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Yes, I am sure. But perhaps I could have been more specfic (instead of sarcastic) and said that you can't play WMV3 video which is a new WM9 codec that not even the Microsoft WM9 for the Mac will play, nor VLC or MediaPlayer.

You are lazy, aren't you? Tomato is king... easy, simple, cocoa.

The standard way of finding MacOS software would have answered this question in a heartbeat: VersionTracker or MacUpdate, both of which list installers.

Oh snap! That took me five minutes dude, you've got to come up with a better argument.

No offence, but your problem seems to be much more a user issue, than a computer one.

I'm a fairly recent Mac convert (who still works with x86 boxes), but the Mac has done nothing but continue to impress me with both its speed, and with it's depth (Most of the time, if you're still finding new capabilities with an app after 6 months of usage, it's indicative of a poorly designed GUI. With the Mac, there's just so damn many features/capabilities that they're often not evident to the casual user).

The file copying example you refer to could be many things, from software conflicts, to physical issues with the memory. There's just so many variables, it's not really answerable without more details (not that I'm trying to troubleshoot it... Just pointing out that your complaint can be applied just about any PC, dependant upon circumstances.). My guess is that your slow Mac may be running less than the optimal amount of memory (OSX is much more "memory hungy" than any MS OS).

I know that in my case. my Mac often copies small to medium sized files (less than 40mb) so quickly, I'll have to re-verify that the copy actually took place. And this is on a dual 2ghz Mac, with 512mb ram (which really needs to be upped to 2.5gb ASAP - Speed should increase quite a bit just getting it up to 1gb, as right now I've got a lot of disk swappin' going on).

I'm also unsure as to your Mac experience from your posting, but daily use of my Mac continues to improve my efficiency. You seem to be growing more frustrated with your Mac experience (which begs the question of why you're using it - Toss it my way if you'd like, and I'll put it good use!), whereas increased usage continually reassures me that my Mac was money well spent (and believe you me, it took me awhile to finaly take the plunge and buy me a Mac).

It's all been said before, but features which make the Mac great are many: Fast (contrary to your experiences), well thought out GUI and features, it's incredably easy to get to grips with just about any Mac program, and once you're ready, most apps offer a small ton of features which increases their value/longetivity even further.

Then of course, we have its Unix capabilities, Applescript, built in PHP, Perl, Ruby, Java, and all the dev tools one could ask for. All capable of system programming.

Then there's those programs which which make the Mac stand out so much over its competition: Delicious Monsters Library, the very impressive Platypus, and of course the "can't do without" Quicksilver.

I won't turn into a gloating "Mac Fanboy" here, but the Mac is a power users dream. Its power and efficiency continues to amaze me. I only hope that the MacMini allows "John Q. Public" to experience the joy that is OSX first-hand.

What about playback? Which apps would you recommend? I know about VLC as well as some nice replacement icons for the application. However, it wouldn't play back on a program I got got a coopy gor Movie Jukebox, which I would like it to. If quicktime could handle it already, then there would be support for it across the board.

I downloaded TextWrangler because they said it was Mac OS X native (Cocoa, I presume), and they said it supported Services. So I expected that many text manipulation functions would be available as Services. That way, if I need to change all the text to UPPER CASE, or Title Case A Selection, I could go to Services > TextWrangler > blah blah blah. Thus, any application that supports Services could gain those text manipulation features (such as FileMaker Pro). However, the only things it added were Open File and New File with Selection.

Right now, I use something called WordService that does this, if it were tied in with a full featured text editor, I would use that.

Nah, no one develops software for OS X. Oh... wait a minute! Yes they do!

