Creating playlists can be tedious, and every bit of information can help. While some people maintain the ID3 tags in their MP3 files in excruciating detail, others (like me) can't seem to find the time. But when it comes to finding the tempo, no amount of manual ID3 tag maintenance will help.

If you're trying to put together a playlist that contains songs that are a similar speed, knowing the beats-per-minute of each song is immensely helpful. Luckily, there is a free download called BPM Analyzer from MixMeister that will analyze all of your MP3 tracks, and update the ID3 tags in them with exact BPM information. With that done, it's a simple matter of sorting your music library by the beats-per-minute field.

Now you can put together an upbeat energy-boosting playlist full of fast songs, a mellow playlist with slower songs, or pretty much anything you desire. And for the nerds like me, it's just another piece of information to sort and group your music by.

BPM Analyzer is available on both the Windows and Mac operating system.

[via Lifehacker]

Intego, a "leading internet security and privacy software" publisher dropped a press release on my inbox this morning that might as well have read, "Hey, Apple.. Gotcha!"

Beyond recognizing the malware threat to Macs, Apple goes further, admitting that the techniques it includes in Mac OS X aren't enough to fully protect Macs from viruses and malware. The company provides security advice, as Intego has said for many years, saying, "since no system can be 100 percent immune from every threat, antivirus software may offer additional protection." (emphasis Intego's)

Complete with footnotes, Intego uses the feature list for Apple's upcoming OSX 10.6 release to essentially say, "There, we told you so! Apple put thought into securing its operating system therefore it must be vulnerable!"

How does an enumeration of security features imply a susceptibility to malware? That's like calling GM to the carpet for agreeing that a car parked in a locked garage is more protected than one parked on the street. The very concept of a garage offers additional protection, it however doesn't imply that the protection is actually necessary.

Maybe it's me. Maybe I expect too much from a company who sent out a press release about Conflicker which read in part, "This worm, which affects Windows computers, has no effect on Mac OS X; at least not yet. Intego's Virus Monitoring Center is on full alert in case a Mac OS X variant of this worm should appear"

Wait, is this thing going to magically change from a worm written directly to the vulnerabilities of Windows into some shape shifting super worm that defies the all the reality of modern computing, as well as all common sense and logic? Does anyone else picture Intego's "Virus Monitoring Center" as some overweight bald guy trolling Slashdot while eating Cheetos?

My advice? Save your money for magic beans. And, if the nagging voice inside your head absolutely won't be quiet until you buy quasi-useful anti-virus software for your Mac, don't buy it from Intego.

Intego were contacted for comment, but failed to respond prior to publication

There are a few different iPhone-based options to remotely control your Mac, but Rowmote might be the most complete. Instead of just controlling your media via Front Row, it can actually switch applications on your Mac. The list of apps you can use from Rowmote is impressive, including everything from PowerPoint to VLC to PandoraJam, and it also works with AppleTV. For 99 cents, that's not too shabby.

Rowmote also has some features that greatly improve the user experience. You can set it to keep your Mac's display from sleeping, which is handy when you're watching a movie, and you can also choose between light and dark interfaces, so you don't hurt your eyes if you're using it in the dark. All in all, it might be the best iPhone-to-Mac remote solution I've run across.

One of the hottest Twitter clients on the iPhone just became one of the hottest Twitter clients on the desktop, with the official release of Tweetie for Mac. It's been a trending topic on Twitter all day, and reviews are positive so far. I predicted some of the app's features when the preview video came out a few days ago, but here's a rundown of what it can really do:

First, it supports multiple accounts. Tweetie lets you switch easily between several Twitter accounts via the sidebar or a hotkey. Direct messages are threaded, so you can open them as conversations to see who said what, instead of having to switch between your sent and received DMs on the web. You can also use Twitter Search from within the Tweetie app, and break off searches into a separate window to keep track of them.

The best part about Tweetie is that there's very little need to go to the Twitter web interface for anything: following and unfollowing, reading people's streams and user info, searching and posting, and even shortening URLs with the service of your choice are all included within the app itself.

TUAW has an in-depth look at the features.

Getting songs from your computer to your iPod is a pretty simple affair. After all, that's what iTunes is for. When you want to go the other way, though, and get the songs back from your iPod to your hard drive, Pod to Mac is one option. And, with features like search and video preview, and compatibility with iPod Touches and iPhones, it looks like a pretty good one.

