Podcasts and Applications are both ...

I started iTunes this evening and as it opened a "thermometer"-type dialog appeared that said something about "converting" and "xml". (I didn't pay much attention as I was doing something else while it opened.)

Once it opened, iTunes started going through all my music resetting volume. By this time I knew something was not normal. Then I noticed that, while my music appeared to be there, none of my Apps are, nor are any of the podcasts I had subscribed to.

I had just synced my iPhone this a.m. with no discernible problem. I had deleted some duplicate episodes of one podcast (which are still in my trash), but that was the only thing that I had done out of the ordinary.

Can anyone tell me:

1) What happened (and how do I prevent it from happening again)?
2) How do I get my apps and my podcasts back?
3) If I have to restore from my latest Time Machine backup (which is more than 10 days old, I'm afraid), how would I do that?

Thanks in advance.

Patrick

P.S. I'm running iTunes 9.0.1

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