How to fast forward or rewind a song track on your iPod Touch.

1. While the song is playing, tap the album art.

2. You will see a line indicating where in the track you are. You can tap and drag the ball back and forth to fast forward or rewind the track to where you like.

This may be simple for some, but many iTouch users aren’t aware of this feature.

I wish that iTunes had a queue next song feature in my playlists. You can’t do this in your normal Library list or any of the custom playlists you make. Instead,  you have to put the songs in your Party Shuffle to queue a song to play next.

The Party Shuffle contains a menu when you right-click a song for Play Next in Party Shuffle.

You may ask How do I add songs to the Party Shuffle? Just right click the song in your normal playlist and select Add to Party Shuffle.

On one of my Mac’s, I had a problem with iTunes 8 where the songs from one album showed as split up as though they were on different albums in Grid View. Here is a screen shot (source).

To fix this problem, perform the following steps:

1. Highlight all of the tracks on the album.

2. Right-click on one of them and select Get Info.

3. Type a space at the end of the Album Artist. Click OK when done.

4. Right-click on the tracks again and go back to Get Info.

5. Take the space out at the end and click OK.

This totally works! It somehow resets iTunes into knowing all of the tracks are on the same album.

I recently discovered a cool trick with the iPod Nano. I usually fast forward by pressing and holding the forward button. I can also rewind using the back button. However if I’m listening to a long audio book or podcast, this can take forever. Luckily there is a feature that allows users to get where they need to be in the audio file quicker.

While playing a track, simply press and hold the Center button until the bar appears. You can then use the wheel to move back and forth throughout the track.

At times you may get the following error when trying to sync your Microsoft Zune device:

Zune Device is not Responding

Error Code:
C00D124D

To try to solve this problem, you may need to restart the device. To do so, perform the following steps:

1. Detach the Zune from the cable connected to your computer.

2. Press and hold the Back button while pressing the top of the Zune pad.

3. When the device restarts, let go of the buttons.

4. Try to sync again.

One feature of the iPod Nano that is often overlooked is it’s ability to act as an audio recorder. Here’s how:

1. Select Voice Memo.

2. Select Start Recording.

3. Recording is started. To pause recording, press Menu. To resume the recording, select Resume. You can also press the Center button to make chapters.

4. When you are done recording, press Menu > Stop and Save.

When you are ready to play your recording, just select Voice Memos and select the recording.

I made the mistake of adding too many artists and songs to my Memo Song Seek in my Sirius Sportster satellite radio. Now it beeps all the time to notify me of a song or artist it has found. Here’s how to remove Memo selections from the list.

1. Press and hold the Memo button for 2 seconds to enter the S-Seek mode.

2. Using the Up and Down buttons, highlight the song or artist you wish to delete. Press Select when it is selected.

3. Select Delete.

Are you getting tired of your Sirius Sportster 5 radio alerting you to songs or artists? You can enable or disable the Memo Song Seek feature using the following steps.

1. Press and hold the Memo button for 2 seconds to enter the S-Seek mode.

2. Press Select.

3. Highlight Song Seek on or Song Seek off using the Up and Down buttons.

4. Press Select to make your selection.

My favorite feature of Sirius satellite radio is the ability for it to notify you if a certain song, artist or band is playing on one of the stations. You can store your favorites using the Memo function on your radio.

To store a song or artist:

1. When the song or artist starts playing on your radio, press and hold the Memo button on your remote or on the unit itself.

2. A menu will appear asking you to Store Artist or Store Song. Using the arrow keys select the option you’d like, and press the Select button.

Now you will be alerted to your selection if the radio senses that it is playing on one of the stations. It will usually notify you even before it starts playing so you don’t miss any of it.

How to get music from your computer to your iPod music player.

1. Download iTunes and install it.

2. Launch iTunes and you can drag and drop the song files or folders with the music files to the iTunes window. The music files will then be added to the iTunes library.

3. Attach your iPod to the computer. You can then drag and drop the songs from the iTunes library over to the iPod device, which should be listed on the left side.

Note: The first time you connect an iPod to a computer, it may ask you to setup the device with a name and a few other preferences.

4. It can take a while for music files to transfer. You can see the progress of the file transfer at the top of the iTunes screen. When you are done moving files to the iPod, you can eject it by pressing the eject icon next to the device on the left side.

How to transfer specific songs or all songs from a CD to the iPod using iTunes.

1. Open iTunes and insert the CD that you wish to import.

2. You might get a prompt to import the CD. If you want to import every song on the disc, select Yes and skip to Step 5. If you only want to import specific songs from the CD, click No.

3. Select the CD on the left side. You can now uncheck the songs you don’t want to import.

4. Click Import CD in the lower right corner of the screen.

5. iTunes will start importing music from the disc.

6. Attach your iPod to the computer.

7. Click Library on the left side of the iTunes screen. Drag and drop the songs that have been imported over to your iPod device which should also be listed on the left side.

