iTunes automatically selects the language and best voice for your song titles and artist names. It looks at song data, like the title, artist, and album information, then applies intelligent algorithms to choose the right language.

This feature is entirely lacking in Leopard’s built in text to speech functionality. Now that it’s made its way into iTunes, however, my bet is that it will be featured system wide in Snow Leopard.

Here is a sampling of playlists being read in a few different languages. Note the woman’s voice as well.

Guitar Chords

A straight forward app that lets you reference a ton of chords on your iPhone or Touch. If you’re like me and have had to deal with complex chord charts/books while figuring out a new song or writing one, you’ll appreciate the simple layout of Chords. I can’t vouch for the range of chords in the the app, but it appears to be loaded up nicely and I’m guessing it’ll meet the needs of many. Download it from the App Store. It’s free.

Songbook

Like many who got their first guitar and immediately wanted to rock out, I never took the time to learn to read music properly. Fortunately, tablature and a decent ear can go a long way. Songbook lets you carry around your Chord Pro formatted tabs in your pocket. Search Chordie.com (which itself has a slick iPhone friendly version) and download songs directly into Songbook with the included bookmarklet. Songbook is free on the App Store.

LittleSnapper

LittleSnapper is a new screen/web capture app with a built in browser that lets you take smart snaps of embedded web elements. Just hover over different areas in a loaded web page and page elements will highlight for you to capture. LittleSnapper will also manage your web snaps so they’re easy to find in the future.

Download LittleSnapper. It’s 39 USD. The demo limits you to 15 images.

Songbird

Songbird is an iTunes-like music jukebox app without Apple’s music store. In its place is a built in browser which lets you load up music blogs and play all the embedded mp3s without clicking on any links in the page. It probably won’t replace iTunes as your primary media management app, but it’s an excellent way to discover new music.

Download Songbird. It’s freeware.

Fluid

Fluid is an SSB or Site Specific Browser. Have some Web 2.0 sites that you visit everyday? Configure fluid to handle your browsing of these sites and your experience will feel much more like you are using a desktop application. Fluid also has a Cover Flow mode so you can preview all the links on sites like Digg or Reddit.

Download Fluid. It’s freeware.

CSSEdit

CSSEdit’s built in browser was a game changer for me. Open up any web page in CSSEdit and you can not only view its CSS – you can edit it. The browser supports live updating of all the changes you make in the style sheet so you’re never editing blindly.

Download CSSEdit. It’s 30 Euros (about 40 USD). There’s an unlimited trial with the ability to save removed.

TubeTV

TubeTV lets you search YouTube and download videos in an iTunes friendly format. It’s not the most beautiful app, but it’s probably the simplest way to get your favorite vids ready for watching on the go.

Download TubeTV. It’s freeware.

Know another application with a unique web browser implementation? Share it with us in the comments. And don’t forget to subscribe to the RSS feed to keep up the the latest and greatest on MacMembrane.

Unfortunately, the talented Mr. Rask has not provided a direct download page for the icons. Instead, head over to the general download page and scroll the little preview panel at the bottom of the page until you see the speaker icon. Click on it and you’ll be able to download the icons. All of Rask’s icons are free for personal use.

First off, control (right) click on the bar that separates the hierarchal browse panel from the track listing and a list of possible metadata columns will appear. Click on the ones you want.

Alternatively, you can bring up the View Options floating panel by hitting Command + J (or go to View >> View Options). The View Options panel is a little easier to read than the straight list view described above and lets you take your time and really consider how you’d like your metadata displayed.

Download Missing Album Artwork from the iTunes

Cover Flow may not be the most useful iTunes view, but it certainly looks awesome. Every track or album that you buy on the iTunes store includes album artwork to make sure it looks great when you flip to it in Cover Flow. But if you’re like most people and a good portion of your music has been imported from CDs or some other source, you may suffer from significant visual gaps in your library when scrolling through Cover Flow. When this happens Cover Flow’s effect is ruined.