Check out VersionTracker. I think you'll find more than you need or want. Considering the list of updated packages updated on any given day scrolls through several pages, I don't think you'll have to crack out gcc everytime you want some new softawre. ;-)

I always thought iTunes was overrated by Mac users because they've never had good alternatives like PC users have had. When Apple released the first version of iTunes ("Rip, mix, burn. Do it on a Mac"), Mac users finally discovered something that PC users had been doing for over a year with apps like MusicMatch Jukebox (before it sucked), and Windows Media Player 7. And while iTunes initially sucked donkey balls (it's much nicer now), many Mac users thought it was the greatest app ever.

That said, I think the current version of iTunes is a nice music player/manager. However, it's not so nice at ripping and encoding mp3s. The default mp3 encoder is awful. If you want to use iTunes to encode mp3s, change its encoder to LAME.

I noticed a piece of Mac shareware just released a new version today. The reason? They are dropping their old "iWork" name for a new one. Veddy interestink.

(Note, the piece of shareware is now titled "iBiz".)

# Cooledit for Mac OS? And I mean really as good (or better?) I am DJ, I also make songs myself using the multitrack technology of it; I also want to be able to process my soundfiles with compression and effects wherever needed.
Finale, Logic, Reason to name a few, or may be GarageBand? Want some free/shareware? Look here on Apple or Versiontracker

# Instead of Office, Openoffice?
Actually I found Office 2004 quite good, but yes, OpenOffice will do.

# good ssh programs like securecrt? (I love the program, will be tabbed in next version)... It's convenience ...
/usr/bin/ssh :-)

# good editors like Editplus ? (It just works - always - have an old license and it still works perfect...
XCode, Eclipse [sun.com], or the famous BBEdit.

# does it work good with windows sharing (netbios) ? (I know about Samba but sometimes got probs with it - its not exactly point-and-click there unless using Webmin or such ..
All built-in, just browse to your Windows PC/server and double click to mount the shared volume, not even need to map a network drive.

# Needs to work 24/7, no overheating issues like my Compaq EVO N1000v laptop (which needs to be issued back to Compaq because of failing parts - 5th time!!) and Compaq finds it normal?
May be don't shut it down?
Just never lock it inside a closed cabinet :-)

# Stuff like Paintshop Pro (Like it more over photoshop ; less bloated and faster)?
I like Photoshop, may be it is bloat, but hey, it is FAST!

# good and easy desktop player like winamp ? (RIP)
iTunes, man, iTunes!

# Can I turn off automatic updates?
Yes, one mouse click away in an obvious place (System Preferences -> Software Update)

# I am accustomed with Slackware, NetBSD and Solaris. Is OS X as maintainable as Slackware? Everything through the prompt using Bash?
Yes and more, there is the Apple Script, a global scripting system to let you control every OS X compliant app, and you can do it via the shell, too.

There are several programs out there that will auto-split tracks for you; some of them will also encode to mp3 or other formats as well. RIP Vinyl (available at download.com) is an inexpensive Windows program that will automagically split tracks up based on the silence between them, and you can change a whole bunch of other settings as well. I don't know if there's anything there's anything like that for Linux, but Audio Companion seems like a good bet for Mac OS X, or CD Spin Doctor if you have Toast Titanium 6.

I've wanted to convert my record collection into mp3s for a while now, and after doing a few albums for friends manually using Peak, I would recommed the auto-splitting recording programs. If the industry was really serious about DRM, they'd release all music on vinyl and movies on film since it's so much more difficult to encode analog sources.

Try Pith Helmet (at Version Tracker) It blocks about 95% of ads for me, as well as doing a few other neat features, but mostly just blocks ads, flash and annoying animated gifs. At one point (before i trained it) it was blocking the "Sponsored Links" at Google.

If you're a student, the $950 iBook 12" is a really good deal. You get a compact little notebook, 1.2 GHz G4, CDRW/DVD-ROM combo drive, about 4 - 6 hours of battery life (5 hours real-world), and plenty of I/O options. The GPU is only a Radeon 9200, but it's still vastly better than having onboard "integrated" graphics that eat CPU and RAM bandwidth. Plus the Radeon 9200 is actually slightly faster than the crap FX5200 in the 12" PowerBook that costs more! The iBook is small, but thick enough to survive backpack life at 1.3 inches.

