OSNews

I?ve spent a week without Twitter. ?Big whoop? you may think; and I'm inclined to agree. I have not set out to prove anything to my readers, this was entirely a personal choice.

The thing is, I am concerned by how much it has affected me and I am equally concerned about me generating value for a company that gives me nothing worthwhile back in return. We crowd to these flavour-of-the-month websites, rag on about how awesome they are (belittling those who don?t understand the concept), generate a billion dollars (pinky to mouth) of value in the company, and then they sell to the suits and we all move on to the Next Big Thing?.

Where is my cut of the sale? Without our content, Twitter, Facebook &c. are empty and valueless. If I'm going to be contributing to someone?s value, I would rather that were a public benefit company such as Mozilla or the BBC.

But then, I'm not interested in making money out of Twitter either, I don?t link to my Twitter account from my website (think of all the ?SEO? I'm missing out on :P) and I mainly use Twitter as a dumping ground for thoughts that would not fill up a blog post. Mostly rants and annoyances. It was, when I started out, a one-way thing, where I would send short poems and inspirational statements. A sort of notepad to capture thoughts because of the ease of being able to text with a phone content in which I can?t do with my own site.

I think Twitter has given me the opportunity to become too bossy, too arrogant, unforgiving and generally thoughtless. Without the reflective period to ?think before I publish?, I have not found Twitter to be benefitting my personality.

But my main concern is really that the whole thing is beginning to turn sour already and I'm about ready to jump ship to the Next Big Thing?.

There was a time before ?RT?, a time when I saw maybe one or two, and wondered what on earth ?RT? stood for. I wasn?t part of the in-crowd, where such things are not explained to you, you just have to find them out. There was a time before ?Retweet this? buttons on websites. Before we counted how many tweets something had. Even before there were hashtags. Simply put, the crowd spam has become too much.

The addition of lists now adds one more number on my page that measures my worth as a person by how much of a whore I am. What on earth have those numbers got to do with anything about the quality of my tweets content or the quality of my personality?

I am not a number. I am a free man.

Twitter is good in the sense that we can talk to one another in a rapid and gratifying way, but since when did one company have the monopoly on conversation? It?s not that I don?t value the people I follow on Twitter, it?s just that I don?t value Twitter itself. As nice as Twitter is, I'm not Twitter and you?re not Twitter either. Twitter is a brand, where there shouldn?t be a brand. All these Twitter clients and Twitter widgets and uses of the Twitter API just perpetuate a brand rather than a means of conversation.

There is no monopoly on e-mail. No one company holds the keys to the API, e-mail is not centralised. E-mail is a standard, e-mail is not a f?cking brand.

Speaking of e-mail, I've had an e-mail address since 1996. My e-mail address is displayed on my website, on every page, unobfuscated. Contacting me has always been easy. Twitter, of course, gives us the benefit of having a conversation in public, but I liken it more to shouting across the street at each other. You can?t really hold a lengthy conversation, just shout short sound bites. I have an idea for an elegant on top (but ugly under the hood) comment system for websites but I would need some help creating it. If you?re into the open web, love PHP and optionally know about accessing and processing e-mails from within PHP, please contact me and we can start a conversation.

I cannot possibly advocate the open web and Doing Things Right whilst I use a system intent on furthering a brand, inhibiting diversity and inhibiting the choice of which company you use on the Internet in order to have a conversation with somebody else. If Twitter truly cared one iota about the public benefit, then they would be seeking ways to increase interoperability, to increase participation from all parties, to present standards by which we can all communicate without Twitter too.

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Now, apparently people enjoy following me on Twitter and what I say, and would be a bit bummed by my leaving, so I will deal you a compromise. I agree with Twitter?s principle, its concept?just not its particular implementation. I will continue to use Twitter, but it will return to a one-way thing as I started out. I will post to it, and I will read your replies, and I will reply to you; but I will no longer follow anybody. If you wish to engage me, simply mention me and I?m happy to talk. If you think something should be brought to my attention, then again, mention me in your tweet and I will pick it up.
For everything else, there?s e-mail.

Addendum

After a rough week, I decided that I managed to live fine without Twitter before it existed, and I?ll continue to be fine without it again. I can still follow people using their Twitter RSS feeds, and favourites items by bookmarking them?because that?s all Twitter basically is; RSS and hype. It?s the brand lock-in that I?m against.

Since <legend> in <figure> was a no-go (pretty much busted in all browsers), the HTML5 specification has changed to using <dt> and <dd> instead. This is all described in a new article by the HTML5 Doctor.

Apparently Internet Explorer is still broken and <dd> doesn?t solve the <figure> problem. This assertion is made at the end:

""

No. That is absolute rot and I do not believe for a second that HTML5 <figure> and <details> must work in IE6 & 7. Pray tell, what enterprise apps (strictly non-consumer) are you writing that must use <details> that couldn?t be done with DIVs to support your arse-backwards IE6-toting clients?

