Okay, so iTunes is really starting to get on my nerves.

It was already on my nerves because it seems to be incredibly slow. Even on my new spiffy mega-mondo desktop it feels bloated–it's got that bad-comedian-in-a-fat-suit slowness going on. I was all excited at the prospect of a 64-bit iTunes…but after running it for a while I wondered why it had gotten slow again. Then I discovered that the installer was the only 64-bit part. The regular iTunes was still 32. Now I'm not a technical guy (not anymore–I don't count myself in that particular club) but why in the hell would you want the installer to be 64-bit? The only reason I can come up with is that the 32-bit version wasn't playing nice with a 64-bit OS.

Anyway, so that was annoying.

Now I found today I had somehow turned on a feechur I'd never witnessed before nor desired: that of "album ratings." I have MP3s that I've pulled in from God knows where–a lot of old-time radio files, audiobooks and other things. As a result, I am missing a lot of artist and album titles (which I use this previously mentioned method to go through on the run).

[[ Continued ]]

Okay, well, I had to work way too hard to try and help a guy on 43 Folders.

Anyway, here's what he was complaining about: tucking away songs that you don't want because they are tied to a particular event. Xmas, for example.

Real simple. It helps if you have everything tied with a genre like "Xmas" or "Holiday" or something.

Select all the songs you wish to tuck away somewhere else. Then right click and "Get Info" on all of them. Change the album to "Xmas Tunes" or whatever you want to call it, and make sure you check that this IS a compilation.

Now…go to your compilations folder, grab that Xmas Tunes folder and move it wherever you want it. Then just go back into iTunes and delete the songs from your library. When it becomes time to celebrate our favorite "reformed" pagan holiday, just throw the songs back into your library. Done.

Now, if you don't have everything fixed with a genre, then just use my previous tip about using stars to mark things needing action, and if you come across "Jingle Bells" when you shouldn't, mark it with the right amount of stars and then deal with it when you get home.

As to the comments on 43 Folders: I had to register, fill in my personal info, do a captcha, then wait for my password to show up. Then I put the password in and was told that I was denied access to the comment form after all that. No error messages. No whoops, you did something wrong. Just nada.

If I ever put in place a scheme so user-unfriendly as that bullshit, please promise me one of you will call me on it, okay?

Since a couple of people have found this helpful, I'll just post this here, shall I?

As happy as I was to lay hands upon my 4G iPod (beat the hell out of spending the same amount of money to replace the CD changer in my car), there are certain things I wish I could do with my music while away from my computer. And I've got a head like a sieve, so by the time I get back to my computer, can't remember a single thing I meant to do.

So, since I don't use the song rating system–I mean, really, if a song's not worth four stars at least, why the hell is it on your iPod to begin with–I started using it to flag songs that needed my attention.

1 star = What the hell is this doing on here? I need to delete this.

2 stars = The file name/tag on this is screwed up. I need to fix it.

3 stars = This is cool and I need to place it in a playlist.

(Note: I know you can do the on-the-go playlist, but I file stuff in multiple playlists for different moods.)

So that way, I get back to my computer, I sort by rating, and I make the changes I need to.

Exciting? No. Handy? Well, yeah. I think so, anyway.