Want to add more organization to your collection of videos in iTunes? Categorize the videos as TV Shows instead of Movies and then you can group them as you wish (home videos, YouTube videos, etc.). Mac OS X Hints describes the easy steps for organizing your video library.

When you import a new movie into iTunes, it will usually be categorized as a movie. Select all the videos you want to set as a TV show and go to the Info settings (Command + I). Under the Options tab, change the Media Kind to TV Show.

Then, under the Sorting tab, put the group name you want to add the video to under the Show field (e.g., family videos). Correct the name tag if you want as well.

Once you're done, view your "TV Shows" in the icon view, where all the videos will be grouped under their own icons. Even in the album list view, the videos will be grouped by your categories.

Mac OS X Hints readers suggest other ways to group videos in iTunes, such as using the Groupings tag which will show up in the column view in Movies (or other type) or to create custom genres for the video files and then display by Genre. The TV show hack, though, retains the grouping in more types of views and it also will stay organized by group on an Apple TV.

Organize videos by group in iTunes | Mac OS X Hints via ComputerWorld

So you've created a kickass, play-anything media center with XBMC, but it's a too hard for your less tech-savvy friends and family members to use. Here are a few ways to make your home theater PC so easy that your four year old could use it.

Get a New Skin

The default Confluence skin is pretty good-looking, and there are some even prettier ones out there if you look around. However, not all of them are exactly easy to navigate, especially for those unfamiliar with XBMC. For example, Confluence's horizontal menu is hard to see, and its Movie and TV show menus are in a cluttered submenu. Experiment with some other skins and see which ones are easier to navigate.

I personally really like "Transparency" for its easy-to-read vertical menu. You can see every menu item on the menu page (that is, you don't have to scroll to see any of them), and nothing is buried in a submenu. From the main menu, you can see the Movies, TV Shows, Play Disc, and other options and go straight there with a few taps. It's much easier for an XBMC newbie to navigate than something like Confluence, Aeon, or Alaska, and it's still pretty darn attractive. Of course, there may be others out there, so search around and see what else you can find.

Program Your Remote for Easy Navigation

Certain remotes work out of the box with XBMC, but sometimes getting a simpler remote and programming it yourself can be more user-friendly than a PC remote with a ton of buttons. Even then, take care to program buttons in a way that makes sense—I spent years with an unintuitive button layout because I just matched XBMC's functions to the buttons they sounded like, which wasn't ideal. Play around with your remote and see what layout makes the most sense. Watch out for the "back" and "menu" buttons, which I found the trickiest to assign to something intuitive. If you really want to see if you've done it correctly, hand it off to someone else that hasn't used XBMC and see if they can find their way around without help. If they can, you've found the ideal layout, and you should stick with it.

You might also try going with a remote designed specifically for XBMC, like one that works on iOS or Android. Not only will they have buttons assigned to specific XBMC features, but you can even browse your library right from your mobile device and get it to play on the TV. It doesn't get much simpler than that.

Lastly, if you really want an easy-to-use remote, the Apple TV remote is about as simple as it gets. It takes no setup, anyone can use it, and it comes with the cheapest XBMC box you can create. This won't matter if you've already put together a non-Apple TV box, but if you have an Apple TV, consider using it as your XBMC box for some serious ease of use.

Clean Up Your Main Menu

Head on over to Settings > Skin Settings and search for the menu editing section. Take some time to remove all the things you don't use, like "Pictures", "Music", and "Weather". Make sure to clean up the submenus too, if your skin has them—things like "Recently Added", "Random", and "Browse by Genre" aren't exactly confusing, but they can create a lot of clutter, which makes the menu a lot harder to navigate. Some skins will even let you remove the submenus altogether. Remove the "Videos" option and replace it with separate "Movies" and "TV Shows" menu items. And, if "Play Disc" isn't enabled, make sure you turn it on for those occasional DVDs you rent or borrow from friends.

Put Add-Ons like Hulu, Netflix, and Blu-Ray on the Main Menu

Next, put some of your most used add-ons on the main page, so you don't have to go digging through other menus to find them. This takes a few steps, but is really quite easy:

1. Navigate to one of the add-ons you want on the main menu (say, XBMC Flicks—the Netflix add-on for XBMC). Bring up the context menu and choose "Add to Favorites". This step isn't necessary for all skins, but it is necessary for many—including Transparency.
2. Head to Settings > Skin and find the option for customizing the main menu (in Transparency, it's called "Menu"). You should see some "Custom" or "Favorites" slots, where you can add custom menu items. Enable these and choose the add-on you want from the favorites menu.
3. Repeat this process for all the add-ons you want on the front page, like Hulu, Free Cable, Blu-Ray, and others. They should all show up on your main menu for quick, easy, pain-free access.

If you've cleaned up your main menu as we described in the previous section, you should now have a menu that's incredibly easy to navigate and has movies, TV, streaming video, Blu-Ray, and everything else you could ever want.

Enable Kiosk Mode

One of the most confusing parts about XBMC can be when you accidentally enter the "View" menu while scrolling through your movies or TV shows (the one that's hidden behind the right edge of the screen). Once you've got everything set up the way you want, you can turn on "kiosk mode" to lock your chosen views and get rid of this hidden menu. That way, when someone's browsing through your videos, they don't accidentally stumble on this menu or change your view mode by accident. In Transparency, you'll find kiosk mode under Settings > Skin Settings > General > Enable Kiosk mode. Check your skin's documentation for more info on whether it has kiosk mode and where to find it.

XBMC has come a long way, but it's still not the most user-friendly program on the planet. Hopefully, with these simple tweaks, you can get just about anyone using your XBMC box in no time. Got any of your own suggestions for making XBMC easier to use? Be sure to share them in the comments below.

Photo remixed from Tanberin.

iOS: If you're running Usenet programs like Sick Beard and Couch Potato to download movies and TV shows as soon as they're released, you'll love Qouch. It can not only monitor all your downloads, but keep you up to date on when new episodes are coming out, let you add new shows and movies, and more right from your phone.

Accessing your "internet PVR" from your web browser is fine and dandy, but if you're sitting on the couch with nothing but your iPad—or if you're out and about with only your phone—Qouch is incredibly convenient to have around. All you need to do is start it up, type in the server information for SABnzbd+, Sick Beard, and/or Couch Potato, and you're off to the races. You can view and manage downloads, add new movies and TV shows to download, and even see what's coming up. The interface is very well put together and simple to use, too. If you're out of the house and want a movie ready for you when you get back, Qouch makes it a snap.

Qouch is a $2.99 download for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Note that if you want to access Usenet from outside of your home, you'll need to do a bit of extra setup first. Thanks, Jason!

Qouch | iTunes App Store

If you want to watch videos on your iPad or other tablet from afar, without headphones, its speaker is pretty worthless. This trick can boost the sound significantly with almost no work at all.

We've shared a bunch of ways to do this in the past—from sticky notes to blocks of wood to drilling holes in the tablet itself—but this is one of the best methods we've seen yet. All you need is a plastic cup and some scissors. Cut a hole in the end big enough for your tablet to fit in, and press play. You should find that the sound is significantly louder, so you can hear it from far away. Obviously, this won't boost the sound quality in any way—so music listening still won't be great—but for listening to podcasts or watching TV, it's a very clever solution.

iPad Amp | Reddit