HTML5, as a standard for the next 15 years, does not have to support IE6 & 7, at all. Any such support we have now is a complete hack, and we?re lucky to have even that. Yes, the standard must be pragmatic, but this idea that IE6 & 7 must determine the future is grossly outdated.

If you are writing a consumer-orientated app for the worldwide public then you can look forward to Firefox usage over 50% in some countries. Look, if a consumer is using IE6 then they both don?t know alternatives exist and don?t know how to update their machine. Tell them. It is your responsibility to bring the web up to standard. Any consumer using IE6 or 7 has the option of IE8 or a better browser.

Developers need to thicken their spines and set the price of entry. You must have a browser that is at least this awesome to enter. Give people a degraded experience in IE6 & 7, titled by a banner to upgrade. Guess what, people do!

IE6 & 7 are going the way of the dodo, quickly and will be a distant memory. The HTML5 standard shouldn?t be crippled for crippled browsers. If you want IE6 & 7 users, then don?t use HTML5; simply put?HTML4 already works, and will continue to do so. If you love your users then you care about their security and you care about the experience they have on the web and you care enough to help them upgrade their computer. Devote a whole page that describes the process step-by-step if need be. Stop copping out by supporting IE6 & 7.

Sorry if this comes across as angry, but I really can?t accept developers defending IE6 & 7, there?s no excuse and you should stop letting Microsoft dictate the web for you. IE6 & 7 have the marketshare they have (which you use as defence) because you won?t move on, and move your users on too. What enterprises use internally has nothing to do with the public web. Stop hiding behind firewalls.

are_you_ready.zip 71.8 KB

Because despite being so obvious, apparently nobody has thought to do it properly, so I?ve created a simple Commodore 64 boot screen wallpaper in a plethora of screen sizes:

• 480×272?Playstation Portable (PSP)
• 800×480?WGA?Netbook 7?
• 1024×600?Netbook 9??2 versions
• 1024×768?XGA
• 1280×800?WXGA?2 versions
• 1280×1024?SXGA?2 versions
• 1440×900?WXGA?2 versions
• 1440×960?PowerBook G4?2 versions
• 1600×1200?UXGA?3 versions
• 1680×1050?WSXGA?2 versions
• 1080p
• 1920×1200?WUGXA?2 versions
• 2560×1600?30? Apple Cinema Display?3 versions

Download Here

I have not just taken a screenshot and then resized it to each dimension; to keep the chunky pixels perfectly square and even, and avoid aliasing I have instead doubled, tripled, quadrupled &c. the size of the dark blue screen area and filled the border space in to fit the screen size. This way, the C64?s pixels stay perfect and crisp regardless of your resolution. As multiples of the 320×200 screen vary in how they fit into various resolutions some wallpapers are provided in two or three different versions that use different sized pixels.

Secondly every wallpaper is also offered in two different palettes:

The Timmermann palette (left) is based on very complex mathematic analysis of the real C64 hardware as documented in ?All you ever wanted to know about the colors of the Commodore 64?. This gives an accurate representation of the colours of a C64 as they would be seen on a 1980?s TV. The VICE palette (right) is from the VICE emulator and strikes a balance of accuracy and brightness for modern screens.

Many of the sizes are also offered in Windows XP, Windows 7 and Mac types, which are different as follows:

?WinXP? types

The image is centred based on a 30px Task Bar being at the bottom of the screen. This means that the light blue space at the top of the screen and above the Task Bar is even. This also applies to Windows Vista

?Win7? types

The image is centred based on a 40px Task Bar being at the bottom of the screen.

Mac types

The image is bumped down 22 pixles from the top to account for the global menu bar.

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Any suggestions you have for additions to the package are welcome. (Should I do avatars?)

?C64? and ?Commodore 64? are the property of Commodore, whoever owns them these days.

I have almost no control over my life, in some way I am mentally handicapped in that I cannot get a firm grasp of the more important things going on around me. I am lost in my own world in which I dictate everything that happens.

I am staring now at the epic pile of games I own and trying to piece together the philosophical puzzle of what these mean to me.

There are many aspects that bind you to the games you own: Fond memories, nostalgia, games that need completing still, games that haven?t been played yet, games you feel guilty for not having played enough and those games you keep around for historical importance or potential value.

The games I own are deeply, deeply important to me. A well curated collection of beautiful, binding experiences, turning points in gaming history and technological wonders of their day.

The worlds in these games are places to me. Places that I want to go and visit on occasions, places that I remember strongly and places I associate with certain feelings. Games are like holidays in the countryside. Being somewhere of no importance, but escaping from the usual pattern. Some are peaceful and calming places like Spyro the Dragon, calm skies and luscious environment that let you sit still and soak in the atmosphere. Others are busy places with many people to talk to, like Shenmue.

