techiehenry

Once in a while an application is released that would make you think it’s just another one of a lot of similar applications. That is, until you get the hang of using it.

Songbird is still on beta version (0.5), and it is based on the Mozilla browser. It may appear to be an imitation of the media players roaming around the internet, but it offers a lot more. It appears to be a mashup of a web browser, iTunes, Last.fm, and Frostwire.

It’s a web browser in the sense that you can input any URL in the address bar, and it takes you to that page. It works like iTunes, in a way that it can detect your iPod and add or remove music installed on it. It works like Last.fm by presenting playlists of songs based on a given search item using SkreemR. Lastly, it works like Frostwire inthat it allows you to download the songs — but with Songbird the songs may come from the iTunes Music Store, Amazon, or from a regular P2P network.

It’s great tool to use in searching for indie music, as there are direct links to The Hype Machine and InSound.

To try this media-player-cum-browser, download it from the Songbird home page.

If you have been roaming around looking for wallpapers in digital artist Vlad Gerasimov’s website, you may notice that aside from the wonderful desktop wallpapers being offered for download (for free or through paid membership), there are wallpaper clock files as well.

These files are loaded on your computer through utilities that support .WCZ files. There is one available for Linux, Mac, and Windows.

How does this work? Every minute, the wallpaper is updated to show the current time. It’s something similar to a slide show, but the slide show happens on your desktop, and the only item that changes is the information about the current time.

To see how it looks, I have downloaded the Wallpaper Clock utility for Mac OS X and got two wallpaper clocks, and see how they look:

If you want to try the utility as well, here’s the direct link to the Wallpaper Clock page.

If you’ve been to the mall lately, you can see some of them having these projections on the floor that seem to be reacting to the movements of people passing by. I myself saw this when my son came across one that has a game for kids. I dismissed the thought of these things as a novelty, until I saw this video from one manufacturer of such projectors.

How I wish I can do this on my MacBook.

Remember the Flying Toasters module from early Windows 3.x and Mac screensaver AfterDark?

Now we can have the same screensaver on Windows and Mac (sans the theme song), courtesy of Uneasysilence.com:

How’s that for being nostalgic? I remember staring on my computer’s screen just watching the toasters fly by — and I even sing to the theme song!

Download it here.