From CNET UK:

Be warned: your account information is stored in every file
Although iTunes Plus files feature no copy protection, files downloaded still contain the email address you have registered with iTunes. So although files can physically be shared with, and played by, friends and family, any of your purchases that end up on file-sharing networks, for example, can be traced back to you.

If you’re interested in an easy way to check your own files, find an iTunes Plus file on your computer. Then choose to open it with a text editor (Windows Notepad works fine). It’ll take a while to open and will appear to be full of nonsense text, but if you choose the ‘Find’ option and type in the email address you have registered with the iTunes Store, you’ll find that your DRM-free music is not personal information-free.

That’s probably the most interesting part of the article. I was quite shocked to actually find out that your details are kept in the music files now.

.. with VortexBox

VortexBox is a free, open source, quick install ISO that turns your unused computer into an easy to use music server/jukebox. Once VortexBox has been loaded on an unused PC it will automatically rip CDs to FLAC and MP3 files, ID3 tag the files ,and download the cover art. Vortexbox will then serve the files to network Media player such as Logitech Squeezebox. The music files can also be streamed to a Windows or Mac OSX system.

Features

Convert an old PC to a CD ripper / jukebox / NAS in 15 minutes.
Based on Fedora so it’s easy to modify.
Automatically tags all files from CDDB.
Automatically downloads the cover art.

[ Link ]

Over at TUAW they have the following:

Do you like giving ratings to songs in iTunes? If so, then you’ve probably noticed that you are only able to rate songs on a full-star basis, not enough granularity for some music fans… there’s a longstanding AppleScript hack to enable half-stars, but now there’s an easier way around this issue. Macworld’s Rob Griffiths found a work around, involving a simple Terminal tip to enable half-star ratings.

And how do they do this? Close iTunes, and ith the following command in Terminal:

defaults write com.apple.iTunes allow-half-stars -bool TRUE