Why You Need A Menubar Tool To Improve iTunes

One screen is not enough for my Mac. I have too many Menubar utilities leftover at the end of my Mac’s Menubar. There’s just not enough room.

Would a second screen on my Mac let me run more Menubar utilities? I have a new utility that I love and want to use, but real estate is a premium in that skinny little Menubar. This is one that improves my life with iTunes. And it’s free.

At last count I went beyond a dozen of those handy dandy, A-number One, triple distilled Mac Menubar utilities that make life worth living even more than watching Glenn Beck.

My Mac seems inundated with little utilities that make managing my Mac so much better than it was back in the day when all I did was use my Mac to get things done.

Now, getting things done means managing all the tools that would help me get things done if I had time to use them.

My example today is iTunes. If you’re on your Mac for any length of time, and if you are proud of your iTunes music collection, and if co-workers or fellow employees or office rules or rowdy neighbors don’t have an injunction on your listening habits, you listen to iTunes.

What I like about iTunes is not important. It plays music. It plays music videos. It plays movies and TV shows. What’s so special about all that? Not much. What is special are the little things. I’m an American and I like to rate things. Top 10s are my life. I want to know who or what is Number One through Number 10.

I rate the music on my Mac using iTunes little ratings column. More stars means I really like a song. There’s just one little itty bitty problem with Apple’s iTunes music rating system. It’s in iTunes.

So, I’m cruising along the information superhighway on the interwebs using Safari, checking my email, tweeting, Photoshopping, and doing whatever it is that Mac users do—all the while listening to music on iTunes.

When a song ends I want to rate it. I’m about half done with the over 3,000 songs in my iTunes music collection. Rating a song requires me to stop what I’m doing, switch over to iTunes, scroll down to find the song that just finished playing, and assign it a rating.

Bah humbug. That’s a lot of work. I could add other utilities like Quicksilver, but it’s a dead horse. CoverSutra can do the same thing but I’m totally allergic to utilities that cost money.

What’s left? The last bastion of Mac efficiency for Mac aficionados. The Menubar.

Watching all those Monk marathons on USA comes with a price. I’m obsessive compulsive about unrated songs in iTunes. The solution? I Love Stars, a wonderfully elegant, simply useful, instantly gratifying little Menubar utility which lets me rate a song with a click and nothing more. Is that cool or what?

I Love Stars places little stars in the Menubar. A click reveals a menu that displays what’s playing. Select the appropriate number of stars to match the song and you’re done. The rating is complete. Inner peace is achieved. The stock market can continue to rise.

Even cooler is that I Love Stars hides itself amid all that precious Menubar space when iTunes is not playing. You can also add a half star, you know, just in case you’re certain that Billy Joel’s Keeping the Faith should have more stars than We Didn’t Start The Fire but not as many as Uptown Girl. Now you can compromise with half a star.

The only real problem with I Love Stars is the Menubar. There are too many of these essential, must-have utilities for the space Apple provides. What’s wrong with tabs in the Menubar, Apple? Come on. It’s the 21st century. I have obsessions that need petting.