Happily, Apple has added to iTunes the ability to automatically download artwork for music in your library even if of wasn’t purchased from the iTunes store. To add the missing covers, first make sure that you’re signed in to your iTunes account. Go to the Advanced menu and select Get Album Artwork. iTunes will scan your library for tracks with missing artwork and add it for you automatically. After it’s finished (it can take a bit of time if your library is large) you’ll see a big improvement when using Cover Flow view.

iTunes’ Get Album Artwork feature is great, but if you’ve modified any of your track or album names in your library, iTunes likely won’t find the correct artwork. To finish the job, you’ll have to roll up your sleeves and add the missing artwork by hand.

Gather Artless Songs into a Playlist

But before you begin, it may be a good idea to size up the magnitude of the task. The best way to do this is to gather all of the songs and albums without cover art into a playlist. And the easiest way to to that is with the help of one of Doug’s AppleScript’s for iTunes.

Doug’s Tracks without Artwork to Playlist script combs your library for faceless albums and creates a playlist with the results. If your library is large, this will take some time, and unfortunately the script doesn’t give you much in the way of status updates, but be assured that it is doing its job and in a few minutes (or 10) you’ll have all your blank albums in one spot.

Once you’ve rounded up all your coverless albums, you can use a few more scripts to search the net for your covers. Try some more of Doug’s scripts for this:

• Search CD Universe for Album Art
• Sloth Radio for Artwork
• MusicOutfitter for Artwork
• Find Album Artwork with Google Image Search

For each of the above scripts, simply select a song in iTunes with no art and run the scrip and a new Safari window will open with your missing art. Adding the art to iTunes is easy: select the correct artless songs and then drag the artwork from Safari onto the aptly named ‘Drag Album Artwork Here’ drop panel in the bottom left corner of iTunes.

Amazon Album Art Widget

Adding album art by hand is certainly no picnic whatever way you look at it. An alternative route to AppleScripts is with the excellent Amazon Album Art widget. In my experience, this is the most convenient way to get the job done quickly.

Download the widget and install it in the daahboard by double clicking the file. Select an album in iTunes with no cover art, open Dashboard and click the little iTunes icon in the Amazon Album Art widget. Your album’s information will automatically populate the search field and send a request up to Amazon for the artwork. To add the art to iTunes, simply click the Set As Album Art in iTunes button and the widget will add it for you to the selected tracks. It’s quick and satisfying.

Fix Unsightly Track Titles with Automator

By now your music library should be looking great. Here’s a final trick to make it look its best.

Occasionally when importing tracks into iTunes, track names will inexplicably show up in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. If this bothers you as much as it does me (i.e., a lot) use this simple Automator action to rewrite them in a more sane fashion.

Open up Automator (in Applications >> Automator) and drag the two actions from the source list (you can filter the list by typing a few characters into the search box). Select the deviantly named tracks in iTunes and run the action from within Automator. Automator will capitalize the first letter of each word and set the rest to lower case.

Adding artwork to your iTunes library can be a daunting task. Nevertheless, as Apple continues to focus on the visual elements of your media library, the steps described above will have your iTunes library looking beautiful when its time to show it off to friends.

Despite being somewhat embarrassed by this response (‘Why didn’t I think of that myself?’), I was really happy with the suggestion because it meant the solution to my desire was very easily achieved. Here’s how to use Growl to make MarsEdit play a ‘Successfully Posted’ sound. But first…

What are these applications?

MarsEdit is a plain text blogging client for the Mac that has a wealth of features that should satisfy the needs of most bloggers. I’ve written extensively about MarsEdit in the past so I won’t say too much about the application here other than to note that I’m a huge fan. If you want to see if MarsEdit is right for you then head over to Red Sweater Software to download a free 30 day trial. It’s 29.95 thereafter.

Growl is a kind of all-purpose visual and audio notification utility for your Mac. Growl is supported by a slew of applications natively (I use ’slew’ because I can’t find a precise number on the web!) and many more by adding simple plugins. In short, Growl lets you know what’s happening with an application when it’s not in the front, everything from displaying incoming mail to alerting you to new tweets in Twitterific. Growl is freeware.

Make them work together.

Like many apps, MarsEdit supports Growl notifications out of the box, letting you know if your new post has made it to your blog or been tripped up along the way. Because of this native support, it’s easy to add a sound to accompany the visual notification.