But now, I am feeling estranged from these places because the context in which I play these games?something I hadn?t thought was important before?is no longer there. When I was growing up as one of four brothers, playing games was a form of competition or collaboration and when on holiday I always bought along games too. Many of my fond memories of playing games are in fond places in the world that I remember through the games, and the games I remember through those places.

And now, everything just feels the same. Since moving home at the start of the year, my life has been in a chaos I cannot master. I am disorganised beyond belief and important things that should be done are piling up. Looking at my room, I have so much stuff in the wrong place it gives me an anxiety attack trying to think of where to start. This is one deep rabbit-hole of despair. But more so than just that, I am completely isolated. I have no friends here and nobody to socialise with. I spend my time indoors all the time, working on the computer, or wasting time by not working on the computer.

With so much being disorganised, various objects look on at me as things that need attention, staring at me and asking ?why haven?t I been done yet??. The pile of games looks like a tower of guilt?to complete this lot 100% would take months, and yet there are more pressing issues?and without any friends, without people to discuss my experiences, to share in the joy of these games, to share an understanding of the fine art that they can be means the process of completing them is empty and a chore; to tick something off of the list so it can be safely ignored.

Giving this up would be like giving up my childhood, or forgetting my life up to this point. It hurts to think of a me without my games. Without these, would I be free of some anxiety, or would I just become worse, obsessing over my laptop even more and the piles of work I have created within? I can only move my OCD from one place to another, so to speak.

But then I do need help. I have no friends, no social life at all?I just work and work and work. Everything is some form of work, even relaxing. My website, my various projects. I find things to obsess over and to worry about. I complete nothing.

Gaming is important in the same way literature is important. With literature you take things away from books that change you as a person, you gain knowledge. Even without the book, that information still forms a part of your intellect. Gaming undoubtedly shapes us, but it?s hard to take those experiences elsewhere. They are the experiences we share with other like-minded individuals. We play, because there?s a buzz around the latest thing. I remember going into school the day after Gran Turismo came out, the classroom was buzzing with kids talking about how great the game was and what cars we all had. But now, I find what should be a great experience?playing the great games we have now?a mostly empty experience. Wii Sports Resort is not the same alone as it is multiplayer, but more so alone as it is having friends who also play it.

How relevant will it be for me to still be playing games from the 90?s in twenty, thirty, forty years time? (If it?s even possible) They could be valuable, sure, but I?m not fussed about worth; each game is a self-contained experience that cannot be replicated elsewhere on any other hardware, with any other graphics. These are amazing places that cannot be visited any other way.

What I?m trying to say, is, should I give this all away?

Yesterday, a security advisory from Adobe acknowledged the severity of an exploit in active use. By Adobe?s own numbers they claim that Flash is installed on 99% of computers; the number of those on the latest version is likely lower, though this vulnerability affects even fully patched versions.

Personally, when fixing computers I always install Firefox and AdBlock Plus. Immediately people have less infections, of less severity and I have less work to do. Flash is both the primary attack vector for Internet users, and also the number one reason for crashes in the browser. Adobe?s response to this is ?use a Flash blocker?.

This problem will not go away until people get out of their Flash comfort zone and start demanding something else. At what point did you choose Flash? Huh? Did you ask for this crashy, unreliable, totally insecure thing? No, it was thrust upon you by content producers.

I have for some time been living without Flash to better understand the problem and to drive me forward in demanding and producing better solutions.

To that end, in honour of this epic cock-up by Adobe, I am instigating ?Flash Free Week? to coincide with the security advisory and the week it will take to fix it.

I am asking those who are up to the challenge to make a difference by spending a week without Flash. Don?t come to me saying you need this, or you need that. I?ve already been going for months without Flash and I haven?t died yet. I?m asking you to go a week without Flash even if you think you need it. Because, as you know, they say:

""

Ironically, what I am asking for, is actually the only way for you to be secure against this threat as there is no workaround other than to disable or uninstall Flash. NoScript won?t save you, if a trusted site gets compromised (which they have), you will be infected.

As it is a zero-day exploit the week will start yesterday, the 23^rd and run until the 29^th, so in reality you only have to go 6 days.

Here are the Flash uninstallers.

Blog it.

Update:

Success! Mozilla have published a new article on hacks.mozilla.org describing HTML5 Video with fallbacks and even link to Video for Everybody!

Even better news though is the actual use of Video for Everybody on a new page demonstrating ?What?s New in Firefox 3.5?! This is a great stride ahead for sensible and forward-facing video embedding in websites.

I would like to thank Mozilla for their support and putting up with my ranting, and also all those who signed the letter and supported me on Twitter, OSNews and elsewhere on the web.

