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Shareworthy articles and content syndicated from other sites. These aren’t things I’ve written or necessarily endorse, for the record.

Cross Platform Mobile App Creator OpenPlug Drops All Fees

OpenPlug, a development toolkit for creating native apps for phones, tablets and other connected devices using JavaScript, ActionScript and XML, today became available free of charge or advertising – after more than 8 years of doing paid and ad-supported business. The company also announced a Certified OpenPlug Solutions Provider Program.

OpenPlug was acquired by international communications network technology platform (and sponsor of this blog) Alcatel-Lucent in the Fall of 2010. Over on the main channel of ReadWriteWeb we analyzed the role of the technology in the larger ecosystem of network-level applications and APIs in depth when the acquisition was announced. I said over there that it was a very big deal; now what could be better than a very big deal turned free? For further perspective, see this 2008 discussion of open (including OpenPlug) vs. closed mobile application development platforms written by John Puterbaugh, founder of 10-year old mobile marketing technology company Nelly Moser. See also related companies Titanium and PhoneGap.

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11 Simple Tips That Will Make Your iTunes Library Run Like A Dream (AAPL)

itunes tips tune up title image

A cluttered iTunes library can stress you out, slow down your computer, and make syncing with your iPhone or iPod take forever.

We have some quick fixes for these problems that will make your library cleaner and run a lot faster.

Turn off Genius and save time

We’ve never been huge fans of the “Genius” features iTunes offers that tries to create playlists for you.

The bigger problem with Genius is that it randomly sends data to Apple, slowing down iTunes and your computer in the process. 

Genius also creates playlists that sync with your iDevice. These playlists take time to update when you launch iTunes, and they also waste time syncing to your device.

Turn off Genius from the “Store” menu and forget about it.

Is your iPhone or iPod running out of space? Use this Smart Playlist to automatically fill it up with recent songs you like

We constantly seem to be running out of space on our iPhones after trying to cram so much music into them. How do you narrow things down without having to drag and drop songs you like onto your iDevice?

Well, one way is that you could alter your Top 25 playlist to instead be your Top 300 playlist and sync that.

A better way is to create a brand new Smart Playlist called “Songs I Like.” Go to “File” and then click “New Smart Playlist” and change the playlist’s criteria to what you see in the picture at right. Use the + signs to add more criteria.

Change the “GBs” to however much space you can afford (although iTunes only accepts whole numbers like 1, 2, 3 or 10). Also, change “Plays” to however you see fit.

This playlist template will create a constantly updated list of songs you’ve played more than a few times, but limit the size of the playlist based on how much space you can afford on your device.

Use Rinse or TuneUp to repair metadata, add artwork, fix song titles, and consolidate genres

Rinse and TuneUp are two great desktop applications that will perform a ton of tedious maintenance to clean up your music library.

These apps will fix song titles, add album art, and add in information where it’s currently missing.

Rinse is $39.00.

TuneUp is $39.95, but components can be purchased separately.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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