off-site solution is to use one external hard drive and use online storage.

Why should you back up?

The statistics are staggering: every year 43% of computer users lose irreplaceable files. If you’re like most people, you have all your important data in one place and you don’t back up. Experts say having only one copy of important data is the same as having no copies. Hard drives fail sooner or later. It’s been said there are two types of hard drives, ones that have failed and ones that WILL fail. Don’t think it can’t happen to you.

How often should you back up?

My suggestion is to back up your most important files once a day and the rest, as a general rule you should back up once a week.

What should you back up?

When I back up data for my clients I make sure I back up the following:

Documents
Photos
Music
Videos
Favorites
Address book
Email

How do you back up your data?

If you have Windows Vista or Windows 7 you already have everything you need to back up your data with Backup & Restore Center. You choose what to backup, where to back it up and how often and Windows take care of the rest.You can get to the Backup & Restore Center by clicking Start, Control Panel, Backup & Restore Center.

In Windows Vista:

Click back up files.

Choose what to back up.

Choose when to back up.

In Windows 7:

Click Set up backup.

Choose your destination.

Choose whether to have Windows pick what to back up or to choose manually.

 If you chose "Let Me Pick", Select the folders you want backed up.

Click Change schedule.

Choose how often and when to back up.

If you are still using Windows XP, you will have to install software to perform automatic backups. I recommend Microsoft’s free software called Sync Toy. The idea with Sync Toy is creating folder pairs. The left folder is the source folder on your computer, the right folder is the destination such as a folder on an external hard drive or a network location.

You then choose one of 5 synchronization methods. Echo works like a standard one-way sync, copying all files from Left to Right. Synchronize is bidirectional; Contribute works like Echo but it won't delete files removed from the Left folder; Subscribe only updates files in common that have been updated; and Combine merges Synchronize and Contribute so that files are updated in both directions, but none are deleted.

A free online solution is DropBox. You get 2GB of online storage for free and can pay for more if needed. Once installed DropBox puts a folder inside your Documents folder. Anything that is put into your Dropbox folder is instantly and constantly backed up online.

DropBox also works as a synchronization tool. You can install DropBox on multiple computers and anything in your DropBox folder is synchronized between all them. For instance, I put my Quickbooks company file in my DropBox folder so whether I open Quickbooks on my laptop, netbook or home PC the data is all the same.

Any data in your DropBox folder is also available online at DropBox.com so if you are at a friend’s house and need to access your files you can.

Another online solution is Carbonite. Carbonite installs a small application on your computer that works quietly in the background looking for new changed files that need to be backed up. It looks and feels just like part of your computer and is integrated with your operating system.


When your computer is idle, Carbonite automatically backs up your new or changed files. You don’t have to do anything. When you are using your computer Carbonite goes to sleep so it will never slow you down or interfere with your internet connection.

Carbonite offers unlimited backup for $54.95US per year.

Next week I'll be covering managing your music library.

Please send your questions to questions@thegeekdownthestreet.com

Episode 1 - Protecting Yourself On The Internet

For the first few episodes until there are some listener questions I will pick a subject that I get asked a lot about by my customers. This week I have chosen “How To Protect Yourself On The Internet.”

It is estimated that of the 600 million computers currently on the internet, somewhere between 100 and 150 million could be infected with malware.

Here are some things we can do to protect ourselves online:

Update security patches for your operating system and web browser.

Probably the most important step in protecting your computer is to make sure your operating system is up to date. The easiest way to do this is by turning on automatic updates.

Microsoft patches security vulnerabilities on the second Tuesday of each month. In extreme cases they will push a patch outside of this schedule.

For Windows users, an easy way to update your system is by clicking on the Windows Update option under the Start menu or by pointing your web browser to this link: http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com/.

Use anti-virus software.

Malware such as viruses and spyware can damage your computer. Some are also designed to steal your identity by installing a key logger, a program that captures every keystroke and emails them back to the mothership.

Having anti-virus software installed is critical for your computers security.  There are many anti-virus solutions out there. Microsoft recently released their software called Security Essentials which can be downloaded for free. Another of the most popular av programs is AVG, which is available in both free and paid versions.

Be wary of e-mail attachments and links in emails.

The most common point of infection is email. Attachments can contain malware. It's best not to open any attachment that you are not expecting.

More and more users are being infected just by visiting a website. Because of this I recommend never clicking a link in an email. A clever hacker can have a link take you to any website he wants. Instead, copy the link and paste it into your browsers address bar.

Ignore spam.

As annoying as it is to get spam, the last thing you want to do is click the unsubscribe link. Spammers send these messages out to hundreds of thousands of addresses. If you click the unsubscribe link, it only confirms that this email address actually belongs to a person. The best thing to do is just delete it. If you are using a webmail provider such as Gmail, you can report the message as spam.

Don't Respond to Emails Requesting Personal Information.

Identity thieves often send emails that appear to be from your bank or Paypal or some other large company that will ask you to confirm your personal information. A legitimate business would never send an email requesting personal information.

Don't enter personal information into a website that doesn't begin with https.

The S stands for secure! Any information transferred over this connection is encrypted and is much harder to be stolen. (although not impossible) You should also see a picture of a padlock in the address or status bar.

Be Careful What You Download.

Beware of “free” screen savers or mouse cursors! Fraudsters often hide malware inside other programs. Only download from a trusted source and scan the file for viruses before running it.

Be Smart About Your Password.

A weak password such as “password” or “123456” is one of the easiest ways to have your personal information stolen. A strong password should contain a combination of numbers, letters (both upper case and lower case), punctuation, and special characters. Do not store your passwords on your computer and if you need to write them down, keep them somewhere secure.

Use Extra Caution with Wireless Connections.

Wireless networks do not provide as much security as wired Internet connections. In fact, many "hotspots" (wireless networks in public areas like airports, hotels and restaurants) reduce their security so it's easier for users to access and use these wireless networks. If you need to connect to a public hotspot, it's best not to do any sort of online banking or credit card transactions.

On the next episode I will cover backing up your data.

Please send your questions to questions@thegeekdownthestreet.com