Pod to Mac is still in the early stages of its development, but it supports stuff like transferring playlists, previewing tracks and videos, and showing track ratings from within the app. It's not just for music, either: you can also use it to transfer images from your iPod. I know it's called Pod to Mac, but Windows users shouldn't despair: there's also a Pod to PC from the same developer.

The Mac's built-in PDF support is pretty strong, which is nice because if there's one piece of software I have always despised for its unnecessary bloat, it would be Adobe Reader. To be honest, I've always liked the fact that when I come across a PDF online, clicking to open it results in it being downloaded and opened in the built-in Preview application. Opening PDFs in the browser was always slow and clunky using Adobe Reader, and always annoyed me.

But recently a friend convinced me to try Schubert|it PDF Browser Plugin, and I'm glad I did. PDF Browser Plugin does exactly what you'd expect, allowing you to view PDF files in the comfort of your favorite browser (provided your favorite browser is either Firefox or Safari). But what I found surprising was how fast PDF Browser Plugin is. If you happen to be viewing a small PDF, it will open almost instantly, with the only delay being how long it takes to download the actual PDF file. This speed is possible because PDF Browser Plugin is leveraging the Quartz technology built into the Mac that allows it to render PDF files in the same way the Finder or Preview does.

The plugin's other claim to fame is a distinct respect for the Mac's look-and-feel. Schubert|it PDF Browser Plugin is free for personal or educational use, but requires a $69 site license for business users.

My beloved Firefox seems to have gotten kind of bloated and slow lately, particularly when starting it up. If you've experienced a similar decrease in Firefox's startup performance, check out this quick tip from Mac Tricks and Tips. One of Firefox's default settings is to remember 90 days of history. This means that Firefox is maintaining a list of every site you've visited along with the date and time of the visit for every day from the last three months. If you're anything like me, this can be a pretty huge list.

The tip is to simply go into the Privacy tab of your Firefox preferences and lower the history setting from 90 days to something much smaller, like 5 days. To realize immediate gains, ensure your Clear Private Data settings are set to clear history, then have at it. It may take a few moments, but once your history is cleared, Firefox should start to feel like its sprightly self again.

While the tip originated at a site focusing on Macs, there's no reason to think it wouldn't also help when running Firefox on Windows or Linux.

[via Lifehacker]

Do you ever have to design or have input into software user interfaces? If not, you might want to skip this post, but if so, Balsamiq Mockups might be of interest to you. The concept of the program is quite simple: create a bare-bones version of the user interface in question. So bare bones, in fact, that it almost looks like it was sketched.

The hand-drawn style might seem a little funny at first, but it serves a couple of very real purposes. Firstly, it makes it extremely clear that what you create with it is nothing but a mockup; nobody you show it to is actually going to expect that it be able to do anything. Second, it strips away all of the more subjective elements of design like color and shading, so you can focus on the usability of the layout of your user interface.

Balsamiq Mockups is compatible with Windows, Mac, and Linux, but unfortunately that flexibility comes with a price, in more ways than one. The first price is that it's a Flash application, so to run it on your machine as a desktop app requires Adobe Air. The second price is, well, the price: $79 US to be exact. Well, that's not entirely true. Yes, it is $79US for the full desktop version, but if you're not worried about being able to save your mockups or export them as PNG files, you can install a feature-limited desktop version for free.

[via John Watson]

Lee wrote a great post showing off 10 awesome Firefox themes, and I agree with him that there are a lot of shabby themes out there and it's worth digging up the good ones. Unfortunately, some of the coolest stuff Lee found isn't available for the Mac version of Firefox, or doesn't look as cool in OS X. Just so you don't think we're leaving Mac-using Firefox fans out in the cold, here's a handful of other great themes, picked especially to make your OS X browsing experience look gorgeous.

NOTE: These themes were tested on the latest official release of Firefox 3.0. I've seen some great 3.1-only themes in the works, and they deserve their own post in the future.

Mac users who have been waiting patiently for the arrival of Google Chrome, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. A member of the development team has posted a screenshot of the browser in the Chrome Group.

Though the rendering engine isn't actually doing anything yet, Chrome does correctly open new instances of the renderer with new tabs and close it when the tab closes. Chrome Developer Docs called for a "working browser window using the real multi-process infrastructure (not TestShell) by mid-February."

Time is rapidly running out on that goal, but you can bet the team will continue to forge ahead.

