Yes, we have waited and waited and now the ‘Bird has finally landed! Since the Songbird server appears to be overloaded we are going to offer a MIRROR here on the site. Enjoy!

Download:
Songbird_0_1_0.exe

Like it? Diggit™

If you want to link to the MIRROR please link to this post permalink (not the .exe file):
http://www.emusiq.org/index.php/archives/2006/02/08/songbird-mirror-available-right-here/

TinyURL:
http://tinyurl.com/bg85v

Direct from BoingBoing:

“A team led by ex-Winamp-er Rob Lord today released a preview edition of Songbird, a desktop media player that offers an open source alternative to services like Apple’s iTunes and the Windows Media Player. Instead of connecting to one locked store full of DRMmed goods, it can connect to any and all available music (and video) on the internet.

Code brains behind the project include people who helped build Winamp, Muse, Yahoo’s “Y! Music Engine” media player, and developers from Mozilla Foundation. Initial release is for Windows only, with editions for other OSes to follow in the coming weeks.

Built on the same platform as Firefox, Songbird acts like a specialized web browser for music. It sees the online world through MP3-colored glasses – it looks at an archive of public domain sound files or a music store’s catalog, and displays available media for you.

I spoke with Rob Lord earlier today by phone about the preview release. Screenshots and interview after the jump. ”

TORONTO (CP) - It’s becoming a regular occurrence in CD shops across the country: an irate customer comes in complaining the CD they bought won’t play on their computer, and worse yet, they can’t transfer the tunes to their IPod.

The culprit is copy-protected or copy-controlled CDs - something many Canadian music retailers say they would like to see pulled from store shelves.

“This is just another really, really ridiculous way of telling our customers, ‘We don’t want your business,’ ” said Tim Baker of Sunrise Records, which has 31 shops in southern Ontario.

“It’s so stupid.”

The issue was underscored last week with news that the anti-piracy technology used on about 50 Sony BMG titles released in the United States and 37 in Canada secretly left spyware behind on people’s computers.

The software - developed as a way to fight music piracy - made the machines susceptible to viruses and hackers. And trying to remove the software disabled CD drives.

Needless to say, the technology irked consumers. Thousands flocked to the web to vent, using blogs and online petitions to encourage people to boycott Sony products altogether.

“There’s still plenty of work to be done if we are to achieve our goal of being treated like the music lovers we are rather than the criminals that (Sony) assumes us to be,” read one posting on www.boycottsony.us.

Sony BMG said Friday that about 120,000 of the 4.7 million faulty CDs were sold in Canada.

They are not the only company to issue copy-protected CDs in Canada.

EMI has been releasing select albums - including the latest Nickelback album, All The Right Reasons - this way for about three years. The company intends to ship out all its releases with the technology by year’s end.

The EMI discs use different software than Sony BMG, and have yet to cause any computer troubles.

Labels say they need the technology in order to stop people from sharing music with those who haven’t paid for it.

Still, retailers say such technology is punishing those who are actually willing to fork over cash for music - an ever-dwindling group as it is.

“Consumers are not liking it,” says Leslie Purchase, assistant manager at CD Plus in the Halifax Shopping Centre. “People are getting very frustrated by (copy-protected CDs).”

She’s noticed an increase in customers who put CDs down after noticing the “copy-controlled” or “copy-protected” label.

“A lot of customers won’t buy them now. They say ‘I don’t want it’,” she said.

The copy controls are possible through digital rights management technology, or DRM. It lets labels restrict the number of times a CD can be shared - meaning burned or copied.

More controversial is the ability to control which programs consumers can use to playback their music. With EMI and Sony BMG discs, for instance, the music is compatible only with Windows Media Player but not with ITunes (for PC users).

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Computer Inc. has unveiled a pencil-thin “iPod nano” digital music player and a long-anticipated cell phone that plays music like an iPod, both aimed at extending its domination of the digital music market.

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs also said that in 2006, some 30 percent of all new U.S. cars will sport stereos that can easily connect to the iPod.

The seriously slimmed-down nano – about a quarter of an inch (0.6 cm) thick, 3-1/2 inches (9 cm) long and 1-1/2 inches (4 cm) wide – drew “oohs” and “ahhs” from the audience at the product release in San Francisco, outdoing the buzz generated by the Rokr phone, which some said failed to meet high expectations for design.

The nano players, either all black or all white, are nearly as small as the entry-level iPod Shuffle but sport click wheels and hold up to 1,000 songs.

