And on a lighter note

I was going to post the conversation about UMich and the Supremes I had in the comments of Is That Legal? but I think I've had enough for the week. Instead I've decided to talk about Winamp.

I'm one of those guys who ripped about 150 (legally purchased) CDs to mp3 and Ogg Vorbis (since the format reached version 1). I've tried a number of diferent players and settled on Winamp 2.81 because it's a damn fine piece of software and has broad support in the aftermarket--just about every digital media format in existance is supported thru a widely documented API. This was enough to overcome the annoying habit they had of putting AOL subscription icons all over the place. The skinning thing was kinda cool too, but I always fell back to a basic VCR-like layout so I can find all the damn controls.

Then comes Winamp 3. Bigger, slower to load, more resource hungry, plug-in API barely documented at all and buggy enough that many plug-in writers decided to wait for the new API--which is actually intended to be an multimedia program development platform--to settle down. But it shipped with Ogg Vorbis support, enough plugins to satisfy me showed up, in particular a means of looking up Shoutcast audio streams. Plus it has a great media library. The only better ones I'd have had to pay for. And as for slow loading, it's not like I get to take the 3 seconds I'd save using Winamp 2.81 and put it in the bottle I save my daylight in every time the clocks move forward. The media library and Shoutcast list did it for me. Made a bunch of playlists to match my varying moods. The list let me find and experiment with music genres I'd have never considered and artists I'd never heard of. Life was good.

Until the Shoutcast list stopped working.

Little did I realize the Winamp version 2 guys weren't done. They just released version 2.90, with all the speed and plug-in compatibility of version 2.81 plus it has the Shoutcast List functionality!

Life is good once more. But the saga doesn't end there.

I post on a discussion board where we talks so much shit our teefs turn brown. I use an avatar of my own creation:

. . . which I mention because the other day I saw a skin on the Winamp site that found to be too cool for words. The damn thing opens up to expose some really rationally placed controls, closed into a faceless metalic head, and even the mini-mode is usable.

I have no idea who Godsmack is. I don't care.

So now I'm using WInamp 3 for ripped CD tracks, and 2.90 for Shoutcast streams. And the moral of the story is, well, nonexistant. I just like to play sometimes.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/11/2003 08:38:22 PM |