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Dear Mozilla,

The content of this letter is based upon this blog post at the hacks.mozilla.org initiative.

HTML5 video is coming, and a million web developers up and down the web will be soon looking for advice and sample code to make use of HTML5 video. Web developers vary massively in skill and understanding of the open principles of web development, promoted by yourselves via the Mozilla Manifesto.

We cannot expect all developers to understand the knock-on effect of code snippets that they are copy-pasting from people?s sites. It is one thing to educate people with a piece of code, it is another to communicate effectively the principles behind a piece of code. Some developers do not care, and never will?that is a fact of life.

In presenting a JavaScript-only method for using HTML5 video, you are promoting to developers a number of major drawbacks, counter-intuitive to the points outlined in the Mozilla Manifesto.

Accessibility

Screen-readers may be presented with a hurdle by a JavaScript solution. Users may also be using browsers that developers are very unlikely testing in, who may inadvertedly break support by using JavaScript features that are either not present, or not compatible with JavaScript implementations in these browsers. Requiring JavaScript may also hinder use of WAI-ARIA.

<video> is an element, not a JavaScript object

In other blog posts you have promoted the <video> element as a glorified <img> element?being fundamentally a part of the document with all the same capabilities CSS-wise. Some incredible examples have been demonstrated that go well beyond what is possible with plugins.

Just as you would never expect JavaScript to be required just to view an image (and bad code be responsible if so), the same should be true of video.

JavaScript still has no solid security model

By requiring JavaScript, you are also requiring people to switch on JavaScript for sites that they may otherwise not trust. Viruses and malware have travelled far by hiding behind videos, and XSS attacks could be done by forcing people to enable JavaScript for a site so they can see a video.

Non-aggregatable, mashable

The use of JavaScript promotes a traditional browser-centric model. As a document format, HTML goes beyond just the traditional ?web-browser? and may be parsed in many ways and environments outside of the traditional browser.

RSS aggregators (particularly web-based ones) may not execute JavaScript as a safety measure, thus preventing the user from seeing the content.

Robots and spiders also would not be able to spider HTML5 video content if it is only present with JavaScript. That alone could prevent all kinds of innovation that we cannot yet conceive. What if a TV station could be created using nothing but <video> tags found on the web? Requiring JavaScript to see <video> largely puts a stop to mash-ups wanting to pull video from the web.

A Solution Has Been Presented

A solution for using HTML5 video with fallbacks for Adobe Flash, QuickTime and Windows Media Player that works on a wide range of browsers without the need for JavaScript has been developed, it?s called ?Video for Everybody?.

""

It helps web developers promote HTML5 video as an equal citizen alongside Flash and QuickTime. The necessary playback is chosen automatically based on browser / operating system capabilities, all without JavaScript. If the video is not able to play within the browser helpful fallback text is displayed to offer the users a means of downloading the video file, or how to get the video to play in the webpage by installing an HTML5-capable browser, Flash or QuickTime.

This means that it is almost impossible for the user to not be able to view the video?one way or another?and they are not hindered from viewing the content by bad design decisions such as requiring JavaScript to use a native HTML tag.

What You Can Do

I ask you to please do the following:

Remove the content of that blog post and replace it with new content that covers two main factors:

1. How to insert HTML5 video using HTML and providing levels of fallback for legacy systems

2. Why providing good fallback options / text is so important to a range of users and devices, and therefore why JavaScript should only be used to enhance a solution rather than be a requirement

Adopt HTML5 video (with fallbacks) across all Mozilla branded blogs, sites and web properties, unilaterally

I personally don?t have Flash installed, it is?after all?an optional install, and I don?t like what it does to my computer. It seems counter to the work you are doing providing HTML5 video in your browser that I cannot see your own announcements.

I believe Mozilla need to make a company-wide (and community-wide) commitment to using HTML5 video in all of their ventures?past, present and future.

---

Signed:
(the undersigned)

