You can’t subscribe to any Podcasts in iTunes music store because the the buttons are greyed out. An example is shown below:

Greyed subscribe button

Solution

This happens when the ‘Podcasts’ item is not enabled in the iTunes library. To enable it, follow these steps:

1. Open the iTunes Preferences. To do this, either press ‘Ctrl+,’ (that’s the control key, and the comma key at the same time); or Go to ‘Edit’ in the top menu, and then ‘Preferences’.
2. Select the ‘General’ tab, usually on the left most.
3. Tick the ‘Podcasts’ item in the ‘Show:’ options list (highlighted below):

Select the Podcasts checkbox

Once you say ‘Ok’ to the Preferences box, the ‘Podcasts’ item should appear in the top-left-hand side of the iTunes window. If you now view links to podcasts in the iTunes Store, they should be clickable.

If you have any corrections or alternative solutions to this problem, please leave a comment!

For a long time, MSN Messenger and Windows Live Messenger have been able to display what is currently being played on Windows Media Player. It gets displayed next to your ‘Display Name’. If you use iTunes, what you’re playing can also be displayed in the same way.

Solution

Firstly, open iTunes and go to the Preferences window. You can do this 2 ways:

1. Press ‘Ctrl+,’ (that’s the control key, and the comma key at the same time).
2. Go to ‘Edit’ in the top menu, and then ‘Preferences’.

…then click on the ‘Advanced’ tab, usually on the far right. Within the ‘Advanced’, tick the item that says “Use iTunes as the default player for audio files” (shown below):

Setting iTunes to be the default player for audio files.

Secondly, open the Live Messenger main window (the one that shows all your contacts), then:

1. Go to ‘Tools’ then ‘Options’ in the main menu.
2. Within the ‘Options’ window, select the ‘Personal’ tab on the left.
3. Tick the “Show song information from Windows Media Player as a personal message” check box, as shown below:

Setting the Show song info checkbox item

Now when you play something in iTunes, people will see what you’re playing. Examples of what they might see are shown below:

Song showing in the contact list

Song showing in the conversation window

There… now all you need to worry about is not playing any Abba or other music that could earn you ‘Social Outcast’ status!

Recently I bought an Apex single from iTunes. Excellent though the tracks are (They really rock, honestly, if you like D&B, have a listen!), they both have about 5 seconds of blank ‘emptiness’ at the beginning. This is quite annoying when cueing them for an impromptu mix, or when they are part of a playlist.

Solution

I found this by accident, while looking for a solution. If you right click on the track in iTunes, then select the ‘Options’ track, you should see an option labelled ‘Start Time’. This is the time that iTunes uses when it plays a track, so if you set it to 0:05 for example, when you play the track it’ll start 5 seconds in. Simple but effective! Genius!

See? It was right there all along!

While we’re on the subject of Drum & Bass, if you like your intelligent programmed beats and ambient sweeps, you have to check out the following tracks:

• Japanese Electronics – Commix
• Balaclava – Nu:Tone
• Piece Of Mind – Q-Project (looses it around 2:15, gets it back at 3:40!)
• Sagrada Familia – Fracture & Neptune [no site? no MySpace? cummon fellas!]

1. Click on ‘Edit’ > ‘Preferences’ from the toolbar.
2. In the Preferences window, select the ‘Sharing’ tab.
3. In here, tick the ‘Look for shared libraries’ and ‘Share my library on my local network’ tickboxes. CLick ‘OK’.
4. Do this on as many other iTunes equipped PC / MAC machines as you want to share with.
5. Look in the left pane of iTunes and -if any libraries are on the network – you should see ‘Shared Libraries’ appear. Wohoo!

Of course this isn’t really a fix, and it’s not even hard to find, but I’ve been using iTunes in a networked environment for years and have never come across it, so I figure other might not have either.

Google search helper phrases: Sharing iTunes library over a windows network. Networked iTunes. Connect to library overy wired ethernet or wireless LAN.