Tagtrum's beaTunes (http://www.beatunes.com/) is a pretty cool iTunes tool for Mac and Windows users. It can detect various types of metadata, such as beats-per-minute and musical key, as well as find and fix typos and inconsistencies such as misspellings and rarely used genres.

After all, you can accumulate so many tunes in iTunes that inconsistencies and glitches appear. And if you rip CDs to the software, there may be missing info. BeaTunes can help with such shortcomings. It intelligently creates playlists of matching songs, corrects your iTunes Music Library (typos, wrong genres, a misnamed album, etc.) and more.

One of my favorite features is the ability to search for and add missing data such as album artwork, which is more comprehensives than those features in iTunes itself. BeaTunes also analyzes the color and tempo (BPM) of your songs and lets you create playlists based on this info. You can even blog about your playlists (though I have absolutely no desire to do this) and more. All of the changes are, of course, reflected in iTunes.

BeaTunes isn't a plug-in; it's app that works in tandem with iTunes. It offers drag and drop installation. Once you launch it, on-screen prompts leads you through an analysis of your iTunes library.

BeaTunes' Library Inspection finds and alerts you to the discrepancies in the library. Then it's your call as to what corrections/changes you'd like to make.

There are a couple of things that you should know about BeaTunes, though they're not actually flaws in the software itself. It can be slow to launch initially if, like me, you have a big iTunes library. Also, BeaTunes can't iTunes Store tracks if they have the FairPlay DRM embedded.

Otherwise, BeaTunes makes a fine buddy for iTunes.

A seven-day demo version is available at the product web site. Registration is US$31.95. BeaTunes requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher.

Rating: 8 out of 10

-- Dennis Sellers