When it comes to my MP3 files I like having the album art included with it and directly embedded in the file. In Windows XP I was using a specific program to do this but it wouldn’t work in Windows 7, so I had to find something else that would do the job.

There is EasyTAG, a multi-platform program that works great in Linux or Windows, but the interface is definitely better suited for Linux as it doesn’t take advantage of any Windows-specific menu features.

After some searching I came across Mp3tag – and it’s awesome because it makes adding in album art very easy.

Before continuing, some MP3 tagging programs embed the album art in the MP3 file while others do not. I wanted one that specifically did embed. The ones that don’t simply save the image files separately alongside the MP3s (like WinAMP does.) This can cause big clutter in short order, and you definitely don’t want that.

The great thing about Mp3tag is that it works in XP, Vista or 7, is very light on its feet and easy to use.

Here’s an example of how it works:

First, have your album art ready for whatever MP3 you want to embed it to, be it a GIF or JPEG file.

When you first load Mp3tag, click File then Change Directory or press CTRL+D to go to the directory to where your MP3 files are.

Highlight the MP3 you want to add art to, right-click the cover area at bottom left, then choose Add Cover, like this:

After that, navigate to where your cover art is, open it, and it will show in the area:

After that, click File then Save tag or just press CTRL+S.

This is to date the easiest way I’ve seen to manually add in cover art for MP3 files, and believe me I’ve tried a bunch of different programs for this task. Mp3tag definitely has them all beat..

..unless anyone can find one better that’s free?

While it’s true we see a ton of innovation on the internet (it’s what drives it to begin with) there’s been some stuff that was just nothing but a miserable failure from the word go.

Here’s 5 of them. Some are old, some current.

WebRing

The concept: To "join" web sites together in a circular structure (the "ring")

The reality: A bunch of crappy web sites that don’t relate to each other at all desperately trying to whore each other out for the sole purpose of generating web traffic.

WebRing actually still exists and it still sucks. Granted, this was one of the first attempts to connect web sites with common interests, but it ended up being nothing but a big ball of fail.

Tag cloud

A tag cloud is a "weighted list" of a jumble of words where visually bigger words are discussed more while smaller words are discussed less. See examples here.

The concept: Visually bigger words (like bike instead of bike) mean people are talking about that particular whatever-it-is more often.

The reality: These words when clicked lead to articles/sites/pages that usually have nothing to do with that word whatsoever – OR – the words presented are so unbelievably generic that it never leads to any useful you were looking for.

The tag cloud is one of those Web 2.0 things that just doesn’t work. It doesn’t matter if you have it enabled on your personal blog or use a big-site way of doing it because tag clouds suck.

LinkExchange

This, much like WebRing, was a failed attempt at connecting web sites with similar interests by putting "badges" somewhere in your web page/site. The only difference is that it was more corporate and required cash.

It didn’t work.

Microsoft bought this, realized it sucked and changed it to be part of Microsoft Office Live. In its current form it has absolutely zero resemblance (thank God) to the old LinkExchange.

Badges

The original "internet button" was a 88×31 graphic.

Remember these? 

In the Web 2.0 version this was made smaller into an 80×15 "badge".

Badges look like this:

For whatever reason someone thought it was good that with ever-increasing resolutions on computer monitors to make graphics smaller and harder to read.

Stupid? Yes.

"Splash" pages

This is more of a web usability thing than anything else but it bears mentioning because it still happens today.

"Splash" pages, a.k.a. the "skipintro", is some dopey Flash-based "introduction" to a web site. This has been widely panned on web pages like Web Pages That Suck because it serves absolutely no purpose other than to annoy people. It’s not "cool" or "hip" or anything like that whatsoever.

If you have your own web site, I have three words of advice for you concerning the intro page: Don’t do it.