I’m trying to maximize the way I use Itunes for my ipod, but I don’t think most people appreciate all of the features that it has.  Here are some that even my daughter didn’t know about, which I had to figure out on my own:

BENEFITS:

• For goodness sakes, use the rating system.  Not only does it tend to play the higher rated songs more, but you can change them on the fly when you’re listening to your songs.
• Duplicate finder is built in.
• Mass update categories, genres.
• Use the smart playlists, which are dynamic.
• Sort by Date Added to make sure that your newest songs are always categorized and rated approrpiately.
• If I don’t recognize an artist, I will give a neutral category.
• I have Smart Playlists for 4 and 5 rated songs and then one for 5 rated songs when I know I’m not going to want to be flipping through songs, such as while I’m driving.  Both of these lists have an exception for Holiday music.
• Until I can actually clean up the files on the hard drive, I put the least liked or shortest duration sounds/songs on one star.

CRITICISMS:

• It is very unclear what happens to “removed” items on the local drive.  There is absolutely no file maintenance system and there is no way, apparently to change the file name from within Itunes.
• What’s worse is when you change anything on your actual file system, you either have to retrieve the information by seeking the folder again manually and you are plagued with a bunch of exclamation points for which there doesn’t seem to be an easy way to clean up.