Songbird Video
Songbird Video Transcript
[ Music ] ^M00:00:02
>> Hi, this is Peter Butler from CNET Download dot com and today I'm taking a first look at the web browser/media player digital music organizer Songbird. Songbird combines three powerful open source or GPL licensed technologies. The first is Mosao's XUL runtime environment. Next up is the VLC player, which is a popular open source player on its, own and the last is SQL Database for managing your library and digital music files. You can use Songbird like any other iTunes like Jukebox to play music, synch your iPod or organize your digital music files, but the true beauty of Songbird comes from using it on the web. Songbird will automatically identify any music files from your favorite MP3 blog or any other webpage and quickly add them to a play list that you can play or edit as you like. You can also add any songs from those automatic web play lists to your web library for playback later. Unfortunately, although Songbird is designed to be as extensible as its more famous relative, Firefox, none of your Firefox extensions will work with Songbird and none of your Songbird extensions will work with Firefox, which is a major bummer. However there are thirty or forty of so add-ons for Songbird already including a variety of different colored themes or feathers and the latest release lets you install extensions and themes directly from the Songbird browser. Regardless of how fun it is to cruise the web, listening to music wherever you go, Songbird is definitely not ready for primetime and there's still a lot of functionality that needs to be added. For example even though you can burn play lists or songs directly to a CD from Songbird, there's no way to rip songs from a CD, convert files from one format to another or even play CDs that you buy at a store. While it's a cool alternative browser and it's a lot of fun for those of us who read a lot of MP3 blogs and listen to a lot of music online, this Songbird software that is something that's best filed under as potential for now. This has been Peter Butler from CNET Download dot com taking a first look at Songbird, thanks for watching. ^M00:02:07 [ Music ]
Related Videos
At LinuxWorld in San Francisco, Novell CEO Jack Messman discusses how this week's acquisition of Ximian will round out his company's open-source cross-platform offerings.
Test drive the latest interface enhancements and time-saving features for Safari, Apple's premier, cross-platform browser.
Tekzilla - DIY media server, cheap notebooks, songza
The simplest DIY media server. Ex Machina. Using the
Xbox 360 HD DVD with your PC. Find music: Songza and
Songbird. Cheap notebooks, buying online, is WiFi 802.11n done yet?
See the full story
Hackers claim Firefox zero-day flaw
At a talk at the ToorCon hacker conference in San Diego on Saturday, Mischa Spiegelmock and Andrew Wbeelsoi outline a possible vulnerability and zero-day exploit in the open-source Firefox Web browser. (Video courtesy of
Download.com guide to Avant Browser
Kelly Green Morrison leads a quick and informative how-to on the Avant Browser. Avant Browser allows users to browse multiple Web sites simultaneously and to block all unwanted pop-up pages and Flash ads automatically. The integrated cleaner helps users clear all traces and maintain privacy. The built-in Yahoo and Google search engines enable users to search for Web pages, images, groups, directories, lyrics, software, and news on the Internet. Avant Browser provides options for blocking the download of Flash media, pictures, video, sounds, and ActiveX components, so users can efficiently use their bandwidth and speed up page loading. All opened pages can be stopped, refreshed, closed, or arranged with one click. It also comes with built-in RSS reader. Its similar Web sites bar displays Web sites, which are related to the opened Web pages. Version 10.1 build 26 improves skins support.
Firefox 3 Beta 4 introduced us to some new features expected to hit the next version of the open-source browser. Randall Bennett takes us through the ins-and-outs of the latest version of Firefox.
Get the open-source browser under your control with these insider tips.
Quick Tips: Better PDF in Firefox
PDF's can really slow down your browser. Here's an extension to help you get around that in Firefox.
iTunes, the award-winning digital-jukebox software, is now available for Mac and Windows. The iTunes Music Store offers Windows users the same online music store as Mac users, with the same music catalog, the same personal-use rights, and the same 99-cents-per-song pricing. With music from all five major music companies and more than 600 independent labels, the iTunes Music Store catalog now offers more than 1,000,000 songs. Features include a free download with no hidden charges for extra features, MP3 and pristine-quality AAC-encoding from audio CDs, smart playlists, more than 250 free Internet radio stations, and the ability to burn custom playlists to CDs and MP3 CDs, to burn content to DVDs to back up an entire music collection, and to share music via Rendezvous over any network, cross-platform. New in this version: Enjoy a streamlined look, find stuff faster with the new Search Bar, control kids access with Parental Controls and hear more of what you love with Smart Shuffle.
Come and get it: Firefox 2 RC1
CNET's Robert Vamosi takes a look at the newest version of the open-source Web browser.