PowerBook hardware is very sturdy and very classy, but you'll pay out the nose for what's essentially only 0.3 GHz faster and Radeon 9700 GPU.

Anyway, getting back to OS X... I think it's a great OS and I love my iBook, but I still use and enjoy WinXP as well. They are different worlds, but the variety is nice. OS X has a great X11 environment if you so desire and the bundled developer tools and sample code are very handy. There are plenty of Mac sites and even a few that sell games too. Apple's online store is actually a good place to browse some of the more popular commerical apps, I think they try to maintain stock of 100 of the top selling Mac apps. They don't tend to sell the less popular, but still cool fringe apps, so you'll have to hit up some other resellers (like MacWarehouse or MacMall or Amazon) for those.
http://www.versiontracker.com
http://www.macsurfer.com
Both very handy sites.

A bit off topic, but what the hell. You can boot OS X in verbose mode by holding Command -V during startup. There are freeware utilities which can toggle OS X to use verbose mode by default as well. These get the job done well:

Verbosity
and
sterMachine

A bit off topic, but what the hell. You can boot OS X in verbose mode by holding Command -V during startup. There are freeware utilities which can toggle OS X to use verbose mode by default as well. These get the job done well:

Verbosity
and
sterMachine

Actually, when speaking in graphics terms, dimensions 1 and 2 are X and Y on a coordinate plane. Dimension 3 is the Z, or depth axis. Dimension 4 is time; this can be represented with a hypertorus, which is a 3D torus that goes through itself over time. If you have Mac OS X, you can download a screensaver that does just that: http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/ 20105

Just some information if you start implementing....

Most USB barcode scanners just function as a usb keyboard. This means the application just has to have a text entry field. The barcode scanner will behave just as if it were somebody typing the barcode at a keyboard and pressing return afterwards.

There are actually a lot of programs that do barcode scanning for your home on the mac. Not groceries -- most are for books, CDs and DVDs. See: http://www.versiontracker.com/php/search.php?mode= basic&action=search&str=barcode

Aha! I used Book2Pod with success. Testing HTML right now...god, loading this many notes is slow...hmm, didn't work. Will continue testing. Sorry about the disjointed posts, it's hard to think straight when I just woke up >.

I've used programs like PodText to transfer books to my iPod. Not that program specifically, but I can't find the one I used...but I found several at Versiontracker. A recent MacAddict article said that the iPod supports basic HTML like you asked. I can't find the article, but this seems to be correct.

Couple of sites to look at to see if what you want exists.

http://www.versiontracker.com/macosx/
Macintosh Products Guide
Apple's Mac OS X page

The AAC files take about half the space as MP3s and sound better. I didn't do a scientific study but on several songs with quiet passages the MP3 version sucks compared to AAC, and the MP3 was encoded at the max bit rate.

In the Multiformat at 128kbps public Listening Test (May 2004), iTunes AAC (4.26/5) "tied" with Lame MP3 (4.18/5). If you look at individual songs, iTunes did better on some songs and Lame did better on others.

In the MP3 at 128kbps public listening test (January 2004), Lame was the best MP3 encoder. iTunes's MP3 encoder was the worst, even worse than the much-maligned Fraunhofer encoder.

Use AAC if you want, but for chrissakes change your awful iTunes MP3 encoder to Lame. If you use OS X, here's a link: iTunes-LAME Encoder

iPhoto has its shortcomings, but it is very good at what it attempts to do, and you are flat out wrong in some of what you say. Batch editing comments - try "Batch Change" in the photo menu. I'm not sure what you mean by "custom tags", but you can create your own keywords. In the Keywords palette select "New" from the pop-up menu. You can create any keyword you want. If you don't like the HTML export you can use 3rd party plugins to enhance it (try Better HTML Export). My guess is you are talking about an old version of iPhoto and not the latest. Much was improved since the early days. I can't imagine being without iPhoto now and, if nothing else, iPhotos' red-eye tool is by far the easiest and most effective I've seen. Make a rough (very rough) box around both eyes at once and click a button. Even my Mom can use it. It just works. That alone makes iPhoto an indispensable product.

