iTunes Match: One year in

“On November 14, 2011 (a few weeks later than promised), Apple released iTunes Match, a $25-a-year, cloud-based service designed to provide access to your iTunes music library from a computer, iOS device, or Apple TV,” Kirk McElhearn writes for Macworld.

“The idea is simple: iTunes scans your music library, sends the information about your songs to Apple's servers, and then either ‘matches’ music that's in both your library and the iTunes Store, or uploads the music that isn't in the iTunes Store,” McElhearn writes. “Then, you can either download or stream (depending on the hardware) all of your music from a Mac or PC running iTunes 10; an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 5 or later; or a second- or third-generation Apple TV.”

McElhearn writes, “In theory, iTunes Match is a great idea. In practice, however, everything doesn't work as well as it should in the realm of iTunes Match, with users facing a number of hiccups and difficulties since the service's inception. With renewal notices going out to those who signed up early on, it will be interesting to see how many people pony up for another year.”

Read more in the full article here.

How to install Owncloud on a Mac mini server

“One benefit of hosting a Mac mini server is you can use it many different ways,” Brian Stucki blogs for Macminicolo. “Owncloud is a great service to add to the multi-purpose list.”

“Owncloud is like running your own Dropbox service on your own machine. Don't get me wrong, I love Dropbox. But if you want your data on a server that you own, this is a good way to do it. Also, storage space is limited only by the space on the server,” Stucki reports. “We've been seeing a lot of companies pondering whether they should put their data on a server they don't own or how to get plenty of data space for their full company. And for personal use, Owncloud will do the Dropbox-like data sync with revisions, but you can also do things like stream your music, share photo galleries, and all kinds of other features. There are apps for different OS versions as well (including mobile.) If you want to demo an install of Owncloud on a server, you can do that here.”

Stucki writes, “Ok, so Owncloud is awesome. How do you install it? Glad you asked. We worked with Macminicolo customer Kolby Allen, to put together a tutorial.”

Full illustrated instructions here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Macminicolo" for the heads up.]