8. Eject your iPod when it’s done transferring the songs and enjoy.

If your Sandisk Sansa e200 MP3 player becomes locked up or frozen, it’s time to try to reset the device. You can do this by simply holding down the Power/Menu button for about 15 seconds. After the reset, any changes you have made to the e200 during its last use will be lost.

My iTunes was a rickety mess. I had links to songs that didn’t exist on my hard drive anymore, duplicates and a bunch of playlists that I didn’t need anymore. I wanted to start over. I could delete all of this data by individually selecting each item and deleting them, but that’s a pain. There is an easier way. Here’s what I did.

1. Close iTunes.

2. Open My Documents > My Music > iTunes.

3. Right-click iTunes Music Library.xml and select Rename. Give it a name of iTunes Music Library.old. Do the same thing for the iTunes Library.itl file.

4. Open iTunes. Everything should be cleared now. The library, playlist, ratings will then be cleared out. New iTunes Music Library.xml and iTunes Library.itl files will be created.

5. You can now drag and drop your music files you want to get back to the main window of iTunes. The main folder for iTunes music is located at My Documents > My Music > iTunes > iTunes Music. It’s a good idea to organize your music files first before you re-add your music files back to iTunes to avoid duplicates and errant file names.

Backing up your music files is very important. A hard drive crash could totally wipe out your entire music library that you’ve spent years building. Use these steps to backup your iTunes music files for storage or to move them to another PC.

To perform these steps, you will need a CD or DVD burner and enough CD’s or DVD’s to store all of your music files.

1. In iTunes, Click File > Back Up to Disc…

2. Select wheither you would like to Back up entire iTunes library and playlists or Back up only iTunes purchases. You can also select if you only want to backup music files that have been added or changed since your last backup. Click Backup when ready.

3. Insert either a writable CD or DVD into your disc drive. iTunes will then begin preparing the backup and writing the files.

4. Insert more CD’s or DVD’s if prompted.

How to add music file in PowerPoint 2007 so that it plays during the presentation.

1. Select the slide you wish to add the music to.

2. Click the Insert tab.

3. Under the Media Clips group, click the arrow under Sound.

4. To play a music file such as an MP3 or WAV, click Sound from File.

5. Browse to the folder that contains the file, and then double-click the music file.

6. Select if you wish the file to start Automatically or When Clicked.

I recently tried to play a Shoutcast Radio station in Winamp, and I was unable to because of an error:

Cannot Write Stream To Disk

Luckily I was able to find a fix for it.

1. From the main Winamp window click Options > Preferences.

2. In the Plug-ins section, select Output.

3. Click Nullsoft Direct SoundOutput or Nullsoft WaveOut Output.

4. Click Close.

I was then able to play radio stations without error.

There are many ways to convert FLAC files to MP3 in Windows. Which one is the easiest though? Well there is a web site that will convert almost anything, including those formats. It’s very easy, but it’s also very slow. It converts only one file at a time.

For faster conversions, your best bet is to do the following:

1. Download and install dBpoweramp.

2. Download and install the FLAC codec for dBpoweramp.

3. Click Start > Programs > dBpoweramp Music Converter > dBpoweramp
Batch Converter

4. Select the folders where your FLAC files are located. Then check the files you wish to be converted. Click Convert after they are all selected.

Read more… »

Create a playlist directly on your iPhone using the On-The-Go Playlist.

1. From the Home screen, tap Playlists.

2. Tap On-The-Go.

3. Browse the song list with the buttons at the bottom of the screen. Tap any song or video to add it to the playlist.

4. Tap Done when you are finished.

iLike is a great little application for Facebook that allows you to add your favorite music and dates for your favorite concerts to your profile. You can also use it to get free MP3 files. It’s probably the most popular Facebook application. Here’s how to add it to your profile.

1. Login to your Facebook account and click Privacy in the upper-right corner.

2. Click Applications.

3. Click the Edit applications page link.

4. Click the Browse More Applications button.

5. iLike may be listed there already, if not you can search for it and then click the iLike link.

6. Read this page if you need to learn more about how to use iLike to add music to your page. When you are ready, you can click the Add Application button toward the upper right corner of the pages.

7. Set the items you wish to allow or disallow the application to have access to. Click Add iLike when you are ready, and you’re done.

People that use headphones are said to go deaf over time because they tend to play music too high. Setting a limit on the volume on your iPod can be a good idea to prevent ear injuries. Here’s how to limit the volume level on your iPod Shuffle.

1. Plug in the iPod Shuffle.

2. Start iTunes.

3. Click the iPod Shuffle on the left.

4. Click the Settings tab at the top of the screen.

5. Check the Limit maximum volume box, then set the minimum audio level using the sound bar. You can also click the lock to prevent changes to the maximum volume.

6. Click Apply in the lower right corner.