Hijinks Inc.

Category: iTunes

  • Disable the Ping Sidebar in iTunes 10.0.1

    iTunes 10.0.1 replaced the Genius sidebar with a Ping sidebar, and while you can’t currently restore the Genius sidebar you can disable the Ping sidebar.

    Simply fire up Terminal.app and enter the following:

    defaults write com.apple.iTunes disablePingSidebar 1

    Want to take it a step further? Enter this two commands in Terminal to disable even more of Ping…

    This disables the Ping buttons:

    defaults write com.apple.iTunes hide-ping-dropdown 1

    This restores the previous old-style arrow buttons:

    defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-link-arrows 1

    If you change your mind, just change the 1 to a 0 (again, all entered in Terminal).

    defaults write com.apple.iTunes disablePingSidebar 0
    defaults write com.apple.iTunes hide-ping-dropdown 0
    defaults write com.apple.iTunes show-store-link-arrows 0

    If the thought of using Terminal scares you, just download this AppleScript from Doug Adams.

  • Removing the Vertical Buttons from iTunes 10

    One of the first things I noticed about iTunes 10 was those ridiculously awful vertical buttons. Seriously, what were they thinking? And as a fellow developer pointed out, that even violates Apples own Human Interface Guidelines… Not to mention it’s a crime against humanity.

    Someone much craftier than I figured out that all you need to do to restore those buttons back to their horizontial counterparts is open up a Terminal window and enter the following:

    defaults write com.apple.iTunes full-window -1

    Press Enter, close Terminal and restart or open iTunes. You should see things are now back to normal.

  • Alternative iTunes 10 Icon (OS X)

    If you’re like me, you might not be sold on this new icon for iTunes. Don’t get me wrong, I love that they killed off the CD, but the new icon looks a little Windows 7ish in my dock.

    This morning I noticed this new icon from Chris Carlozzi floating around on Twitter, which looks pretty sweet.

    So I downloaded it and converted it to a .rsrc file so you can replace your iTunes icon with it on OS X.

    You can download the .rsrc file as a .zip here. After it’s downloaded, extract the icon file and right click on it a select Get Info.

    Next, navigate to your Applications folder and right click on the iTunes icon and select Get Info.

    You should now have both Info windows next to each other. In the iTunes 10.rsrc window, click once on the small icon in the upper left hand corner (should now be highlighted). Then press Command+C.

    In the iTunes Info window, click once on the icon in the upper left hand corner and press Command+V. You should now see the same icon in both windows.

    Close out the open windows and start iTunes, and you should see the new icon in your dock. Enjoy!

  • iTunes album artwork

    iTunes album artwork

    Just a quick post to shed some light on an issue some may be having with their iTunes album artwork.  The last time I moved my entire iTunes library from one computer to another, I noticed some of my artwork didn’t show up.  On doing some research, it seems that ever since iTunes 7, it actually stores the artwork in a separate library file, and doesn’t attach it to the actual music files themselves.  While there are some programs like TuneUp that our very own Dave Sack reviewed that will go through your entire collection and change that, an easy and free way to make sure the artwork is attached to any new song you import or purchase is this:

    1 – Right-click on the track, and click Get Info

    2 – Click on the Art tab on the far right

    3 – Click on the artwork once and Control-C to copy (Command-C on Mac)

    4 – Press Delete, which will erase the artwork you see

    5 – Press Control-V (Command-V) and paste the copied art back in

    6 – Press OK

    This painfully simple process will actually attach the artwork to the file tag so the artwork will now travel with the file where ever it may go.

    Also, if you’d like to embed artwork for an entire album, just select all of the tracks, right-click and go to ‘Get Info’, then paste the artwork into the ‘Artwork’ box… your artwork will be applied to all of the tracks.

  • National De-Lurking Day!

    They say that 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot, and 63% of all those crazy holidays you hear about completely don’t exist. It may not actually be National De-Lurking Day, but we here at Hijinks Inc. are choosing to celebrate it today.

    I ran across an article on this website and thought that we ought to have a day to de-lurk and get to know some of you who frequent our website, not only to make us feel better about ourselves, but because we’d like to continue to write about the stuff that interests you.

    So here’s what we’d like you to do, we’d appreciate it if you would take some time and leave us a comment or two. We’d love it if you’d look over a few of our articles and comment on all of them. In fact, over the course of the next 30 days, each comment you leave (worthwhile comments only, don’t break a single comment into 2 or 3 just to up your total) will qualify you to win a $25 iTunes gift card. The more comments you leave, the more you’ll be qualified to win!

    If you choose to add a comment below, don’t think of it as a favor to me but as a favor to everyone else. See, as much as I enjoy reading a comment, I can assure you many comments are added just because other comments preceded them.

    In this vein, if you choose to de-lurk and leave a comment, here’s what to do:

    1. Whether you are reading this in a feed reader, an email message, or a syndicated blog post somewhere, click here to visit the actual post.
    2. Scroll to the bottom of the page and follow the directions to add a comment, or jump straight to this page to register for an account.
    3. Type in your email address so I can email you privately, thanking you for de-lurking.
    4. Type in your blog address, or your corporate website, or maybe your Facebook page. Somewhere where I and others can click your name (your web link will be linked to your name) and read more about you.
    5. Want to take a step further? Become our fan on Facebook for an extra shot at winning.

    Please don’t be shy. Care to de-lurk now?