iTunes now has sections for Best Selling items of 2006 in each of their major categories. Each section has 4 lists of 15 items, 2 listing the top sellers and 2 lists with editors and staff picks and favorites of the year.. except for music which has about a gagillion songs and albums listed. It's unfortunate the lists are this predictable and uninteresting as top sales, I think I would have liked to seen lists like top downloaded Free Items or which TV channel had the most downloads combined. Here are some of the top movers and shakers form iTunes lists.

Music

Best Selling Album: How to Save a Life: The Fray
Best Selling Song: Bad Day: Daniel Powter
Staff Favorite Album: Taking the Long Way: Dixie Chicks
Staff Favorite Song: Crazy: Gnarles Barkley

TV Shows

Best Selling Currently On: Lost: Lost Season 3
Best Selling in Library: Dave Chappelle: For What It's Worth
Staff Favorites Currently On: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 2
Staff Favorites in Library: FireFly Season 1

Music Videos

There aren't any lists in this section but simply what they felt rounded out the top videos for the year.

AudioBooks

Top Selling Book: How To Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less: Nicholas Boothman
Top Selling Show: Stephen Colbert's At The White House Correspondents Dinner: Stephan Colbert
Editors Pick - Non-Fiction: The Life & Times of The Thunderbolt Kid: Bill Bryson
Editors Pick Fiction: The Emperor's Children: A Novel: Claire Messud

Podcasts People's Choice

Podcasts: Staff Favorites

Like the video music section, there is a general round up of favorites by you and iTunes. I thought this would have been an interesting category to see some data from but iTunes provides none. Maybe to avoid cat fights among podcasters, or because of the poor way they manage top subscribers (by clicks on the subscribe button.. did they ever fix that?).

Apple posted a new Mac/PC ad where they put aside their differences for a moment. Cute.

Madebysofa's point of sale software Checkout has reached it's official 1.0 release and is immediately available to purchase for the price of $430. When I first saw this I was a little shocked since most small Mac application these days have ran around $40-$50. But thinking about it, this is supposed to run your business so perhaps it's being pushed a large commercial product than I originally thought. Checkout aims to make managing product sales and inventory simple and easy, which from the screen shots & tiniest bit of looking through the demo, it seems very Mac-link and user-friendly. Checkout from what I know has zero competition in this market, since QuickBooks Retail Edition is Windows only, but there may be some other POS software I am not familiar with... what does Apple use in their stores? I have not tested this product because I have nothing to really sell or any sort of retail business established, but would like to hear from other users what they think.

Well, it's not really new. I've just updated the look a little bit and changed blogging platforms. I've decided to use Rapid Weaver by Realmacsoftware. An iWeb like web page development tool but with far superior code handling, extensibility, publishing and theme creation. I like using a desktop app over going to Blogger or even firing up crusty ole Ecto (though it is a great blogging tool, just a little long in the tooth if you ask me). So here I am - new tool, new theme. I'll be back very soon.