Time for a hymn? Today's Tech Gospel is about a feature in iTunes that not many people take full advantage of. The Smart Playlist. I don't know about most of you, but I think the "
Genius" feature in iTunes feels more like a retarded monkey clicking away at my playlist with bizarre song choices. It works most of the time, but every now and then, it feels like the DJ fell asleep at the booth.
I prefer having a little more control over my playlists, but I'm personally too lazy to always change songs. I do like hearing songs I haven't played in a while, but I also have a set of favorites that I always like listening to. So what's the balance between manually selecting songs, your favorite few, random (aka genius), and adding new songs?
Smart Playlists
This isn't a new feature of iTunes, but one that is often overlooked. It's much simpler to just drag a song into a new playlist or create a new one with songs you already like. That's fine if you only have a few songs. Once your library passes 500, it kinda gets messy.
A Smart Playlist is a playlist that can sort songs given certain rules that you define. For example, I have master playlists of each genre that I like, Alternative, Rock, Metal, etc. But Christmas songs that also fall under these genres are NOT included in these master lists since I want those under just one Christmas folder.
Songs can be cross posted under different SPs as well, like if a song is classified as both classical and instrumental, it can be sorted into two SPs. A classical and an instrumental one. The Instrumental SP may contain other genres as well, not just classical music.
You can also create a SP that sorts all songs recently played, or most often played.
Favorites:
for each genre
or artist.
Most often played
or least often played.
Latest added (this is a default Smart Playlist in iTunes)
Or almost anything else that you prefer.
And even if the older iPod Shuffles can't handle playlists, that doesn't mean they can't benefit from Smart Playlists. I have a Smart Playlist just for my 2nd gen Shuffle. It automatically loads 1GB worth of songs, distributed in 100MB per genre.
It takes a while to define the rules. You can have more than one, and sub-rules for every main rule. For example you can tell a Smart Playlist to include all songs by John Mayer that you recently played, but not from his Room For Squares album. Then limit it to the last 100 songs that fit that description.
The advantage of Smart Playlists vs regular ones is that with the right set of rules, you don't have to keep making new playlists. They constantly change, update, rearrange, add and remove based on what you tell it are your listening habits. Not a 'best guess' effort.
Summer is here, and that means beach trips are coming up. But what about your music player or smartphone? If you've got an Android, iPod Touch, or iPhone, you may want to invest in a waterproof pouch.
There are a lot of pouches out there that offer protection, but I like DesignGO for the price that they offer. At P500 (or approx US$12) at R.O.X. in Fort Bonifacio, it's as good as any of the other plastic-pouch solutions out there. Plus it has a small headphone extension so you can plug in your headphones while keeping the pouch completely sealed.
Although not IP rated, I wouldn't really do anything extreme with ANY soft case. If you need it to be submersible however, you may want to look at the hard cases from H2O Audio instead. But I'd pick DesignGO's water pack over any of the other soft cases that sell for 3x more. Pelican cases offer additional shock protection aside from mild water resistance, while Otterbox only offers shock protection, not water resistance.
I'm not a fan of protective jackets. Never had one on any of my mobile phones, iPods, or laptops. I do have protective pouches or bags, but I take my device out when I use it. So far, the only 2 protective jackets I own are the original Apple iPad case (but I only use it when I'm out... my iPad is out of the case when I use it at home) and my recent purchase of the Capdase jacket for my iPod Touch.
The only reason I've been looking for a case for my iPod Touch is for video viewing and FaceTime. I needed something that could serve as a stand in both portrait and landscape orientations. I found the perfect solution in the Capdase Soft Jacket 2.
Although I'm still not fond of having a protective jacket on my iPod, I like the fact that it's not bulky. It's quite simple in design and the integrated kick stand works well and folds flat when not in use. My only complaint is that the stand is a bit offset (dunno why) so it's slightly off balance when in portrait mode. Not a big deal as long as the surface you're resting it on is sturdy. It also comes with a screen protector (which I didn't bother installing either) and a soft neoprene pouch. If you're looking for a simple stand solution for your iPod Touch 4, this is one of the sleeker solutions I've found.
Today's Tech Gospel: Apple announced an entire new line-up of iPods today. Among them was the highly anticipated upgrade of the iPod Touch. As Jobs put it "It's the iPhone without a contract"... which is what everyone wants. HAHAHAHA! Was this Apple's way of circumventing their deal with AT&T? Hmmm...
When I first got the email about the new iPod Shuffle, I was impressed with the design, and the Voice-over function. But when I finally got to try it extensively, I was very disappointed.