• Kroc Camen - camendesign.com - HTML5 web developer, publicus defensor
• John Drinkwater - johndrinkwater.name - Open Web Cheerleader
• Thom Holwerda - Cogs Can Think - OSNews Managing Editor
• Carlos Martins - abertoatedemadrugada.com - Web Developper / Programmer / Blogger
• Brad Cooper - willworkforart.net - UX / Interface Designer
• Nick Stevens - twitter.com/nickstevens - Web Designer / Developer
• Mike Laughton - libdmtx.org - Occasional Web Developer
• Jordan Spencer Cunningham - ipfsquared.wordpress.com - Author / OSNews Editor / Upstanding Blogger
• Antoni Grzymala - antoni@grzymala.info - Systems Administrator and integrator with a special focus on accessibility
• Kurtis Nusbaum - klnusbaum@gmail.com - Web Designer / Programmer / Trilinos Developer / Blogger
• Neil Santos - dpi.sourceforge.net - Head code monkey and mad tinkerer for Qool Media
• Justin Burris - prxi.net - Interested in mobile devices, web interfaces, AI, OSs and programming languages
• Evert Mouw - animamundi.eu - part-time system administrator, student of medical informatics and political science
• Ricardo Governa - ricardo.governa.net - New Technologies / Media / Telecommunications Consultant
• Torbjørn Vik Lunde - twitter.com/torbjornlunde - Graphic Designer / Web Designer
• Morgan Johnson - morgan@kf4ytr.com - Occasional Web Developer
• Witold Krakowski - wkrakowski@gmail.com - System Administrator and occasional web developer
• Fernando Medina - tunicaragua.com - Operate a retail site with need for video
• Dave Snowdon - davesnowdon.com - Professional web developer
• Xavier Mouton-Dubosc - dascritch.net - Freelance Web Developer
• Nikolai Lifanov - lifanov.com - Network Administrator
• Vince Tingey - michaelsmith.ubc.ca Sysadmin at the Michael Smith Laboratories, UBC, BC, Canada
• Marcin Szewczyk, Wodny - wodny.org C/C++ programmer, network admin, OSS fan and occasional web developer
• Leandro Guimarães - dutras.blogspot.com - Data Admin, PostgreSQL community member, free software supporter
• Georgi Ivanov - netage.bg - Web Developer
• Andrew Pam - sericyb.com.au - Software Developer, researcher and Open Source advocate
• C. Williams - penquincoder@gmail.com - System Admin / Web Developer
• Ville Koskinen - vrkosk@iki.fi - Bioinformatics software engineer
• Ross McDonald - Professional Web Developer working with open technologies, all cross platform
• Andy Elvey - Analyst / Programmer and Intranet sic report-writer
• Kristian Meier - Web application developer and web security analyst
• Rei Kagetsuki - Software and Hardware Design and Development
• Anthony Harris - Novice web developer and game designer
• Kiefer O. Hicks - bleeding edge web programmer
• Loris Cuoghi - Occasional Web developer
• Fernando Scandolo - Web app developer
• Markus Ingalsuo
• Kirby Dunsmore
• Robert Watkins
• L.J. Boatwright
• Ryan Quinn
• Steven Rowat

If it weren?t obvious already, this is a hoax; though rather?my honest predictions for where Nintendo is going to go, wrapped around a brick and thrown through your window?type of hoax.

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The Wii+ (?Wii Plus?) is Nintendo?s follow up to the incredibly successful Wii console. In like manner to the DSi, Nintendo are seeking to ?remix? the Wii, rather than replace it with a truly next-generation console.

Marginally increased graphics power

Up to 720p output. Original Wii games upscaled automatically, new games will come ?Wii+ Enhanced? using the extra graphical power, whilst remaining fully compatible with the original Wii

Internal memory upgraded to 2 GB (up from 512 MB)

The sensor bar comes with Wii Speak built-in

No Gamecube controller ports and Memory card slots!

(Reduces cost / complexity?) Gamecube games will continue to work, but saves will be done to the internal memory and a new Gamecube-like Wii Classic Controller will be released for separate purchase to play Gamecube games.

(It?s been years since the Gamecube died, and games shops either don?t stock GC games, or very little. Nintendo are likely trying to move on, in much the same way the DSi dropped the GBA port? as well as sell more ?New Wii Controls? Gamecube remakes)

Wii Sports Resorts bundled in

The bundled Wii remote will include the Wii Motion Plus add-on built-in, to coincide with the availability of the new built-in Motion Plus remotes for separate purchase

Any choice of colour, as long as it?s white

The Wii+ will be sold alongside the existing Wii for a period of time (most likely to ?up-sell?, or whilst existing stock depletes). Price, and availability to be announced.

I’m on Twitter now.

Grumble.

Update: iPhone OS 3.0 announcement?

I?m complaining about software culture, and contempt for customers.
Not success or a dislike of the success.

I?m glad it?s popular.

I?m asking: what kind of thinking is happening within Apple for me to produce this list of obvious oversights?

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In no order?

Bluetooth sync

Bluetooth file transfer

Bluetooth modem / tethering

MMS

Disk mode

Calendar Colours on the iPhone do not match the calendar colours in iCal

OS X notes do not sync with iPhone notes and vice versa

DRM on App Store purchases

Overpriced, uncompetitive and feature-barren tariffs in the U.K.

Carrier lock-in

Cannot remove ?Stocks? from the home screen

Ringtones

No video recording

?Boy who cried wolf? App Store policy

?No you can?t. No you can?t. No you can?t. Yes you can. Correction, no you can?t.?
No emulators. No Firefox, Opera &c.. Shovelware / EA backhanders favoured over innovation

This article was originally published on osnews.com.