Linux users, you're next on the list - though likely you won't see much progress until after the Mac version is working.

[ via Google Operating System ]

We're pretty excited about Windows 7, and we know that users are too. After all, with any luck, Windows 7 will be what Vista was supposed to be. Lee has done a bang-up job covering Windows 7 tips and tricks for PC users, but Mac users who use Windows for work or for compatibility testing don't have to be left out. Hey, I might not ever switch back to using a PC full time (and I'm certainly not going to buy a laptop that doesn't have the word "Mac" in it), but that doesn't mean that I'm uninterested or unexcited about Windows 7.

Although Intel Macs can run Windows 7 in Boot Camp, for most users, the easiest and most hassle-free method will be to use virtualization. This way, you can test out all the features of Windows 7, without having to dual-boot. The big pitfall for virtualization: gaming and HD-video playback, are less an issue in Windows 7 because those areas are still being tweaked and aren't ready for prime time anyway.

The three big players out there for virtualization on the Mac are:

• VMWare Fusion
• Parallels Desktop
• Sun's VirtualBox

I've installed Windows 7 in the latest version of each program and tweaked the settings to get the best results.

Macs are getting more popular, so it stands to reason that we're going to start seeing more of this. As reported by our pals at TUAW, there's a Mac trojan floating around inside a pirated iWork '09 release that has appeared on various torrent sites.

While it may not be the specific torrent in the screenshot, Mac users may want to stay away from any iWork downloads until there's a bit more information available. Intego, who develop security applications for Mac, report that more than 20,000 people have already downloaded the infected torrents.

The trojan installs as soon as a user begins installing iWork, and then sends a notification to a remote server to announce a new host. It also installs into /System/Library/StartupItems/iWorkServices with full permissions to read, write, and execute.

Yes Windows users, I can hear you snickering.

Nevertheless, this should serve as another reminder to all of us: be careful what you download, especially if it's from an unknown or untrusted source.

As much as long-time Mac users love to sing the praises of Apple's iPhoto application that comes with the Mac operating system, switchers coming from Windows are often heard lamenting the loss of their beloved Picasa from the Windows world. Rumors have occasionally leaked out of Google pointing to the possible eventual release of a Mac version of Picasa. I know that I for one chose not to believe them - just so I wouldn't be disappointed if it never materialized.

Well, for those people wishing for the Picasa experience on their Mac, today is a glorious day. Today Google released a beta version of Picasa for the Mac, and in typical Google fashion this beta release is solid enough for widespread use. I suppose I should insert a joke about how every Google product stays in beta for years, but I'm sure you can think of one funnier than whatever I might come up with. Or maybe you're just as tired as I am of that particular Google jab?

To try it out, download the beta from here.

It seems like the days of the family computer have come and gone already, and more and more people have their own individual computer to use. In my house, everyone over the age of 3 has one (plus a couple of extras), and keeping data synchronized amongst them all is a bit of a nightmare.

Our main two machines are the Macs that my wife and I use. In our family, I'm the techie one, so over the years I've spent a lot of time ripping our CD collections into MP3 files. Though she certainly enjoys listening to music, she's never bothered to do the same on her machine. The other day she decided that she should have access to all of the music that I've been dutifully ripping from our CD collection, and since 1/2 of the CDs were hers in the first place, she's right.

So, what's the fastest way to get my iTunes library over to her machine, while maintaining the song ratings and playlists that we've come up with together? I found an application called Syncopation that fits the bill perfectly.

Syncopation does exactly what I've described - it allows you to grab an entire music library from another machine over your local network. It even supports synchronizing podcasts, movies and TV shows! The process is very straightforward:

1. Install Syncopation on both the machine you want to synchronize from, and the machine you are moving the music to
2. Set your preferences; do you want to transfer videos and podcasts, or no?
3. Subscribe to the other machine that should be showing up in Syncopation's browser
4. Press the Sync button, and wait.
   
5. And wait, and wait, and wait.

Depending on how big your library is and how fast your network is, it could take a number of hours to transfer everything across. On our 802.11g network, it is taking about an hour per gigabyte transferred.

You'll have to keep Syncopation running on all machines that are actively synchronizing while they perform the transfer. Syncopation supports up to five Macs, though the trial verison only supports two, and the trial is good for 30 days. I see myself purchasing this tool when my trial period is up, because it makes keeping our iTunes libraries in sync a snap.