Are you one of those people dreamily scrolls through their iTunes library, just to admire the beauty of the artwork flying by? And isn’t it annoying that sometimes there are blank spots? Or that iTunes seems to accept the artwork you manually add, but it isn’t showing up on your iPod? Digitizing your CD collection isn’t quite the same without reliable artwork.
With CoverScout these worries disappear. The neat little app searches the internet for artwork, finds the best match, and helps you to create the clean, cover-filled library you always wanted!
Getting Started
After you’ve installed CoverScout for the first time, you are welcomed by a splash screen which offers you a number of video tutorials on how to best use the app.
The Splash Screen
When you proceed to the actual application screen, you will see that CoverScout automatically starts to index your library. It assumes that you have your complete iTunes content in the default location, which is in your “Music” folder.
Now, if you have a rather large library, you might have it outsourced to an external drive. You need to tell CoverScout where to look for it and can adjust the settings in the preferences.
Locating Your Music
While you are in the preference window, you can also set where CoverScout should search for covers. Some locations like Amazon, Google Images and Walmart are checked by default. If you own music which is only popular in your country, for example the United Kingdom, you should check the appropriate checkbox to increase the likelihood of good results.
Now that you’ve adjusted all the necessary settings – go and have a coffee. Seriously. My library is only about 8,000 songs, but it took about half an hour before everything was scanned and indexed.
Working with CoverScout
Once the scan is finished, you can choose between several views: all albums, albums with no cover, albums with incomplete cover and albums with cover. Naturally, the second choice is the most interesting. In the main window, you see something that resembles iTunes’ Cover Flow, and on the the right side you have a list of albums belonging to the selection you made.
The Main Window
Beneath the still empty cover there are a number of icons. By clicking the loupe you can start a search for a cover instantly. The globe will take you to a websearch, the pen will allow you to actually edit a cover (similar to the editing capabilities of iPhoto) and the printer icon is pretty self explanatory.
When searching, you can choose between Search & Assign, or a simple Search. The difference is that with the first option, CoverScout automatically assigns the cover it deems best to the music. While it can be very convenient for large collections, I personally prefer to pick the cover manually from the presented results to make sure it’s the right one.
Searching
Once you select a cover and click “Apply”, the cover is included in your music’s ID3 tags. This means that not only will it show up in iTunes, but on other devices as well. If you drag and drop a cover on a piece of music in iTunes, the artwork information was stored in the iTunes library. If you copied the same piece of music somewhere else or played it with something other than iTunes, your artwork most likely didn’t show up. CoverScout solves this once and for all.
Useful Little Details
When the search results are presented, you will see an “A”, a “G” or a “W” beneath the image. Those letters indicate the source of the file (Amazon, Google, Walmart). Additionally, you can either select to see the rating of images (stars) or the resolution. Images with a resolution with less than 300px have a 1-star rating, images with more than 600px are assigned a 5-star rating.
The Cover Rating System
At the very bottom of the search-results pane you might see little dots, one of them highlighted. If there are two or more dots, then there are more search results than you can presently see. Just use the left and right arrows displayed at the sides of the result-bar to navigate.
To speed things up a little, you can have CoverScout search for artwork on multiple albums at the same time. Simply select the albums in the right list-pane and then choose search (or search & assign if you are feeling lucky).
Once the search is finished, CoverScout will indicate with little white bubbles displaying a number behind the album title (in the list view) that there are (or aren’t) results.
One other thing that’s easy to overlook (but very cool) – Just like on your iPod touch or iPhone, when in Cover Flow view, you can turn the cover around and have a look at the songs included in the album. It comes in pretty useful when you need some help remembering details about the album. Alternatively, you can also call up the inspector for more information.
Album Meta Information
Conclusion
CoverScout is a delightfully easy to use and incredibly handy application for everyone who has a large music library lacking a full set of artwork.
Of course, there isn’t a guarantee that CoverScout can find everything, but it does make the search a lot easier and faster. Add to it that the information is stored in the ID3 tags and it’s almost a must-buy if you want a beautiful looking iTunes library.
The only downside is the price of around $40, that you may feel to be a little too expensive for the function performed. If you use something similar that comes in at a cheaper price, be sure to let us know in the comments!
A human's ability to do several things at once is a wonder of biology: it means we can eat a burrito while we walk down the street and listen to music and daydream about the weekend all at the same time. But some kinds of multitasking costs you more time than you save.
Doing two things at once, like singing while you take a shower, is not the same as instant messaging while writing a research report. Don't fool yourself into thinking you can multitask jobs that need your full attention. You're not really having a conversation while you write; you're shifting your attention back and forth between the two activities quickly. You're juggling. When you juggle tasks, your work suffers AND takes longer--because switching tasks costs.
When your brain switches its attention from one task to another, it takes time to get into a new train of thought. You lose any momentum you had on the first task, which costs you on the next switch. On the internet or in an office where distractions abound, switching tasks can cost hours. A recent study showed that office employees who were interrupted while they worked took an average of 25 minutes to get back to what they started.
If you've got work that requires engaged thinking—like reading, writing, or even just a serious phone call, stop juggling and start single-tasking. For example, if you've got a dozen emails to answer and presentation slides to prepare, complete the slides before you look at the email. You’ll get both jobs done faster than the juggler who switches between the email and the slides every few minutes.
You already know that some kinds of multitasking can be hazardous to your health, like texting while driving or blow-drying your hair while you're in the bathtub. When it comes to splitting your attention between tasks, remember the difference between multitasking and juggling. When you have the choice, stop juggling and get things done faster--one at a time.
Gina Trapani is the author of Upgrade Your Life and founding editor of Lifehacker.com. Work Smart appears every week on FastCompany.com. Last week: Work Smart: Mastering Your Social Media Life.
Of all the web based applications to come along in the last few years, 
When you press the button, a message is sent to the StumbleUpon database that most likely is just your User ID. The database looks up the categories that you chose when you signed up. From there, the application most likely chooses one of those categories randomly. Then the application goes through that category and finds a webpage in that category that is new to you, and directs your browser to that page.
If I give a page a thumbs-up, it probably adds a point to not only that page, but to the keywords associated with that page, so other pages with a high correlation to that pages keywords will be weighted heavier in favour of showing up under my User ID.
If that’s the case for the thumbs-up, then the thumbs-down has to function in a similar manner. Hit the thumbs-down button and and the application, in effect, takes away a point for that page and pages with similar keywords. The thumbs-down button does have a few more features to it though. If you click on the black arrow-down part of the button, you’re given a few options: Not-For-Me, Report Spam, Duplicate Content, and Block Website.