Open System Preferences and find the Growl preference pane at the bottom of the panel. Click on the Applications tab at the top of Growl’s preferences. Scroll down to find MarsEdit and double click the icon to edit the app’s alert preferences. Click on the Notifications tab. (Click the screenshot to enlarge.)

MarsEdit supports Growl notifications for four of it’s common tasks: Finished Refreshing Weblog, Finished Uploading File and, the task that concerns us here, Finished Sending to Weblog. Select the latter from the drop down notification list and set the Play Sound drop down menu to whatever you’d like to hear when MarsEdit sends up your writing to the web. Now MarsEdit will make some noise when it posts to your blog. Satisfying!

I’m quite pleased with this solution, although I do hope that MarsEdit adds a custom sound to its repertoire of features someday. Thanks to the developer for his ultra-fast, non-condesending reply on Twitter as well!

You can follow both MarsEdit and myself on Twitter. If you want to find some more great blogging tools, try Tools to Turn Your Mac into a Blogger’s Dream. If you already use MarsEdit, you might like these Two AppleScripts to Simplify Your MarsEdit Workflow.

MacBreak Weekly

Probably the best Mac podcast in the land, host Leo Laporte discusses weekly Mac news with a rotating panel that reguraly includes Scott Bourne, Andy Ihnatko and Alex Lindsay. (The genius of Merlin Mann used to grace the show, and indeed his cartoonified picture is still on the show’s artwork, but it seems he’s moved onto other things now.)

Check out MBW on the web and on iTunes.

Mac Geek Gab

As the name suggests, MGG discuses some of the more complicated situations one occasionally finds themselves in as a Mac user. John F. Braun and Dave Hamilton, the regular hosts, really know their stuff. It’s a wealth of troubleshooting knowledge.

Check out MGG on the web and on iTunes.

MacBreak Tech

Although not updated regularly, MBT deserves a place in every Mac user’s podcast queue. The hosts normally choose a topic and spend an hour or more just bouncing ideas around and brainstorming. It’s always informative and can be great fun to listen to.

Check out MBT on the web and on iTunes.

iPhone Ally

I only recently began listening to iPhone Ally – about he same time I got my iPod Touch. It’s primarily a video podcast that provides hands on previews of free and paid iPhone apps. I’ve already discovered a few gems by watching.

Check out iPhone Ally on the web and on iTunes.

But this post isn’t about my favorite podcasts. Well, maybe it is, but also I want to share something that, despite how much time I spend in iTunes, I never noticed before: the Chapters menu.

Chapters are normally inserted into podcasts whenever there is a significant change of topic In the conversation, which makes it easy for listeners to skip to whatever part of the episode they choose. Much like the chapters in books, chapters in podcasts lend what might otherwise be quite amorphous a sense of continuity and structure.

Now, I’ve always know about Chapters themselves, but what I didn’t notice is the dedicated menu that appears on your menubar when your listening to a show that has been conveniently sliced up this way. Just have a look at the screen shot to see what I mean. From here you can easily navigate your podcast.

Unfortunately, not every podcast supports Chapters. Nevertheless, I think this menu makes it worth while to have a look whether or not your favorite shows do.

Do you listen to many podcasts? What are your favorites? Know any tricks to improve the experience? Let us know in the comments.

Use Script Menu as an Application and Document Launcher

OS X comes stocked with over 300 ready to run AppleScripts. To access these, open up AppleScript Utility (in Applications/AppleScript/AppleScript Utility.app) and check “Show Script menu in menu bar.” You’ll notice a little script icon appear from where you can run any of Apple’s scripts. But even better, you can drag the alias of any file, folder or application into your script folder (in user/Library/Scripts) and launch it from your menu bar. I keep an alias of my todo.txt and a few often accessed folders here for quick mouse access.

Set a Text to Speech Shortcut

Leopard comes with Alex, a new voice for reading text. Alex is a huge improvement over any Tiger voice, and I constantly use him (it?) to proof blog posts have Daring Fireball articles read to me while I do the washing up. Set up a shortcut to invoke Alex through System Preferences >> Speech (I use Control + Option + S – it hasn’t conflicted with anything yet). If you’re not sure how to set up the shortcut, this post goes into it in more detail. And if you haven’t heard Alex yet, have a listen below. He’s quite impressive.

