Itunes Lyric Downloader – Yet another update (sans api)
Lyricwiki has officially "joined the family of Wikia". While this is great news for the future of lyricwiki (or now Wikia Music I guess), it also somehow changed the api from the old Lyricwiki.org. For those who have been following the program in recent days, you'll know that they also had some troubles with the api and licensing deals. Anyways, I'm really hoping to find that the api is up and running again sometime in the near future. However, I do have an interim solution for you here. This just mashes together a url based on itunes artist and title info. As such, it will certainly NOT find all the lyrics you're looking for. It will not work well with special symbols like question marks and semicolons. But it might help you find some lyrics where you didn't have them before.
[Download Itunes Lyric Downloader (SANS API)] (downloaded 4003 times)
UPDATE: now works with iTunes 9!
iTunes Lyrics Downloader – new version 1.2
Thanks to Karsten, it's been smooth sailing implementing lyricwiki's SOAP with the lyrics downloader. I've also made the program save a "notfound.txt" file for those of you wanting to know what wasn't saved.
A new (working) itunes lyric downloader
With the recently released iTunes 8.0, it seems that my itunes tagger app's similar playlist functionality isn't a big priority anymore. While I sometimes like the results from last.fm's similar tracks better than itunes', having Genius built into itunes is just a lot more convenient.
The one thing iTunes is still (surprisingly) missing is automatic lyrics downloading. A while back I wrote a quick program to find some lyrics from lyricwiki and sing365, but it has since become terribly outdated and provided no relevant results. And since I still get a couple hits a day for that program, I thought I'd update it for y'all.
Updated itunes tagger program
The itunes last.fm tagger program has been updated. The old beta version has replaced the current itunes tagger program, and there is a new beta program on this page. The beta version has a couple cool new features that you might want to check out, including faster tagging, last.fm tag submissions, and similar tracks playlist generating.
itunes lastfm tagger now open source!
Alright, so it's all out there in the open now. If you download it, it'll probably be the worst coding you've seen. But maybe some people can fix that? We shall see. Anyways, have fun folks. Just goes to show that if enough people ask for open source, they'll get it.
Sidenote: I love open source and all it stands for. And I know it took me a while, but I really wanted to write this one by my lonesome, as it's my first ever program that's actually starting to be useful. But, I can see a lot of potential here as well, so it's time to let it run free 
New iTunes Last.FM Tagger Release
I've just put together a new beta release of itunes tagger. It includes a couple really exciting features, which took a little bit more coding under the hood, but I think it was worth it.
- saves a list of tagged tracks
- saves your options on exit
- can make a playlist from a selected tag
- better error catching!
iTunes Last.FM Tagger v1.4 beta
I just finished updating the last.fm tagger. It actually wasn't too bad finishing it off in vb.net. I'll be looking to add some other features to the program in the near future. Leave a comment if there's anything in particular that you'd like to see.
Last.fm similar track playlists in iTunes
I've just come up with an idea to continue the trend of writing software to extend last.fm's web services. This program is just a little example so you can see the direction I'm heading. The program takes some selected tracks and will automatically create an itunes playlist of similar tracks (according to last.fm) that it finds in your library. It also spits out an approximate accuracy (just for curiosity's sake). Give it a try, and if you like the idea, leave a comment and I'll probably put more work into it. Maybe I'll even compile it to work with some of my other programs.
This isn't a real release, so take it with a grain of salt. Requires/will install .Net Framework 3.5.
[Download] (now it runs an installer to fix some dependency issues)
The possibilities for this program are endless really. Some ideas would be:
- Limit the playlist to contain only songs with a particular tag in the comments (would work well with itunes tagger)
- Create automatic playlists from itunes' most played tracks
- Allow user to specify the approximate popularity of the track (ie only songs you listen to a lot, only songs you rarely hear, somewhere in between)
- Exclude certain ratings, skip counts, etc
There is also another program out there that will create playlists for you based on various last.fm data. It's called Local.fm, available here.
iTunes Last.FM Tagger v.1.3 beta
So, here it is. I finally got around to working on Cherbonsy's suggestion of using the top Artist tag instead of the track tag from last.fm. I've updated the iTunes Tagger Page, so go take a look.
Use Any Old IR Remote to Control Your Computer
Once I moved my old PC into the living room to act as a media pc, I decided it just wasn't practical to carry the keyboard around whenever I was doing work on my computer. The good news is, you can use your basic computer functions with a simple IR remote control.
1.Get yourself an IR Receiver and old remote.
I got mine from this site for $12 plus shipping. I think his price went up to $18 for the same model since then. Make sure you ask for a windows optimized unit if you buy it from him. If you'd rather do it all yourself, you can try following the instructions from the source at WinLIRC. You can also just buy any other computer remote at your local hardware store, but I'm not sure it'll be compatible with winLIRC (though it probably comes with it's own software). Basically, you'll want to make sure your receiver is connected via a serial connection on your computer, or else check WinLIRC documentation for your remote. The only receiver I can guarantee is the one I use that I mentioned above.
The trick with the remote is that not all signals are recognizable by WinLIRC. 2 of the 4 remotes I have in my house worked fine. One other one I was able to configure with winlirc, but the signal response isn't solid enough to actually use. In most cases, the best remotes are older ones that you have lying around from your plain old DVD player or TV.
2.Download and run WinLIRC
Get WinLIRC and run the program (it doesn't require an install). Click on reconfigure... all the default settings are fine for my IR receiver. Yours may vary. Next you need to see if WinLIRC recognizes the remote signal. This is done by clicking "Learn" and following the on-screen instructions. Don't forget to click "Analyze" when you're done. Now you should have a .cf file located in your WinLIRC directory, named according to the remote name you gave. You can open this config file in notepad and see all the settings WinLIRC has determined for your remote. If you have WinLIRC running, you should see the "light" in the system tray turn green whenever you press one of your configured buttons. If not, something is wrong.
3. Set up a program to receive the signals
This part is probably where most users find that WinLIRC is too much work than it's worth. That said, there are a few plugins set up for WinLIRC found at the bottom of this page. There is also an AutoHotKey script set up for WinLIRC if you're familiar with that program. I plan on preparing my own program in Visual Basic to run and receive the remote signals. This will potentially give me the flexibility of allowing any key to perform any task I desire. It will also potentially require a large amount of work. I've written only one portion so far, and it enables this tiny remote to perform some essential itunes commands. The remote config file is available here. The program is up for download here. If you just run the program, you'll need to configure your buttons to match my configuration file above.
If you'd like to write your own program, WinLIRC has a nice little writeup on how to receive winLIRC signals in Visual Basic.
In the future, I'd like to make the program work with a variety of other programs, and ideally I'd like to set up a little GUI that functions as a way to open movies, songs, or even web pages using nothing but a remote control.