I’ve been using the PicardTagger the last week and thought I would post up a quick post of appreciation.

I have over 6000 mp3’s - all from a sizable CD collection.   Some of the mp3’s date back to prior to automatic tagging (University days in 97-00!), when even if such things existed I would not have had a net connection to use.

What Picard does is basically allow you to retag the id3 tags on a album, rename the filenames to a common format, add things like album release date and genre. All in no time flat.   Ie, saves re-ripping old CD’s.

Basically if you have some of the info already in id3 format, it tries to match the tracks to a album quicky.

If like me you just have the track numbers and names, but no id3 at all, you can seach for the album in the database, click a link to add to the tagger, then manaully drag/drop the mp3’s, aac, mp4a’s to the right track name - then click save. With practise, some albums only take me 20 secs to re-tag. Some take one minute.

I’ve also taken to using it on existing mp3’s from more modern rips that have missed out on some details… over the years I’ve used several tools to rip CD’s so the information was not consistant. Picard has made it so. (Apologies for the poor star-trek reference).

For those that download music I also understand it can identify mp3’s from a md5 hash of the rip. Thus saving more time.

Picard has saved me countless hours of re-ripping -as this would have been quicker than tagging - I had ~ 200 cd’s which already had perfect rips…

Hope this post helps someone else save time. My mp3 collection at least is re-invigorated in one evenings work thanks to the Picard chaps!

Well, I’ve finally started use of Itunes, in advance of migrating to an iPhone next month (I have decided it will be a Iphone 3g that I get on contract renewal, which coinincides within 5 days of the iPhone launch.

Itunes is actually to my surprise an amazing piece of software - I had never loaded it before simple due to fact I thought that Windows media player was quite good..    I have a library of > 5000 songs.    Windows media player will not work well at all if I try to add them all to one playlist for random play - it actually takes 5 minutes to just add to the playlist, or load it at start, and only gets to a few thousand songs typcially.   Itunes handles this great and it appears to be its default behaviour.    It also has an awesome ripper - that supports mp3 VBR (which Windows Media 11 doesn’t - being limited to 192K mp3 rips).    I prefer mp3 as a rip format to wma/aac - as its the most compatible - and I know aac/wma give better audio for same bitrate!

I also signed up with Itunes,  which gives away a free song every week for those not in the know (a reason enough to have it installed) - however I buy my CD’s physically as a general rule from the high street or an online retailer - as I prefer to have physical medium backing up the purchase.       This is important because as the Gadget show reported on TV recently - many home insurance policy’s don’t cover digital downloads if your PC is stolen - but would cover the same PC and individual CD’s.

Itunes also sells non-drm encumbered tracks for slighly more than the DRM versions in a lot of cases.   This is important as recently many online retailers (mainly using protected WMA) have stopped trading, including Microsofts own.   This leaves their activation server’s decomissioned - and as per link above, means you can never actuivate a track on another PC again.    In addition to this Windows Media Player 11 has actually removed the ability for users to backup their DRM keys - link with details - basically meaning users buying from the services that have ceased trading will have to buy all their tracks from another supplier to regain the music they have paid for if they rebuild their PC.   WMP10 and below at least allowed a backup of DRM (though not of licenses that were marked to be not backupable) to occur so tracks could be moved.

So to summarise What I like:

• MP3 VBR compression, and full control of ripping
• It can handle my entire library on shuffle
• The speed/usability of the search
• The integration of Itunes.
• The automatic podcast integration
• You can buy non DRM encumbered tracks

What I don’t like:

•  No visualisation from what I can tell after day one - I like WMP/Winamps visualisation
• Some albums album art is not available on apple’s servers - WMP for my library does get more album art.

What is your favourite mp3 player on your PC and why?

Well, its pretty much a given that the new Iphone will be 3g.     This because Three (being a 3g only network) in HK have got the rights to it.

Overall, right now I’m overall happy with my network (Three in the UK) - however my N73 is tired and scratched (but has been an excellent phone), and I need a new phone.

Ideal Requirements:

• Phone must have Satnav (or be able to access a satnav dongle to provide full directions like TomTom does on my S60v3 device on N73) - no specs on Iphone yet to know about this.   N95/N82 both have this.
• Phone must have HSDPA - and an unlimited (or 1Gb) access plan from handset.
• Network supplier must have reasonable coverage on 3g
• Skype must be available on handset - and be usable on move, ie without being tethered to wifi.   I’ve found being on Skype 24/7 and allowing people globally to call me is a good thing.

My question to myself really is could I live without Skype on the handset, and maybe without Satnav if the iPhone doesn’t include it?   I think the iPhone could be a better bet long term with its new open-access to 3rd party applications - but could I also live with O2?    Could I live with a touch access only?   The good news is that the iPhone does look to have 16Gb as standard now, which will be excellent, as it will store 100% of my albums.

Luckily I have 1 month now to make up my mind…  then I get a PAC code and pick which phone I want - or wait if the new iPhone isn’t yet out.