Songbird is a new open-source music player that has this week landed at 1.0.

Songbird is described as a web player?a music player for this modern, connected era. It blends the web-rendering core of Firefox (Gecko), with the media capabilities of GStreamer: a cross-platform, open-source media playback engine.

With an integrated (and capable) browser, Songbird allows you to wander off to find new sources of music all within the app itself. It?s in this area that Songbird can claim many features not readily available in other players:

• Use a web page or an RSS feed as a playlist, automatically finding audio files within
• Web search using Firefox?s MyCroft search bar / management, allowing you to add new search providers when

visting a site that includes a MyCroft or OpenSearch provider

• Last.fm integration
• mashTape pane that finds artist info and related Flickr photos / YouTube videos & Google News
• Add-ins support using the same XUL backbone as Firefox. (Yes, AdBlock / NoScript are available)

This article will cover me reviewing the Songbird experience, coming from an iTunes user with an already chunky iTunes library of some 6?000 items.

Test Machine:

• 15? MacBook Pro (Early 2007)
• 2.16 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• GB RAM
• Mac OS X 10.5 ?Leopard?

Getting Songbird:

Songbird is readily available from getsongbird.com in these flavours:

• Windows XP-SP2 / Vista (11.7 MB)
• Linux i686 (28.7 MB)
• Linux x64 (30 MB)
• Mac OS X Leopard, Intel Only (28.7 MB)

Community contributed builds have also been produced for Solaris and Mac PPC
The Mac download expands into a 117 MB app file (iTunes is 129 MB)

First Run

I?m reviewing this app from the standpoint of a regular user already using iTunes, who has decided to download and try out Songbird, having heard good word about it?much the same story as users trying out and switching to Firefox.

Whilst this might present a somewhat unfair position of comparing Songbird to iTunes in someway, I feel that doing a ?clean-room? evaluation of Songbird would not prove much in the real world, as well as it would deny testing one important feature of Songbird: it?s iTunes importing capabilities.

Migrating from one app to another is always a very fearful experience. You don?t know if the new app is going to make a total mess of your old data and leave you with a clean-up operation that will take weeks. Before running Songbird for the first time, I made sure my Time Machine backup was up to date meaning that I could do a hassle-free roll back should things go wrong. Throughout this review I?ll be keeping my eye on how well Songbird co-exists with iTunes.

Upon starting the app and after a licence agreement and an introduction page, you are presented with the import options:

Thankfully Songbird provides the ability to import an iTunes library, and can handle external changes made by iTunes.

The next page provides some default add-ins to expand Songbird functionality. Personally, I hate any advertising in the software I use, especially stuff that gives information out to websites in order to sell me stuff. However, I let these add-ins be as I would like to experience the default Songbird design.

If anything the benefits of easy plug-in functionality via the add-ins means that one can be mix-?n?-match according to taste, rather than being lumped with ?bloat? with no option to remove it (A problem that greatly plagues software with ever increasing version numbers).

Hmm, checked by default. Personally, I?d close and remove the app right now. I find that kind of behaviour massively disrespectful. Real were pulling this stunt years ago and I still don?t trust any software that asks for an email address, optional or not. Regardless, the average user would in most cases just click Finish.

Songbird took approximately 5 minutes to import my library of nearly 6?000 items. Both iTunes and Songbird start from cold in about the same time (5 seconds).

The playlist folders I had in iTunes were not imported, instead they were converted into playlists themselves. This is kind of a nuisance, as I had been relying on the functionality of iTunes automatically combining playlists live by viewing the parent folder.

The Main Window

There?s nothing special to say about Songbird?s look other than it?s mostly like iTunes, but with the main toolbar at the bottom. This can be switched to the top, via ?View > Player Controls > On Top?. The other bar at the top is the tab bar, allowing you to browse and search websites.

The various display panes (mashTape / Album Art) can easily be hidden by the docking buttons below them. Songbird is extra flexible though, letting you get add-on side panes such as a folder view or lyrics browser, as well as swapping around which side-pane module is shown in each of the panes. This flexibility and easy manner to get new modules for the panes should allow for a lot of innovation to happen outside of the main Songbird development.

The genre browser has a different kind of button to hide it which is quite cryptic and not immediately obvious. It?s left of the search bar, but you can always choose the ?View > Media Views > List View? menu.

mashTape

mashTape can help solve a lot of your curiosity about various songs and artists, automatically pulling in (hopefully related) info from the web.

The Photos tab finds pictures from Flickr. It seems like something that would entertain YouTube users, rather than a feature I would actually want to make use of.

Audio Playback

Any audio player lives and dies based on its ability to play audio. Songbird?s wide support for audio files is going to please some people. Between users hurt by Apple removing FLAC from iTunes unsure about this, and supporters of open formats like OGG?Songbird caters, but Songbird even plays nicely in a proprietary world; it being able to play DRM protected tracks via hooks into QuickTime and Windows Media Player, as appropriate.

