Today I’m releasing Billboard 0.9.8, an iTunes controller and status display (for Intel and PowerPC Macs running Tiger or better)

This should be the last release before 1.0 (which should come out about two months from now) and it’s focused mostly on polishing things off, formalizing the trial terms, and fixing some bugs.

First I’ll talk about the trial terms and what they mean. The user has a 30 day trial period in which to try Billboard completely unrestricted. All features are enabled during this time. At the end of that 30 day period a few things happen: Fullscreen and Kiosk mode are disabled, random entries in the browser are blocked out, and album-art is replaced with an alternating ad*.

What’s new in 0.9.8? My favorite new feature of 0.9.8 is the improved album art quality. Both when dealing with high-res and low-res album art. Additionally, there are several minor updates to include support for iTunes 9 (and iTunes U). And clicking directly on the album art now displays a contextual menu for the current song. You’ll find the complete change log at the Billboard homepage.

And don’t forget; as a thank-you to everyone who has sent in feedback, you can pre-purchase Billboard 1.0 for USD $9.95 before it ships, that’s 50% off the final price of $19.95!

*A Word About Ads:
Of course, the hope is that no one will even experience the post-trial ads because they will have paid and registered for Billboard before their trial is over. But regardless, I’d like to assuage any concerns over privacy. The ad system does not send any personally identifying information to any servers. And only one ad is loaded per track. When possible, Billboard displays contextual ads, that is, ads which relate to the song you’re listening to. It does this by looking at the tags of the song, and cross referencing them against its own database of contextual ads. Again, I’d like to stress that no information about your listening habits is sent to any server in order to achieve this. As far as the ad server is concerned, it can’t tell the difference between an ad being pulled contextually, or one being chosen at random. If you have questions about any of this, feel free to leave a comment, or send feedback at the Contact page of SideTree.com.

Today I’m releasing Billboard 0.9.7, an iTunes controller and status display (for Intel and PowerPC Macs running Tiger or better)

This version introduces two big new features; Last 10 and Tunemarks. Both of these features are geared towards solving issues related to internet radio, but will work with any media playing in iTunes. Now when you ask the question; “What’s that song that just played while I was in the other room?” You can simply go to the Last 10 menu and see the last ten songs that played, along with helpful links for each of them. And if you’d like to keep a reference to a song for later purchase or reference, you can add it to your Tunemarks.

One feature which I’d like to highlight is the new behavior of the search field in the Browser. Previously, it served only to search your entire iTunes library. In Billboard 0.9.7 however, the search field is used mainly to filter the current list. Say you’re in the Radio listings, looking through the Eclectic section and you’d like to find all the rock stations. Now you can simply type “rock” into the search field, and there are all the stations whose title or description match. If you’d like to search your entire library, you can still do so from the Home, Search, or Playlists screens.

There are a number of other enhancements and fixes as well including animations for smoother transitions of interface elements, and detection of situations where iTunes requires user interaction. Other new features include customizing the toolbar, and an option to show the playtime even when the toolbar is hidden, among others.

You can access the current change log at the new Billboard homepage. Incidentally, you may notice the new website that Billboard is being hosted on. I’d like to assure everyone that this doesn’t reflect new ownership or developers, but a new home for the various applications and projects I’ve had scattered around the web. I’ll slowly be moving these projects to be under one digital canopy, at SideTree.com

As part of the move, currently registered users will see a dialog asking them to update their registration. All that should be required for most people is to simply click the Update button. If you experience any problems, please feel free to contact me via email (under the Help menu in Billboard) or via the Contact page at SideTree.com

And don’t forget; as a thank-you to everyone who has sent in feedback, during this public beta period you can pre-purchase Billboard 1.0 for USD $9.95, that’s 50% off the final price of $19.95!