Add a Folder to the Dock and Set its Appearance

The first thing I like to do after a fresh install is drag my Applications folder into the dock. By default, however, what you’ll see in your dock is the first application in your Applications folder (mine is 1Password; yours may be Address Book). Change this by right clicking on the icon in the dock. Check ‘Display as Folder’ and ‘View Content as List’ and the folder will look and act like it should. Of course, you can put any folder in your dock – Documents, Movies or maybe a temporary folder of files that you’re currently working on.

Set Hot Corners

Hot corners allow you to attach actions to the corners of your screen that can be accessed by dragging your mouse cursor to an extremity of your screen. To set up Hot Corners, go to Exposé and Spaces in System Preferences (Applications/System Preferences). Click on the Exposé tab and select your actions from the drop down menus.

Set and Disable Startup Items

There are certain apps on my Mac that I need to be running at all times when I’m working. An easy way to make sure they’re ready to go when you need them is to have each one automatically launch when you boot your machine. To set this up, open System Preferences and navigate to Users. Click on the ‘Login Items’ button at the top of the pane and add or remove apps at will using the ‘+’ and ‘-’ buttons.

Set or Change Keyboard Shortcuts for Any Menu Item

Don’t like the keyboard shortcut for a menu item in some app? Want a shortcut for an action that doesn’t have one assigned? No problem. Open Mouse and Keyboard preferences in System Preferences and click on the Keyboard Shortcuts tab at the top of the window. From here you can change any shortcut assigned to a menu item on your Mac. If you want to add a new one, click the ‘+’ button at the bottom of the window, select your application and manually type in the menu item (making sure to spell it exactly the same way as it appears in the menu of the app). Double click on the shortcut section beside the item and set whatever you like.

Set ‘Always Open In Icon, List, Etc View’ for Any Folder

I like to have certain folders open in specific views. For instance, I want my Applications folder to open in List view. To make this the default view of the window, set the window to List view and right click on the column title bar at the top of the pane. Select Show View Options and set your folders defaults (if you want the view to be the system wide default, click “Use As Default” at the bottom of the pane; to have the preference apply to only your chosen window, make your selections and close the pane by clicking the red close button).

Search For a Specific Preference in System Preferences

Despite the prevalence of the search box at the top of the System Preferences window, it’s something I didn’t notice for a long time. Start typing the preference you’re looking for in the box and your options will take on a subtle glow. It’s really quick way to find a specific preference if you forget which category it’s located in (as I often do).

Add Applications and Files to Finder Toolbars

Most people know that you can customize the toolbar of applications by right clicking on some neutral space and selecting ‘Customize Toolbar.’ With Finder windows, however, you’re able to add almost anything you like to the toolbar for one click access. An application, document, picture, AppleScript – use your imagination and your Finder toolbar will become far more useful.

Utilize Spring Loaded Folders

If you use Drag and Drop to move files and folders around on your Mac, Spring Loaded Folders will make your life easier. If you want to drop a file into a subfolder that isn’t visible but whose parent folder is, simply begin dragging your file and hover over the parent folder for a moment. The directory will ‘spring’ open and you’ll have access to its contents. If your target folder is even deeper, repeat the process until you see it and release your file. It’s a quick way to access the depths of your filesystem if your rely on the mouse to move files around.

Do you mess with the defaults of you Mac? What are your favorite tricks and shortcuts? I’ve only scratched the surface here, so let me know in the comments what you think!

While nodding off to a good book is excellent, waking up two hours into your night’s rest to turn off iTunes isn’t. I’ve found a great solution in a simple Dashboard widget. Aptly named ‘iTunes Timer,’ the widget is entirely straight forward in its purpose and requires little explanation. Set a time to pause iTunes and start the countdown. Moreover, because Audiobooks (saved in m4b format) retain their play position when you stop them, you won’t have to go scrubbing through your book for that elusive moment when you slipped into dreamland.

Download iTunes Timer from Apple.com.