In the mini player view though, I did get odd error messages saying that the song could not be played because it was encrypted, yet it was already playing fine. Clearly just a minor bug.

There is no cross-fade support yet, and I encountered a number of jittery moments where songs cut off a second or two early, or the player just stopped entirely after a song and hung there on the next song waiting for me to hit the top of the box to kick it back into playing.

I miss not having iTunes simple party shuffle mode, and when I do shuffle the play order in a playlist, the focus doesn?t follow the current song as I skip.

Overall though, if your library is diverse and you?re more particular about the formats you store your music in, Songbird will work well for you. Songbird plays generally well with your iTunes purchases so there?s no real reason to not try Songbird out for yourselves.

Bugs

Without effort I found a large number of bugs, here?s some of the notable and easily reproduced ones

Preferences sometimes broken

Trying to open the app?s preferences did not work?it was the first thing I tried when using the app for the first time. Then the app wouldn?t close and had to be force-quitted. If I do get the preferences open, it often doesn?t show some of the sections when I click on them

Main window disappears when focus lost

For a long period, the Songbird window simply hid itself everytime I changed focus to another app

Web browser functions breaking library view

The ?View > Page Style > No Style? menu, despite being for web pages, works in the library view and disables some of the CSS styling of the app

Default shortcuts for next / previous song?

?are Ctrl+Arrows, which are assigned to switching spaces in OS X. iTunes uses just plain left and right arrows when the list is in focus

Keyboard Shortcuts help bug

If using the mini-player, clicking the ?Help > Keyboard Shortcuts? menu brings up an open-with dialog

Pressing the close button closes the whole app, entirely

In OS X, the red bead closes the current window but doesn?t usually quit the entire app too, so that the app remains in memory and can be re-launched quickly, or can continue doing something in the background?like, I don?t know?playing music, perhaps. Cmd+Q, or the menu item is the only thing that should quit the app entirely.

Cmd+W closes tab, won?t close window

Cmd+W closes each browser tab, but then doesn?t close the main window when only the library view is left. I?m used to pressing Cmd+W to dismiss iTunes (or any main Mac app), but leave it running

?Missing? Features

A feature is, of course, not missing if it was never meant to be there in the first place. However, as this is not a clean-room review of Songbird?whereby I review something by living in a closed box, unaware that it?s no longer the year 2000 and other products have existed for a long time?I take the viewpoint that what Songbird doesn?t have in parity with iTunes is therefore missing as far as a regular consumer is concerned (should they make use of that feature).

That is simply the harsh reality that open source developers must face, and that Songbird does want to face (given it?s current iTunes importing ability), but falls short of in the following ways

No Video Support

None. This was not a goal of 1.0 and is something to be visited in later versions of Songbird, however what I found shoddy about this fact was that Songbird does nothing to acknowledge that it does not play video.

It could exclude videos from showing up in the library. It could warn me with a message when trying to play a video?instead you just get the sound. It could do something to better warn you that video is not currently an option?rather than hide this fact on the very bottom of their features page.

No True Podcast Support

You can emulate podcasting by subscribing to the podcast?s website or RSS feed - however this is just a static pull of listed audio files. No video support. No auto-pruning. No tidy categorisation / management.

No CD Playing, Ripping, Burning

No, really.

Conclusions

I appreciate it?s a new app and has taken a long time to create, but what am I expected to do? Not use CDs until they get around to it? It seems like Songbird 1.0 relies entirely on a symbiotic relationship with iTunes.

To call this product 1.0 is like throwing in the towel, accepting that it?s just not possible to beat iTunes, or even Windows Media Player, or even support basic features?like playing a CD, that?s been possible for around 16 years.

Songbird is a project that, given its limited resources, has to look toward the future first and pickup the past on the way. The time and effort spent in web-integration and add-in support is what makes Songbird a notable player. For if Songbird were without these two aspects of its design there would be absolutely no reason to live with what it?s missing in lieu of what it has.

I believe that Songbird will succeed better in the Linux environment, which?dare I say it?has a more Unix-like software ecosystem that provides many smaller apps to achieve the tasks of one large homogeneous one. Linux distros all have their preferred CD-ripper / tagger / burner and video-player. In Mac OS X and Windows, maybe not so much the case.

Songbird is not an app I will be using anytime soon. It is an app however that covers its nakedness with its innovation. There may be hope, then, that its emperor?s clothes approach to features will be seen as beautiful in the long run.

Pros

• Portability across Windows / Mac / Linux and anywhere else someone manages to compile it
• Decent mini player

Cons

• No direct podcast support, can be ?emulated? through subscribing to a website or RSS feed XML
• No CD playback / ripping
• Vague privacy

Sins

• I encountered many bugs, big and small, just in my normal usage
• No video support, no UX to acknowledge that

So, Focus Shift - the comic loved and hated by OSNews readers - is going to return. Rejoice.

