- Recent
- Popular
- Tags (3)
- Subscribers (32)
- Mozilla-based Songbird music player is availableToday
-
I’m not sure when this happened exactly, but the open source Songbird music player, which is based on Mozilla technology, is now available in 1.0 form.
Songbird is an open-source customizable music player that's under active development.
We're working on creating a non-proprietary, cross platform, extensible tool that will help enable new ways to playback, manage, and discover music. There are lots of ways to contribute your time to the project. We'd love your help!
There are several features we're proud of, but we'll be the first to admit that others need ironing out, are experimental, or are just plain missing. There's still a lot to do.
Here’s some info about the features of this free player:
Media Importing
Add media to Songbird by importing from your file system or iTunes.
Media Playback
Songbird supports MP3, FLAC, and Vorbis on all platforms; WMA and WMA DRM on Windows; and AAC and Fairplay on Windows and Mac.
GStreamer
Songbird now uses GStreamer as our main media playback system, across all platforms.
Smart Playlists
Create dynamic playlists that automatically update based on criteria you set.
Web Browser
Songbird includes an integrated web browser with features like bookmarking, tabbed browsing, and more.
Cross Platform
Songbi
- About Macs and AV softwareToday
-
I’ve gotten a silly number of emails from people regarding a recent story where Apple was purportedly recommending that Mac users install multiple anti-virus (AV) solutions. This was seen as pretty humorous, I guess, given the Mac’s security aura and the fact that many of Apple’s commercials deal with supposed virus problems on Windows.
But I didn’t post anything.
And today comes news that it was all a mistake.
"We have removed the KnowledgeBase article because it was old and inaccurate," Apple spokesman Bill Evans, told Macworld. "The Mac is designed with built-in technologies that provide protection against malicious software and security threats right out of the box.”
So here’s the thing. If you actually read the original note, it referred to “Mac OS” not “Mac OS X.” Apple never refers to Mac OS X as “Mac OS.” So this read like it was referring to the company’s classic, pre-OS X operating system. Which, apparently it was.
Also, I would say that while I don’t use OS X regularly anymore (who would with Windows Vista and 7 around?), I would never install AV on that system, ever. And that’s true even if I were using it 24/7. It may not last, but for now at least, Mac users don’t need AV. That’s the simple truth.
Put simply, I didn’t post about the original AV story because I didn
- Windows 7 error recovery: Dueling viewsYesterday
-
This one is interesting and funny, and it also cuts to the heart of my “simple vs. easy” argument about Windows 7, so it’s kind of the full meal deal. On the one hand, we have Bryant from AeroXperience, who thinks the Windows 7 Startup Repair Utility is great. And then there’s Rafael from WithinWindows, who thinks that … well, he doesn’t really like it at all.
So what does this have to do with “simple vs. easy”? Everything. What Microsoft has done is taken previously optional repair tools (which were also on the Vista DVD) and made them a default part of the Windows 7 install. Simple! But they’ve also removed some tools that Raf and others have relied on for a long time. Hey, things don’t get simpler unless you cut away the chaff, right?
The fact that the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) would be contained in the Windows 7 installation is nothing new.
Yes, it actually works.
In my case, my instance of build 6801 died on an “unknown bugcheck: 12b” which led to WinRE being launched. The recovery mechanism checked for issues, subsequently asked me if I’d like to use system restore to roll back to the last working point, rolled back, and presented me with full details of all of its scans (some of which you’ll see in my quick-n-dirty BlackBerry shots). After all of that, it rebooted and v
- Apple: Our advertising is clearly bull@#$%. Clearly.Yesterday
-
Ah, Apple.
Gizmodo points out that Apple’s defense to the recent pulling of the deceptive iPhone ad in the UK prompted the following statement from everyone’s favorite company:
“No reasonable person in Plaintiff's position could have reasonably relied on or misunderstood Apple's statements as claims of fact.”
In other words, no reasonable person could possible misinterpret Apple’s claims as the truth.
Or, as Gizmodo says, “if you believe what Apple says in an Apple ad, you are not a reasonable person.”
Either way is correct. :)
Thanks, Mike M.
- What’s new in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 SP2?Yesterday
-
There’s been some confusion about what is included in Service Pack 2 (SP2) for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. For example, I saw somewhere that Hyper-V is supposedly added to Windows Vista in this release. It is not.
Here’s what’s new:
Windows Vista
- Inclusion of Windows Search 4.0 for improved indexing performance, broader indexing scenario inclusion, as well as new Group Policy integration for Windows Search
- Integration of the Windows Vista Feature Pack for Wireless which contains Bluetooth v2.1 support, the most recent specification for Bluetooth wireless technology
- Some graphics enhancement to reduce glitches when streaming high def content with specific hardware configurations
- Setup & Deployment improvements to detect incompatible drivers blocking service pack installations
- Provides a Service Pack Cleanup tool which helps restore the hard disk space by permanently deleting previous versions of files updated by SP2
Windows Server 2008
- Inclusion of Microsoft’s Hyper-V technology for Server
- Backwards compatibility with Terminal Services licensing keys
- Better manageability features with DFS/FRS console, and Storage Resource Manager (i.e.: Quota Filter and File Screening Filter)
- Improved error reporting in DFSR to help identify incorrectly configured deployments which lead to