T11M

I’m a big open-source software fan. Not gonna lie, I might be addicted to testing, configuring, and using it. My most recent find (well I knew about it, I just hadn’t tried it yet) is Songbird. It’s a media player similar to Windows Media Player or iTunes, but that’s as far as the similarities go.

The Songbird developers basically integrated together a media player and a web browser. Since the application is built on Firefox’s Gecko rendering engine the interface and extensibility is very similar to that of Firefox. Extensions expand the application beyond anything that iTunes could dream of doing by allowing users to customize the media player’s interface in just about any way possible. Some cool extensions that I installed immediately are Last.fm, LiveTweeter (Twitter support), Lyric Master (downloads lyrics), Mac Remote Control Support, Media Keyboard Support, SHOUTcast Radio, Song Notifier (displays song and artist info every time the song changes), and then a couple of different skins to customize the interface. Oh, did I mention its not bloated and slow like iTunes!

Another outstanding feature of Songbird is it’s ability to import your current iTunes library. Songbird will import all compatible files, but not only that, it will also keep up with changes you make in iTunes. This is critical for me since I have an iPhone and want all of my media available in iTunes. Now I can use iTunes when I must and the rest of the time I will use Songbird. Man I love open-source!!!