However, it’s going to be completely different from what you’re used to. It’s no longer about wanting to make people chuckle or laugh using cheap jokes in a tech-related context. I want something a little more… Experimental. Something closer to who I am. Something more fitting for a personal weblog.

So, Focus Shift will be more a sort of crudely drawn graphical form of blogging. While the occasional OSNews-style comic might still pop up, the new Focus Shift comic will focus on my personal life, things I experience every day. However, the focus is not making people laugh - it’s more a form of expressing certain things in an extremely vague manner, letting the readers fill in the blanks in whatever way they deem fit.

This is going to be highly experimental, and it’s very likely this won’t amuse a very large audience. That’s fine with me. I’m not doing my blog for other people, so why should its comic be about other people?

Stay tuned.

Focus Shift will return. Right here, on Cogs Can Think.

I ditched Bloglines the other day for Google Reader. I'm not a huge fan of Bloglines' new beta interface, most because I find it clunkier than the current interface. Sure, the current one feels a little dated, but it works. Plus, the iPhone interface is nice.

Google has a lot going for it. For one, it seems everyone who uses it raves about it. Also, the iPhone interface is integrated with all the other Google services I use, Picasa Web, Gmail, etc.

This all came about because I wanted to use a desktop RSS reader at home and sync it with my web interface for work and iPhone, but that doesn't exist unless I use Newsgator. Bloglines and Google both appear to have a sync API, but neither Vienna nor NetNewsWire (nor any other client I could find) actually syncs back to them.

But it appears Vienna is working on one for Google's reader, and with the Bloglines beta looming, it seemed like a good enough time to make the jump. So I did.

Google's Reader is awfully attractive, but it's really keyboard driven. Not only that, but there's no way to have it mark all items as read as you click a feed. You must begin the tedious task of scrolling through every single item, or hitting "j", "j", "j". And YouTube embeds don't go away - at least in Opera 9.22 - they just wait at the top of the reading pane, obstructing text, until I click a new feed.

Did I mention that Google Reader is slow slow slow? I can click a link and watch it "Loading..." for several seconds. Opera is a second class citizen in Google-land, which is why all new Gmail features don't work (v2, label colors, AIM) and Picasa support is flaky, but I think Reader fits in that boat too. It's painful.

So, after 4 full days, I bailed. I'm back to Bloglines classic. I'd love to tweak the stylesheet a little, but it works and it's so much faster. I'm pretty pleased with Bloglines, especially now that I've had a chance to experience something else.

Tags: Bloglines, Google, Google Reader, RSS, Gmail, Switch, Web 2.0

It’s finally here, Dooce’s redesign. It looks distinctive, and luckily, she didn’t go all pattern and colour happy. I only see few colours, and barely a pattern. Great stuff. The buttons are a bit… Nineties, but hey, as long as she keeps on writing the way she does I don’t really give a rat’s ass about her blog’s looks. Congratulations to Heather and her coding slave husband Jon.

As I said before, for all I care, she just dumps a text file on the net.

My own redesign is on an indefinite hold. I am way too busy with real life and Grow, and I simply don’t have the time left to dive into Cogs Can Think. v4. It will happen one of these months, but for now, you’ll have to do with v3. I mean, it still looks pretty goddamn nice if you ask me.

Arrogance is a virtue.

I’ve been pondering some massive changes on my blog. I’m not sure each of these will make it through.

• First and foremost, I want to move to a dedicated, real domain. I can use OSNews’ servers for this, so all I’d need to do is buy the actual domain name.
• I want a dedicated page for a daily photo. The reason the daily photo in my sidebar never took off as I hoped it would is because my current digital camera is a, well, piece of shit. As soon as the SLR David and his wife Beth will be sending me arrives, I promise to make the daily photo, well, daily. There’s enough crazy shit to photograph in this country.
• I want a proper navigation bar atop my blog. I’ve already done some mockup work on how it should look, and preliminary beta mockup tester Eugenia was enthusiastic about it.
• Having a navigation bar will allow me to expand my blog further by moving the Cogs to their own, dedicated page, where they will be kept forever and ever, instead of that local text file I use as a backup now.

Now, these changes may seem contradictory to my vision on what a blog should be (simplicity, elegance, cleanliness), but it actually isn’t; adding a navigation bar will make separate pages easier to navigate to (of course, the active page’s link should stand out). Of course, I will make sure it all looks clean, fits in, and is consistent.

Oh, and as you may have noticed, I’ve modified my blog’s header image yesterday. I took the same header, and applied a transparent pattern on top of it, from Squidfingers. Just so you know.