Music Rescue by KennettNet Software Limited backs up your iPod’s music, videos, podcasts, and other media painlessly, all the while showing off a smooth and mac-like interface. Music Rescue works for all iPods, even the iPod Touch and the iPhone, allowing you to salvage your music even if it gets deleted from the computer.

It quickly detects the connected iPod after starting up, after which you are shown an iTunes-like interface with all the tracks shown.

Click “Begin Copy…” at the bottom right to start, and it’ll show the type of media it has detected along with options to configure the copying of each.

Click the configure button, and you’ll be able to specify whether it copies to your iTunes directory, to your Music folder, or to another folder of your choice. You can choose to match the iTunes sorting, or you can define it yourself.

As you can see in my sample, I have it set to create folders for each artist and then album folders inside each artist folder with the names as Album (Album Artist). The name of each file has the format of artist – title.extension. A song like Coldplay’s Viva la Vida would then be in the folder “Coldplay”, another folder titled “Viva la Vida (Coldplay),” and the actual file name would be “Coldplay – Viva la Vida.mp3.” I find that iTune’s default sorting preset works fine, but if you ever want to edit it, here it is. It’s rather easy to use – simply drag and drop the blue labels where you want them, put your cursor into the box and press delete to get rid of it. Some options like the rating and track have a drop down when you hover over, and you can choose the format of the rating (”4 stars” or “four stars”) or the number of the track (1, 01, or 001). The plus signs add another folder level; the minus signs get rid of one.

After you’re sure of the few settings there are, click begin and away you go! The copying is fast, and it took me only about 20 minutes to get my 900 or so songs onto my laptop. I used the free version, and every 50 songs it would ask me to buy it. Sorry to KennethNet, but I didn’t choose to buy it and a click of the “OK” button closes the message and continues the operation. It got a bit irritating after it popped up the 17th time, but I guess that’s what I get for using the trial version.

What was even more amazing, though, was when my blessed brother decided to cancel the operation. I immediately thought that I would have to start the operation all over again, and that Music Rescue would ask everytime to overwrite each of the 500 songs that had been copied already. But that wasn’t the case. It immediately realized that the songs existed,simply skipped them, and picked up right where it left off. I almost cried.

After it’s done, it’ll add the songs to your iTunes library for you. Because my brother had canceled the operation the first time, though, it didn’t add the first 500 files to my library. I ended up deleting the entries to my library and re-adding them myself to avoid duplicates.

Furthermore, Music Rescue comes with some other features. File->Get Item Info will show you the details of the song as well as if it’s added to your library. Actually, the main panel of the program has a column, with a music note on top, that shows with a colored orb whether or not that song already exists in your iTunes library.

There is an iTunes-look-alike browser and search bar as well, and for normal iPods it can even suffice as a media player. For the iPod Touch and the iPhone, however, disc access is unavailable and Music Rescue cannot play from the iPod/iPhone.

All in all, Music Rescue is an amazing program, far better than the other ones I’ve seen. It copies your music from your iPod cleanly and efficiently, sorting them even to your preference. If you’re in need of a backing up music from your iPod, this program is the way to go.

Music Rescue

Apple recently sent a bulletin asking large retailers such as Best Buy to place an order of iPods and computers to last about a month.  This is a pattern that Apple usually follows when they are about to deploy a new line-up of iPods and computers.  The launch will probably be in early to mid September, in time for the upcoming holiday season. There are hints of new iPod Touches, Nanos, Macbook, and Macbook Pros.

via AppleInsider

Image Courtesy of GadgetsMonkey

]]> http://nubmuffin.com/computers/apple-tells-resellers-to-stock-up/feed/ 0 http://nubmuffin.com/gadgets/rumors-of-a-new-nano-back-on-diet/ http://nubmuffin.com/gadgets/rumors-of-a-new-nano-back-on-diet/#comments Fri, 01 Aug 2008 01:27:48 +0000 josh http://nubmuffin.com/?p=234

I never liked the fat nano. It was too fat for my taste.

That said, the iLounge has rumors that the next iPod nano will have a 1.5:1 widescreen ratio like the iPhone rather than the 1.33:1 ratio of the iPod classic, and a skinnier design will accompany the skinnier screen. The design will resemble the previous nano’s, keeping the trademark clickwheel. Like my mom’s Sansa, you’ll be rotating the iPod to watch videos.

Image Mockup from iLounge

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Amongst the things to look forward to from Apple include a push notification service and maybe even a new iPod Touch.

Many, including myself, have noticed the instability in the applications on their iPhone/iPods. For me, this has included Apple’s own applications such as Safari and the App Store. The instability of the third party apps is probably the third party developers’ faults, but it may be partially Apple’s as well. Hopefully, both the third parties and Apple will continue to fix bugs and by the release of 2.1 the iPhone/iPod will be much stabler.

via Mac Rumors

The new beta firmware contains references to an unreleased model of the iPod, the “iPod2,1.” Whereas the current iPod Touch is the “iPod1,1,” the reference may be to a new iPod to be released soon.

The current iPhone 3G is known as “iPhone1,2″ – its predecessor was “iPhone1,1.” Note that the various 4GB, 8GB, and 16GB versions of the first iPhone were all under the same model number, and the iPhone 3G was only given an increment to “1,2″ rather than “2,1.” This said, an upgrade to “iPod2,1″ may very well hint at dramatic improvements in a new iPod to come.

via Mac Rumors