Ads free, setting up an account takes 5 seconds if you already have an ITMS account, sharing the huge ITMS database… Ping has everything to beat any music social community because it is fully integrated with the biggest music store in the world: the iTunes Music Store.

After you setup your account, you’ll need an additional 5 seconds (10 seconds) to become familiar to the super easy user interface.
Ping.com (famous golfing accessories) doesn’t belong to Apple of course, and the only way to connect to that social community is through the iTunes browser.
Main actions you can take through Ping are: follow (you might be familiar with that if you’re already on Twitter), post (you probably have at least posted a review on the ITMS, Ping enables you to discover them all in the “my reviews” page, and like (a feature Last.fm users are familiar with too).
Some of these actions have been integrated on albums page, you can see below (post and like):

A mix of Twitter and Last.fm that is very promising and that, of course, will boost the ITMS and iTunes users (which will boost the ITMS).

If Apple integrates stats system like Last.fm’s now playing and like-o-meter Ping’s follow features would be more interesting.

iTunes 10 comes with many new features and improvements, including:

• Introducing Ping. Use Ping to follow your favorite artists and friends or connect with the world’s most passionate music fans. Discover the music everyone is talking about, listening to, and downloading.
• Rent HD TV episodes for just 99¢ each. Watch them on your Mac or PC, on-the-go with iPhone or iPod touch, or in your living room with the all new Apple TV.
• Play your favorites on the all new iPod touch, iPod nano, iPod shuffle, and Apple TV.
• Play music wirelessly with AirPlay on AirPlay-enabled speakers, home theater receivers, and iPod accessories.
• Explore many look-and-feel improvements throughout iTunes.
• Enjoy performance improvements which make iTunes faster and more responsive.
• Additional voice support with VoiceOver Kit for iPod.

For information on the security content of this update, please visit: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1222

The package you can download below contains more than 120 QuickTime player components (or add-ins, plugins whatever you call them) making it capable to read almost all of the possible video formats without adding any 3rd party application (like DivX player, VLC, WMP etc…)

To install these components just:

• paste to the library/quicktime and
• paste to system/library/quicktime ( authenticate require)

To download the package just click here

Make the jump to see the full list of these add-ins:

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In a shift entirely predictable given the forthcoming release of the iPad, Apple restructured iTunes to edition 9.1 on Tuesday. Even though the chief function of the update was to fetch iPad suitability to Apple’s jukebox and additional media application, supplementary alterations both noteworthy and not so noteworthy ones approached alongside for the journey.

Previously special to the iPod shuffle, iTunes 9.1 involves a Convert Higher Bit Rate Songs To 128 kbps AAC alternative that is capable of working with all iPods and iPhones. This choice can be created by making a selection of an attached iPhone or iPod in iTunes’ Source catalog and then by opting for the Summary tag.

This is a helpful choice for those who are fond of keeping elevated bit rate, lossless, or uncompressed acoustic records in their iTunes collections, however are aware of the quantity of room such records can take on an iPod, iPhone, or iPad. In the earlier period, those with such apprehensions would frequently make dual accounts of these records, a muddled and puzzling resolution.

By means of this innovative alternative made possible, maintaining two replicas is no longer essential. It is essential to note that the switch procedure ought to happen when one allows this option which further increases the time it takes to synchronize music to an iPod, iPhone, or iPad.

FLAC: Free Lossless Audio Codec is not a recognized format by iTunes.
To listen to a FLAC file on your Mac there are (in theory) 2 solutions: convert the file, or add a plugin to iTunes.
Since I’m not the kind of person that likes to mess a lot with my Mac, I prefer the first solution.
To me, MacFLAC is the perfect deal: free, fast and easy to use.
The possible output formats are WAVE and AIFF as you can see in the screenshot below:

Three steps to use MacFLAC: drag, drop, convert.
You can get it free from here.

“One of the new additions to iTunes is said to include Blu-ray support which lines up nicely with a recent AppleInsider report about Apple integrating Blu-ray into their new iMac line-up,” the report states.
“Something else that will most likely make a bunch of people happy is that we’ve been told iTunes 9 will finally include the ability to visually organize and arrange your iPhone and iPod touch applications.

Something that wasn’t so clearly described was some kind of Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm integration. Maybe broadcasting what song you’re playing to your friends?”
BGR says the Twitter/Facebook/Last.fm stuff from its tip was more vague, but you can imagine that if such features were integrated it would involve tweeting out or updating your Facebook status with what song you are listening to. It’s possible that for Last.fm, iTunes would build-in support for logging what songs you are playing, something which Last.fm currently does through its own software.
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Apple Scripts are actions (or sets of actions) that can be launched from almost all of your Mac’s (bundled) Apple applications.

These scripts are time saving solutions especially for repetitive actions.
And here’s an example with iTunes and some of the best Apple Scripts (to me).

First thing to do, check if you do have the scripts folders for iTunes, the best way to make sure you do have it is to run iTunes and take a look at the menu bar, it should looks like this:

The Apple Scripts logo is the one you see before “help”.

If you don’t see it, just go to your Home Folder:Library:iTunes and create a folder and name it “Scripts”:

To find my Top 3 iTunes Scripts, please make the jump.
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When you have 2 or more Macs, it’s easy to see one’s mac iTunes library and listen to it from another Mac.

But you may want to control your main Mac’s iTunes ( the one connected to your speakers for example )  when you’re using another Mac : you’d want to browse your songs, see the cover of the playing song, etc…

TuneConect 2 is a free and very well done app which exactly does what i described above.

 * First step you enable your main Mac as a server : just install the pref.pane provided with TuneConnect.
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