iTunes tips - get the most from iTunes 8

It's easy to miss some of the most useful features in iTunes 8. We reveal 11 top tips for making the most of Apple’s media jukebox

Create Genius playlists
It's easy to be spoilt for choice when making playlists from your own music. To save you both time and hassle, iTunes has introduced a Genius mode, which chooses the tracks for you.

To activate Genius mode, just click the Store menu and select Turn On Genius. Once you’ve done this, details of the music stored in your library - including artists, play counts and ratings - are anonymously sent to Apple.

You can then simply select a track in your library and click the Genius button to generate a personalised playlist of similar songs.

Get Genius advice
Apple will also use the information you provide to present you with personalised recommendations for purchases from the iTunes store.

When you select any song in your library the Genius Sidebar will show music from the same artist. You can preview these tracks and buy them directly from the sidebar.

Don’t worry about downloading songs you may have bought previously - the Genius sidebar won’t recommend any tracks already in your library.

Improve your Genius
To get the most accurate results from the Genius feature, make sure that the track information in your library is as comprehensive and up to date as possible.

For example, Genius supplies results based on your song ratings. If you haven't rated any tracks then it won't be able to use your preferences as one of its criteria.

Add Genre information to your tracks if they don’t already include this, but avoid custom Genre labels (those you’ve created yourself) because Genius is unlikely to recognise them.

Browse by album cover
The Grid View feature in iTunes 8, which you can turn by choosing ‘as Grid’ from the View menu, lets you browse your entire music collection using album cover artwork.

Using the four options at the top of the iTunes window you can group albums by title, artist, genre or composer. Hover your mouse over the cover representing a group to see the individual albums it contains and then click an album to start playing it.

For groups that have multiple album covers, for example when you browse by artist, you can choose which cover is displayed by right-clicking it and selecting Set Default Grid Artwork. You can also use Grid View for browsing films TV shows and podcasts.

View dazzling effects
There’s a brand new Visualizer feature in iTunes 8 that delivers an amazing 3D visual experience – go to View, Show Visualizer to check it out.

The dazzling effects include lights, spheres and ribbons, which pulsate in time to the beat and tempo of the song you’re playing.

What the program doesn’t mention are the secret keyboard controls you can use to alter the appearance of the Visualizer. For example, press I to show track information, hit L to freeze the display, or press P to change the colour of the psychedelic shapes onscreen.

Control your podcasts
If you subscribe to lots of podcasts, you can use a new feature in iTunes 8 to make sure you don’t inadvertently miss or delete an episode. The program now lets you decide how often each podcast is downloaded and whether or not copies are kept on your hard disk.

Click the Podcasts option in the Library column and click the Settings button at the bottom of the window. Select a podcast from the drop-down ‘Settings for’ menu and choose what to do when new episodes are available – download them all, download only the most recent, or do nothing. You can then specify which episodes to keep – all, only the most recent or unplayed, or up to the last 10.

Edit multiple tracks
Not every song you import into iTunes will contained detailed or accurate track data. If the same information is missing or wrong for more than one song you can add it to multiple songs in your library simultaneously.

Hold down Ctrl on your keyboard and click the tracks whose information you want to edit. Right-click the selection, choose Get Info and click the Info tab. Here you can edit artist, album, composer and genre details, and then click OK to apply the data to every selected song.

You can use this method of batch processing for videos as well as music.

Rip CDs automatically
When you insert a CD, iTunes asks if you want to import the tracks on it into your music library. You can skip this prompt and automatically rip CDs as soon as they're inserted.

Choose Preferences from the Edit menu and click the General tab. From the ‘When you insert a CD’ drop-down menu and select either the Import CD or Import CD and Eject option.

Categorise audiobooks
Not every audio file you own will be a music track. If there’s an audiobook filed under Music in your library there’s a simple way to give its own category.

Right-click the file and choose Get Info. Click the Options tab and choose Audiobook from the Media Kind menu. The same applies to music videos that get are listed in Movies. Repeat the same steps and select Music Video to list the video in its own category.

Learn something for free
The iTunes Store isn’t all about music and movies. Visit its iTunes U section and you’ll find a wealth of educational material at your disposal.

The content covers a wide variety of categories including History, Language, Literature, Technology and Fine Arts. Most of the items are free to download and comprise both audio and video files.

Control iTunes remotely
If you have an iPod Touch or an iPhone you can configure it work like a remote control and control what’s playing on your PC from afar.

Your first task is to install iTunes Remote from the App Store on your device (http://tinyurl.com/remote209). Next, make sure that iTunes is running on your PC and launch the app on your iPhone or iPod Touch to connect the two sources wirelessly.

Your iTunes Library is then displayed on the handheld device and you can choose the songs you’d like to play, adjust the volume, edit playlists and more.