The Mac platform has a pretty good shareware community that is helped by sites like MacUpdate and VersionTracker. The Mac, having a smaller percentage of the market, has the benefit (for shareware developers at least) of having more holes that shareware developers can fill. So if you have a great idea and can turn it into a great app, then you have a good chance of finding success in the Mac market. Watson, Konfabulator, and NetNewsWire are a few great shareware apps on the Mac. Unfortunately Apple might decide to fill the same holes that your app might fill as was the case with Watson and now Konfabulator.

I have found a small amount of success myself with my Shareware app, HyperSpell. But its nothing I could ever quit my day job over. Mainly its something to do in my spare time and it filled a hole that I wanted filled. The biggest problem most shareware developers face is just getting people to know that their app exists (marketing).

--
Not free as in effort, but I'm willing to try it.
Free Flat Screens | Free iPod Photo

There are a few more for OS X:

Escape Medical Viewer
DreamFird aka jBoxView
iRad

More search results here and here . So in this regards you have your choice of solutions. I think even GraphicsConverter might be able to view the images, but not the associated data.

Hmm... their homepage says they are "a dicom solution".

A versiontracker search for "dicom" under MacOSX returns these programs.

Or you could just use the ubiquitous GraphicConverter which handles just about everything, including dicom images iirc.

...completely useless...

A practical solution would be, of course, something from the incredibly rich selection of free alternative calculators. However, the inner nerd in me jumped on the "completely useless" part of your post. First of all, Calculator.app accepts input from standard clipboard ("command-v" for paste), so you can use any hex->dec converter, even something from equally rich selection of Unix CLI tools. Calculator.app is also AppleScriptable, so you can write yourself a simple script (and if you need hex, oct and bin - or for that matter, even know what it means - you obviously can write a simple AppleScript) to automate the conversion. Since Apple, in its infinite wisdom, has chosen NOT to include built-in conversion to AppleScript, you can use something from the not-that-rich-but-still-useful selection of hex/dec add-ons to AppleScript.

Having said all that, I agree with you that no hex input in Calculator.app is just plainly stupid, just had to let my inner nerd go, otherwise he would harrass me for ages whispering dirty things about Natalie Portman to my inner ear when I try to concentrate.

For Mac? Take your pick:

Minesweeper

Solitaire

For Mac? Take your pick:

Minesweeper

Solitaire

Don't know about live CDs, maybe the folks at yellow dog have cooked one up, or LinuxPPC, but I can help you with making OS X look and feel a bit more like your linux stuff.

I can't find anything on getting auto raise windows. However, there are plenty of virtual desktop items, there are a couple here

You should also be able to install and run KDE and verious other window environments, here's some some information You can google for more. The downside to this is that while under KDE or other environments, you won't be able to run Aqua applications.

OpenOffice is availible for OS X in Fink (which I highly recomend you consider installing and using) and as NeoOfficeJ.

AbiWord is availible as either an X11 app or as a beta native app

The GIMP is availible as an X11 app via fink, but if you don't do a lot of heavy work, can I suggest looking into an application called PhotoLine

XMMS, well there's iTunes and various other players, unless XMMS does something in particular you need.

mplayer and vlc are both availible for OS X as native apps as is firefox.

As for GAIM, I hear a lot of recomendations for Adium.

Don't know about live CDs, maybe the folks at yellow dog have cooked one up, or LinuxPPC, but I can help you with making OS X look and feel a bit more like your linux stuff.

I can't find anything on getting auto raise windows. However, there are plenty of virtual desktop items, there are a couple here

You should also be able to install and run KDE and verious other window environments, here's some some information You can google for more. The downside to this is that while under KDE or other environments, you won't be able to run Aqua applications.

