Between home and work, I have various Windows, Linux and Macintosh computers. I centralize my media on a Network Attached Storage (NAS) device, accessible by all. As you can imagine, I use different media players on all.
My biggest hurdle has been consistency in user experience. I've had to run iTunes on the Mac, Winamp, FooBar2000 or VLC on my XP/Vista boxes, and VLC on the Linux machines.
But today, I discovered Songbird, a Mozilla based media browser, with versions for all my boxen (Mac, Linux and PC).
The experience is quite similar to Winamp. Simply point songbird at your music directory and let it build a catalogue.
Bonus feature, Songbird also talks to my iPods perfectly. Transfer music, build playlists…everything works.
From the developers:
We're working on creating a non-proprietary, cross platform, extensible tool that will help enable new ways to playback, manage, and discover music.
Songbird is currently just out of beta; current version is 1.0. But it's a pretty slick piece of work for being so new. I'm already a fan of the FireFox-like AddOn features — LiveTweeter (a Twitter plugin), ShoutCast Radio (streaming audio), and a whole host of visual customization addons.
If you're looking for a nice, clean, Open Source media player, give Songbird a try.
Related posts:
- A fast and fun way to mockup almost anything Online Mockups…easy! Part of the regular web development cycle...
- Google Chrome: a quick look and how to block ads with Privoxy photo credit: Randy Zhang Google Chrome is no Firefox (yet)....
- Did you Get Things Done? Measuring productivity with RescueTime. Last time I mentioned this great little Two Minute timer...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