Apple has about 75 percent of the market for digital music players, with iPod sales about one-third of its total revenue, and Jobs said competitors had set their sights on the iPod mini, which he said was Apple’s best-selling iPod model.

The nano replaces the mini, and Gartner analyst Van Baker said that Apple – which has sold 21 million iPods since introducing them in 2001 – has moved the goal posts farther down the field with the nano. “It changes the rules of the game,” Baker said.

The iPod nano uses flash memory chips to store songs and photos, rather than the hard-disk drives that the iPod mini and the larger iPods use.
Test for music

The Rokr phone is Apple’s long-awaited foray into the wireless realm. Developed with Motorola Inc., it can store up to 100 songs and has a color screen, stereo speakers, stereo headphones and a camera. Cingular will be the first mobile carrier for the Rokr. Several operators in the United Kingdom are expected to offer the phone soon.

But some said the silver phone did not meet style expectations set by Apple’s iPod and Motorola’s slim flagship Razr phone, and others cited its limited song capacity for iPod users accustomed to carrying thousands of songs.

“It doesn’t have the emotive cachet that the Razr or the iPod has,” said Yankee Group analyst John Jackson. “When you whip this out in the bar, nobody’s going to say, ‘That’s a cool device.’”

The Rokr iTunes phone will be available in Cingular stores on Thursday.

No. 1 U.S. mobile service Cingular Wireless, a venture of SBC Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp., will be the exclusive U.S. carrier of the phone, which it will sell for $249.99 to customers who sign up for a two-year service contract.

Cingular does not make money from the songs played on the phones, but hopes they will help boost sales and reduce customer defections to rival services. One analyst said it could become Cingular’s top-selling phone by next year.

“If this phone is easy to use, at this price I think it will fly off the shelves,” Charter Equity analyst Ed Snyder said. “Cingular will reap the benefits of the combination of Motorola and Apple’s brands.”

The phone does not allow for wireless downloads, but it does eliminate the need for carrying two separate gadgets.

Motorola said the phone would be available in the United Kingdom at Carphone Warehouse Group’s stores in mid-September and with operators such as O2, Orange, BT Mobile, Virgin Mobile this month or next.

In the coming months, it is also expected to be available in countries such as Germany, Canada, Italy and France.

Motorola’s chief marketing officer, Geoffrey Frost, said the phone – the first in a whole family of Rokr devices – would be followed by more stylish designs.

“As this continues to develop you’ll see it become as iconic as our other new products,” Frost said, referring to a new products inspired by its Razr phone.
Flexible

As it tests the market for music on mobile phones, Apple is free to work with other handset makers and cellular service providers, said Phil Schiller, Apple’s head of worldwide product marketing, in an interview.

“We have flexibility to do many things,” Schiller said. He declined to comment on the financial arrangements of Apple’s partnership with Motorola and Cingular.

Music is expected to be one of the hottest new features in mobile phones, which already sport everything from cameras to video players.

Apple has to keep up a steady pace of innovative new music products to maintain the level of growth investors now expect.

Shares of Apple fell 12 cents, or less than 1 percent, to close at $48.68 on Nasdaq. So far this year, the stock has gained 52 percent and trades at about 34 times its projected earnings per share in fiscal 2006. Apple’s fiscal year ends in September.

Apple said it was teaming with car makers Acura, Audi, Honda and Volkswagen to integrate its iPod products into their car stereos for 2006 model lines.

Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

BashPodder Was written and is maintained here by me (Linc) with the generous code contributions and great ideas of many of it’s users, some of whom have contributed modified scripts of their own. BashPodder was written to be small and fast, and most importantly, to conform to the KISS rule (Keep It Simple Stupid). That way, anyone can add to and detract from the script to suit their own needs (and they are welcome to do so). BashPodder is listed in many places as a “Linux” podcatching client, and in fact, that is what I wrote it for initially, however, it should be noted that I have dozens of emails telling me how well it works on everything else, including but not limited to MaxOSX, Solaris, AIX, Net Open and FreeBSD, even windows and many other OS’s I have forgotten I am sure.

:Link:

The Dawn and Drew Show is quickly becoming one of the most listened to podcasts on the ‘net. Having recently reached the 50th show, looks like there will be plenty more to come.

iPodder is a media aggregator which automatically downloads podcasts to your computer or portable device based on a RSS feed, leaving you ‘one-click-away’ from the latest media feeds. The whole process is done on its own, so you don’t have to select files, search for them or click links to download the media. All you do is specify some feeds and wait to get yourself the podcasts. All you have to do is decide what you are going to listen to.

:Link:

Magnatune has teamed up with WebJay, a podcasting site to provide content.