Obsessive compulsives unite! If the thought of unmatched cover art and track naming in your iTunes keeps you up at night (”N.E.R.D… Nerd…. NERD. Stop the madness!”) then help is on the way.

TuneUp is a new iTunes plugin that digs into your library, references it against the more than 90 million tracks in the heaven-sent Gracenote Database, and then fills in correct song titles, album names, artist names, and more. Even better, it also accesses Amazon and Google to pick up the matching album art — an absolute must for anyone addicted to Coverflow. Once your iTunes is running like a well-organized machine, TuneUp goes one step further and scans the web for info about your fave musicians: tour dates, new YouTube videos, and collectibles and other die hard fan-swag on eBay and other retail sites.

The only drawback is that right now only a Windows version is available (maybe a little odd considering the plugin is designed for a program and device created by Apple), but a Mac-compatible version is scheduled for release this fall. So until then, for all the Macaholics it's more long nights searching Google Images for that perfect high-res image of “Licensed to Ill”. Damn.

One of the most usable and underrated apps we have in our Mac OS’ is Stickies. I find myself using them all the time– for taking notes, jotting to-do lists, scribing passwords, editing text, etc. SketchBox is a donationware app for OS X that expands the functionality of our default Stickies by adding drawing functionality, timers to remind your forgetful self, and a sexier interface that helps you organize your notes. It’s admittedly cliché to to say “we all know we could use a little more organization in our lives”– but it’s so true, dammit!

Via Lifehacker

For something so important, your coffee table goes through a heck of a lot of abuse. Look at yours now. Magazines from six months ago are left forgotten under bills and junk mail. Assorted coins have become permanently glued to its surface because they’ve been resting on the sugary leftovers of soda can rims for so long. Lonely DVDs sit apart from their parent cases. To put it frankly, it’s a mess. You’d benefit from the Mix and Match Table by Brazilian design company Nodesign, an ingenious work of craftsmanship that promises to adapt to the demands you unintentionally put onto this living room centerpiece. It comprises nine wooden panels that can be moved around like an old childhood slide puzzle game minus the image, and some of the panels are specifically designed to function as a CD holder or fruit bowl. Another one comes in a form of a lidded box to hold all the tchotkies — like old casino chips, you know — threatening to wreak havoc on order. When you do finally get rid of all the extra junk on your table, flip all the panels over for a smooth, flat surface. Perfect, at least until the mail comes again. See the table in action in a video here.

Bulletin boards have always been a great tool for keeping maintaining one's sanity. Whether you use one for pinning up photos of your friends that you miss back home or for leaving little schedule reminders somewhere you can see them, there's no denying their usefulness. However, in order to hang all of that stuff up you usually have to use sharp tacks. In addition to the fact that using those tacks will leave holes in your photos, stepping on them will leave holes in your feet. Thanks to Modern Hangups, you won't have to worry about piercing your little piggies anymore. This simple new solution for your bulletin board woes ‘is an adhesive-backed dispensable display surface bundled with powerful magnetic tacks’ to replace all those pesky pins. The strip can also be most conveniently extended to the length of your liking, making for an excellent alternative for hanging up anything from photos to daily to-do lists. The only problem we have with Modern Hangups is that they're not available anywhere yet. This wonderful patented product is in need of an investor and manufacturer. We hope that changes soon, because our feet are all poked up.

Having a large head of hair, I often find missing things from car keys to my toothbrush while giving my curly ‘fro the once over. Part of me wonders if this is the inspiration behind the schmoelzer harry and harry jr. from Formila Design. If you find the idea of hanging your miscellaneous belongings on hooks, nails, and holders to be aesthetically unpleasing, and hate looking for your misplaced essentials behind the cushions of your couch, then perhaps you should invest in these one of a kind wiry wall mounted wigs in order to keep track of your car keys and other miscellaneous items. The harry and harry jr's hundredes of flexible and sturdy wire “hooks” will allow you to form them to fit your needs, providing the foundation to creatively organize and hold your stuff that you haven't lost already.

It’s a sad series of events that lead to the following problem: Someone sees charm in an old house; sees the need to move in; sees the need for energy; notices a lack of electrical outlets; sees electrical cords all over their floor. However, it’s a happy series of events that lead to the following solution: Someone — more specifically, Karl Zahn — sees connection between wires and baseboards; creates easy system for routing wires; turns baseboards into sneaky hiding place; makes old house safe for accident-prone, expensive-electronics-carrying residents once more.

Basically, The Picket Fence sticks to your baseboards, the wires hide between the walls and the fence, and the world is right again. Nice work, Karl. Charm is charming, once again.

Whether we admit it or not, grids are an essential part of our life. Without grids, our lives would be messier, uglier, and more confusing places to live in. This is the sentiment that forms the basis for the Grid-it series of notepads, a family of 7 different grid-based notepads designed to make organizing your life just that little bit easier.

Each pad is based on a grid system created by a famous designer: Jan Tschichold, Paul Rand, Le Corbusier, Josef Muller-Brockman, Willy Fleckhaus, Johannes Gutenberg, and David Hillman; each pad offers a new way to keep your ideas organized while you’re scribbling them across the page. Some are better for layouts, some for grocery lists, but integrating any of them into your busy schedule will help keep your life nicely compartmentalized.

Now if I could just get my agency to start shelling out for some of these, maybe my concepting notebook would look a little more organized!

Via Cool Hunting

–Danny Nathan

If you haven’t seen the first annual Scientistic Invitation winning entries–check them out, they are really quite inspiring. The invitational is an Industrial Designer’s Society of America branded event, and there were a few winning entries that really caught my eye. Shown here is the cable yoyo, which looks to finally be a decent solution for the amazing lack of cord management systems we have in the world today–not to mention it’s pretty sleek, and a sexy design. They also can be stuck to the back of something, or under a desk, to stay hidden. Available in silver, black, and white. Can’t wait to give these a try.