OpenOffice is availible for OS X in Fink (which I highly recomend you consider installing and using) and as NeoOfficeJ.

AbiWord is availible as either an X11 app or as a beta native app

The GIMP is availible as an X11 app via fink, but if you don't do a lot of heavy work, can I suggest looking into an application called PhotoLine

XMMS, well there's iTunes and various other players, unless XMMS does something in particular you need.

mplayer and vlc are both availible for OS X as native apps as is firefox.

As for GAIM, I hear a lot of recomendations for Adium.

I indeed wrote such as Abiword (with a link which should have been toward this site).
I used Abiword under both BeOS and OSX where these fit nicely.
Anyway I do not use it intensively as I now work using the Latex port for OSX link, link and link...

Apple laptops are effectively unusable for unix users.

I am a long-time Unix user. That means I need to have the Ctrl key to the left of the A key. This is a genuine need, not merely a want; it is based upon ergonomics. The Ctrl key is heavily used in unix, and it must be easily accessable. It cannot be off in the lower left corner of the keyboard where it is difficult to get at, and where it distorts the position of your left hand such that you can't easily type other keys while holding the Ctrl key down.

Apple desktop keyboards are now all USB. They are all OK. The CapsLock key can be re-mapped into a Ctrl key.

Unfortunately, even in this modern age, all Apple laptops have built-in ADB keyboards. The ADB keyboard is broken-by-design. It is, in general, not possible to remap the CapsLock key into a Ctrl key.

There are some exceptions, but they are horrible kludges. They are horrible kludges because the original design of the ADB keyboard was a horrible kludge. The correct solution would be for Apple to re-design their laptop motherboards to use built-in USB keyboards. This hasn't happened yet. If you run Linux, use Debian's solution. For Mac OS X users, uControl works. There are no solutions (that I know of) for either NetBSD or OpenBSD. Please note once again that the "solutions" above are in fact kludges, because of the original bad design of the ADB keyboard.

Apple provides a technical note on how to remap the keyboard, but provides no solution to the hardware problems caused by the design of the ADB keyboard. This tech note helps foreign language users, but does nothing for the CapsLock/Ctrl problem.

Apple is (currently) ignoring Unix users! This is not merely speculation on my part. In an on-going email exchange I am having with an Apple employee (whom I won't name) in their marketing department, the Apple marketing person directly stated to me that Apple was catering to their historic Mac customers, and is purposely ignoring the Unix market. He also claimed that Apple would soon start paying more attention to the Unix market. I won't hold my breath. Apple has been ignoring Unix users for more than 13 years. I expect that trend to continue. (Also note that my Apple contact indicated that Macs would never ship with a 3-button mouse, even though Apple intended to port almost all X-window software and deliver it either on a CD/DVD or installed directly on each Mac's hard drive. How Unix friendly is a 1-button mouse with X programs that often require 3 buttons?)

Apple has now lost two opportunities to sell me hardware. I really wanted an Apple laptop for their superior battery life, and for the PowerPC with Altivec CPU. (The Altivec is vastly superior to the x86 line for DSP.) Because I can't live with the broken-by-design built-in ADB keyboard in all Apple laptops, Sony and IBM sold me laptops instead. If Apple fixes this problem, they will sell me a PowerBook next year; if they don't, I'll still be running OpenBSD on x86 hardware, and wishing I could use a Mac.

Here's a link for the lazy folks who wanna keep track of temps.

It's freeware; source is included; and I've just put up a sourceforge site for it.

If you go to Versiontracker you will find lots of cool software for the iPod and for iTunes if you enter iPod in their search box.

WMP 9 only had MP3 encoding in the form of an addon. In WMP 10 it's there by default, and other than the lack of some bitrates, it's not crippled.

