December 15, 2003
Thunder 'N Lighting Doesn't need to be frightening
Winamp5 betters the best, while Thunderbird pushes Outlook Express into the shade This week's sees lots of software activity; rather unique for this holiday time of year. So Boy oh boy! And do I have some great goodies for you. So let's lead off with Winamp 5, the successor that's a definite improvement to the buggy, not-lamented Winamp 3. Available in both Full and Lite versions, there's also a yet-unreleased Pro edition that includes feauters to rip CDs to MP3 (the free versions only support the Ogg-Vorbis codec) as well as CD-burning. Winamp 5 really reinvents what a media player can (and should) do without the near-standardized application bloat that Windows Media Player (WMP) personifies. Of course for the faint-hearted, Winamp 5 is still in Beta so beware. But then again I've been installing and running the past 3-4 Betas which are more stable than any previous Winamp release software version! The biggest changes in Winamp 5 are to the interface. The default player view has been streamlined with metallic skins. The Equalizer's now integrated into the main player, and includes an adjustable cross-fader. The Play list remains. But the biggest change is doing away with the buggy Winamp browser and replacing it with the Media Library which is similar to WMP. The first time you run Winamp post-installation you are promoted to add items to the 'Library. The latter displays all your media files in a columnar-database view, sorted by artist, title, album, length (time) and genre. The 'Library also tracks which tracks have been accessed recently. Et cetera. Go download a copy from FileForum. I didn't use any extra plug-ins. But Web scuttlebut has it that plug-ins for previous version will work. Of course, many you won't need any more since Winamp 5 includes most third-party stuff that was missing in previous versions. Of course, for a complete plug-in list go here. While in the holiday spirit, if you want to deck your computer with holly. And hang a bit of e-mistletoe, the good folks at Stardock have developed a Christmas theme for Windows XP/2003. Besides the snow flakes falling gently down the screen. There's also a Weather Station, a Calendar, and a special countdown clock. But the theme pack can get annoying. I downloaded and installed a copy, only to remove it about 20 minutes later when faced by a bewildering amount of desktop clutter that reminded me of the old Windows Plus! Pack theme sets. Still, if you want it, you can download it here. Mail-wise there's a stable alternate to Microsoft's Outlook Express email client. Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4 combines a POP3/IMAP/SMTP client with a news reader. There still are quirks. Like a single SMTP server for all the mail accounts. Which is a bit of a bore when using IMAP-enabled accounts where you may like to store sent messages on the mail server. None of its developers seem to have used an Indian ISP. Or they'd leave the choice of defining a unique SMTP server for each account to the user's discretion. When connected on VSNL/Indicom, I can't the Tatanova mail server (despite the brands belonging to the same company) because of authentication issues! Thunderbird 0.4 seems to address the Outlook 2003 market. I didn't find its anti-spam features all that impressive. I need to navigate through too many levels to develop a high comfort factor. And much prefer easier-to-use utilities like the free SpamPal. But if you take the trouble to read the documentation, you can replace Outlook Express with a safe mail client whose Message Preview is not an open invitation for rogue scripts to run! Like other Mozilla project, Thunderbird too has quite a few extensions and themes available. However, to correctly install these you need to open the extension page using either Mozilla or Firebird. Other browsers have problems correctly interpreting the update file type. I guess that many of these issues will be resolved once this mail client moves from an file in a Zip archive to a setup runtime. That's it for me for this week, stay safe, and we'll chat again a week from now. G Menon Click Here to Email Me
Winamp5 betters the best, while Thunderbird pushes Outlook Express into the shade This week's sees lots of software activity; rather unique for this holiday time of year. So Boy oh boy! And do I have some great goodies for you. So let's lead off with Winamp 5, the successor that's a definite improvement to the buggy, not-lamented Winamp 3. Available in both Full and Lite versions, there's also a yet-unreleased Pro edition that includes feauters to rip CDs to MP3 (the free versions only support the Ogg-Vorbis codec) as well as CD-burning. Winamp 5 really reinvents what a media player can (and should) do without the near-standardized application bloat that Windows Media Player (WMP) personifies. Of course for the faint-hearted, Winamp 5 is still in Beta so beware. But then again I've been installing and running the past 3-4 Betas which are more stable than any previous Winamp release software version! The biggest changes in Winamp 5 are to the interface. The default player view has been streamlined with metallic skins. The Equalizer's now integrated into the main player, and includes an adjustable cross-fader. The Play list remains. But the biggest change is doing away with the buggy Winamp browser and replacing it with the Media Library which is similar to WMP. The first time you run Winamp post-installation you are promoted to add items to the 'Library. The latter displays all your media files in a columnar-database view, sorted by artist, title, album, length (time) and genre. The 'Library also tracks which tracks have been accessed recently. Et cetera. Go download a copy from FileForum. I didn't use any extra plug-ins. But Web scuttlebut has it that plug-ins for previous version will work. Of course, many you won't need any more since Winamp 5 includes most third-party stuff that was missing in previous versions. Of course, for a complete plug-in list go here. While in the holiday spirit, if you want to deck your computer with holly. And hang a bit of e-mistletoe, the good folks at Stardock have developed a Christmas theme for Windows XP/2003. Besides the snow flakes falling gently down the screen. There's also a Weather Station, a Calendar, and a special countdown clock. But the theme pack can get annoying. I downloaded and installed a copy, only to remove it about 20 minutes later when faced by a bewildering amount of desktop clutter that reminded me of the old Windows Plus! Pack theme sets. Still, if you want it, you can download it here. Mail-wise there's a stable alternate to Microsoft's Outlook Express email client. Mozilla Thunderbird 0.4 combines a POP3/IMAP/SMTP client with a news reader. There still are quirks. Like a single SMTP server for all the mail accounts. Which is a bit of a bore when using IMAP-enabled accounts where you may like to store sent messages on the mail server. None of its developers seem to have used an Indian ISP. Or they'd leave the choice of defining a unique SMTP server for each account to the user's discretion. When connected on VSNL/Indicom, I can't the Tatanova mail server (despite the brands belonging to the same company) because of authentication issues! Thunderbird 0.4 seems to address the Outlook 2003 market. I didn't find its anti-spam features all that impressive. I need to navigate through too many levels to develop a high comfort factor. And much prefer easier-to-use utilities like the free SpamPal. But if you take the trouble to read the documentation, you can replace Outlook Express with a safe mail client whose Message Preview is not an open invitation for rogue scripts to run! Like other Mozilla project, Thunderbird too has quite a few extensions and themes available. However, to correctly install these you need to open the extension page using either Mozilla or Firebird. Other browsers have problems correctly interpreting the update file type. I guess that many of these issues will be resolved once this mail client moves from an file in a Zip archive to a setup runtime. That's it for me for this week, stay safe, and we'll chat again a week from now. G Menon Click Here to Email Me
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