How To

How to share your iTunes music library on a home network

The built-in sharing tools on iTunes make it easy to listen to a single library of music on several machines on your home or office network.

By tweaking a few settings through iTunes preference panes, you can control who can access your network, what they'll find there, and how your own remote listening habits can update your shared playlists and stats.

Traditional network sharing This was the first -- and at one time the only -- choice if you wanted to share your iTunes library. It's a simple one-click operation, with a few options that let you control … Read more

Tag your music files correctly with MusicBrainz Picard

Once your music library expands beyond a few thousand tracks, you're likely to find that some of those tracks have incorrect or missing information, like artist, album, year, genre, and so on. Sometimes this doesn't matter much, but if you are having a hard time searching or your obsessive side is dominant, MusicBrainz Picard can help you get your music files back in shape. Here's how to use it:

Download and install the application here for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Run Musicbrainz Picard. Add a folder containing music files. The application will also search subfolders, so if … Read more

How to ban the banner ads from Panasonic Smart TVs

When I reviewed the Panasonic TC-PVT50 series, I was annoyed to see that the latest software update caused a banner ad to appear for a few seconds whenever I turned on the TV. It disappeared quickly and only popped up upon power-on, but it was still obnoxious. The first thing I wondered was whether I could turn it off.

Happily, Panasonic built in a way to disable the advertising. It's a simple, albeit buried, menu command. Here it is in a nutshell.

Hit the main Menu button on the remote (not the "Internet" or "VieraCast" … Read more

Get more from your sound bar by using your TV as a switcher

Many sound bars offer a shockingly small number of inputs, with often just a single digital and analog audio input on the back to handle your gear. That's hardly enough for a modern home theater packed with a DVR, game console, Blu-ray player, and streaming-media box.

Luckily, you can get around your sound bar's limited selection of inputs by using your TV as a switcher. You'll be able to connect as many devices as your TV supports, and it will even simplify the input selection process.

Here's how to do it:… Read more

How to scrobble to Last.fm from iTunes, Spotify, and more

Long before Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard to found Facebook, Last.fm allowed music fans to keep an online record of the music they had been listening to in all sorts of music players, including iTunes, Winamp, and more. Last.fm's feature for this is called "scrobbling," based on the fact that it had acquired a company called AudioScrobbler in order to add it.

Now, Facebook does pretty much the same thing (except for with iTunes). All you have to do to send your playback history to your Facebook Timeline is use your Facebook identity to … Read more

When should I upgrade my HDTV?

Let's say you've had your HDTV for a few years now. Let's say you can't stop reading new TV reviews. Let's say you find excuses to stop at Best Buy to stare at the wall.

OK, you want a new TV. No problem. But do you need a new TV? Are the current models really that much better than what you have?

Let's take a look.… Read more

How to add Bluetooth streaming to any speaker

Bluetooth speakers are finally becoming more abundant, allowing you to wirelessly stream music from your phone or tablet. No docking stations, no auxilary cables. Ahh, freedom.

Ready-to-go Bluetooth speakers are convenient, but what if you already own speakers that you know and love? With Logitech's adapter, you can add Bluetooth streaming to just about any speaker for just $40.

A plug-and-play solution, the Logitech Wireless Speaker Adapter acts as a bridge between your existing speakers and your Bluetooth-capable phone, tablet, or computer. Here's how it works:

As with any wireless streaming solution, there will be audio compression. Meaning, … Read more

Spring cleaning tips to take control of your movies, music

If your home media center feels fragmented and frustrating, there's good news: with a weekend or two of spring cleaning, you can make it all much easier to keep track of and enjoy. I've tried to keep this hardware-independent, though some tips assume you have networked storage or a particular operating system. Here are a few tricks and tips to get you started:

Music This is usually the toughest library for most people to manage. Depending on the tools you use, it can be hard to effectively manage more than 10,000 individual music files, and while some … Read more

How to recover files from an Apple TV

It's been rumored that sooner or later Apple may come out with a television with unique capabilities, but until then there's the Apple TV device for viewing movies, music, and photos on a TV.

The Apple TV syncs with iTunes and other Apple programs, so while it can stream media from computers on a network or from the iTunes Store, it can also store a fair amount of photos and other files that you can access without other systems being powered on.

While in most cases what's stored on the Apple TV mirrors what's on your … Read more