For years MS has been touting WMA's audio superiority over MP3 "at any bit rate" (see Demos: Audio Quality). However, Amorim's Multiformat at 128kbps public Listening Test showed LAME MP3 performing better than WMA 9 Standard. So I wouldn't be surprised if WMP 10 has a crappy MP3 encoder.

Maybe I'm just a cynical a-hole. I'm looking forward to Amorim's next MP3 listening test to see how WMP 10's MP3 encoder performs against LAME.

Also, you can drag and drop between dialog boxes and finder windows -- and make sure to maximize your dialog boxes; the default 'minimal' view can confuse some switchers until they find the expand button.

If you really want the unwieldy tree view from Windows Explorer, or anything else you don't see by default in the finder, check here.

1. Max out the RAM you can afford. Don't buy them at Apple.com, though.
   
2. You will need to re-learn and familiar yourself to the Mac's GUI philosophy. For example, the menu bar is always at the top. You need to get use to new keyboard shortcuts. Don't be frustrated at the change, it's not as difficult as you may think. You just need time. To make it easier, forget about being a power user right away. Mac OS X is flexible enough that you can do many things differently. As you familiarize yourself, start picking hints for doing things more efficiently (tips and tricks).
   
3. When you are stuck at a task, usually the answer is simpler than you think. Many converts try to find a complex answer when it is actually staring at them on the screen. Sometimes, simplicity is hard for people used to runabout ways.
   
4. One button mouse. This always comes up. Mac OS X and apps writen using Apple's guideline are operable using one button mouse. Simple as that. But, you can use CTRL key and the mouse button to simulate a right click. However, if you are a power user or you really prefer multi-button mouse, simply use your old USB mouse. No driver installation is needed.
   
5. If you are familiar with linux, you'll find almost at home with Mac OS X. CLI is a click away and many open source apps support Mac OS X. sourceforge.com is a good start. For searching apps, google helps alot, but it's easier to go to VersionTracker first.
   
6. Lastly, visit lots of Mac websites. You'll find that Mac communities are a helpful bunch. One site you shouldn't miss is MacSurfer. It's a Mac news clearinghouse. It has links to news, rumors, tips, tricks, deals, etc.. From there, you'll find many links to other Mac sites (at the bottom of the page). You can also visit Apple Insider for their excellent forum where you can discuss problems and speculate on rumors.

• Mac Rumors - Good rumors website
• Mac Slash - Slashdot like mac news site
• Mac News Bytes - Good quick links to mac related articles
• Version Tracker - Software update website. Kind of like download.com for mac.
• Mac Update - Similar to versiontracker.com
• Mac OS X Hints - Good tips site for beginners and experienced people alike.
• Think Secret - Another good rumors site. Very accurate, most of the time.
• Emulation.net - Links to game emulation for mac

• Adium - Multi-protocol IM client
• Byte Controller - Good itunes hotkey/menu pager applet
• Camino - Nice mac based gecko browser.
• Colloquy - Webkit based IRC client. not too newbish.
• Cyberduck - SFTP/FTP client for os x
• Desktop Manager - Multi desktop app for os x
• Apple X11 Server - Apple's integrated X11 server. you'd want this for the next two items
• Fink - UNIX software for your mac
• Gimp.app - decent free photo editor
• Handbrake - DVD to mpeg4 ripper
• iTerm - Multi tabbed terminal
• Logorrhea - iChat log viewer/searcher/indexer
• Meteorologist - Weather applet for the menu bar
• Menu Meters - Menu applet for cpu usage, net usage, and more.
• Mplayer OS X - This app will play just about any media format in existance
• Poisoned - GiFT (Kazaa) and mldonkey based P2P mac client.
• Quicksilver - Very cool file/application/url/itunes/etc/etc/etc indexing program. It's like spotlight, only here TODAY and free!
• VLC - Another good video playing app. Nice to have a backup sometimes if mplayer doesn't play a file (which is very very rare).

The web is definitely your friend when it comes to switching. The parent links will help.

MacNN Forums
xlr8yourmac.com's forums
MacFixIt Forums
MacWorld Forums

That should be a good start. You'll find that the Mac community is more than willing to go out of its way to help you, especially if you're a new convert. Just tell people you've switched from Windows, you'll get all the help you'll ever need.

Apple have support forums too, they're worth a look, especially to track bugs - people normally go whinge over there.

Finally, as someone mentioned, VersionTracker and MacUpdate are the places to search for software. Even if you don't know the name of the software, type in what kind of thing you're looking for (eg MP3) and you're bound to find something of use.

Good luck, and most of all, have fun :)

-- james

There are a number of conversion utilities/packages which I will let you Google for.
Otherwise just don't expect it to be like Windows. :)
And VersionTracker along with the Apple OSX download page will be your new friends...

... here are some apps that might be of assistance (use at your own risk, blahbity blah blah):

LinkUp
Puts a little "light" in your menu bar

or ...

Skwonk!
Makes sounds depending upon the types of packets going through. There's even a barnyard sounds pack you can use with it :)

... here are some apps that might be of assistance (use at your own risk, blahbity blah blah):

LinkUp
Puts a little "light" in your menu bar

or ...

Skwonk!
Makes sounds depending upon the types of packets going through. There's even a barnyard sounds pack you can use with it :)

There's only one thing you have to know for Macintosh software:

http://www.versiontracker.com

I'm serious here. Mac software products live and die by their rating on VersionTracker. Tucows is similar for Windows software, but it just doesn't have the near 100% of users pull that VersionTracker does.

Oh, and one more hint. Since most people see your software while it's on VersionTracker's front page, release early and release often.

Those two on VersionTracker don't use any Google APIs. They're just ordinary screen-scrapers, with the curl and the grep and the pipes, mm-hey.

Already done.

Already done.

"I've never needed more management than that - why would anyone? Seriously, I'm asking. :)"


in no particular order...

-Sorting by Artist, Track Name, Length, Bit Rate, Release Date, whatever... ( if you sort by artist, it will subsort by album)
-Playlists (I have so many, usually according to mood)
-Playlist burning to Audio CD (I drag and drop a playlist and burn it in 3 minutes before a drive somewhere)
-ID3 Tag Management (I need to correct all of these track's album name at once)
-Inline Searching of ID3 Tags (show me, lets say, all tracks composed by Beethoven)
-Displaying embedded album art (I'm obsessed with this)
-Use of scripts (this one searches for lyrics)
-Advanced Ripping options (bitrates, formats, numbered files, error correction reading crappy CDs)
-Network Sharing! (I have 6 machines in my house, they all play music from the same drive and I manage only 1 library)
-Streaming Audio Stations (endless hours sampling the world)
-Nifty Psychedelic Visualizer (copied by many, mastered by none & it looks great at 120" from a projector at parties!)
-Party Shuffle! (since I'm on the subject - I love this new feature)
-Equilizer and Sound Enhancing controls (really helps on the older computer speakers)
-Track Cross Fading (I adore this, I used to DJ at a radio station)
-Time and Size management (I know that I have 16221 tracks that take up 32 days, 16 hours and 23 seconds and take up 61.01 GB - no shit.)
-Track Rating (some of my favorite artists have some stinkers)
-Show Song File (I, like you, have my music firewire drive neatly organized, but rarely see more than the file(s) I need)
-Compatability with iPod (I actually don't have one, but it seems like everyone else does)
-Random Shuffle (I'm hearing stuff I forgot I have!)
-Exporting Song Lists or you Library (xml for other ideas?)


Damn, now my fingers hurt!

>If you have a Mac, you can make a quick AppleScript for this.

If you have a Mac, you can download dozens of pre-built AppleScripts which add functionality to iTunes. Try a search on versiontracker which brings up eight pages of results for "iTunes". I've seen track-renaming scripts floating around among other things.