Posts Tagged ‘Amarok’

Amarok Vs songbird

December 6th, 2008 admin

Amarok and Songird are considered two best audio players in Linux and here is a short comparison between the two.

Amarok

This is a music player provided with KDE and is a one of the most popular and powerful media players available for Linux and has complete integrity with other applications of KDE.

Songbird

This is a comparatively new player with its first version being released recently.The developers call it the firefox of media players.Lets find out if it lives up to its name.

Starting with some of the basics features :

Feature Amarok Songbird
Manufacturer KDE songbirdnest.com
Download size 6MB 28.7 Mb approx
Type Free and opensource Free and opensource
Current version 2.0 1..0
License GNU General Public License, Version 2 (GPLv2 GNU General Public License, Version 2 (GPLv2


1.Looks and interface

Amarok has got plain interface of a media player and has a little options for customization of the looks but the the themes for the context window make a lot of difference.

Songbird on he other hand has got superb looks and at the first sight may be confused with iTunes.The themes make it look more fresh and lively.The switching between different themes without even giving a pause to the music is just so great feature.

Songbird wins here.

Screen shots:

blog2amarok

blog1

songbird

2.Sound quality

Amarok runs on both Gstreamer and Xine.Xine is much better than gstreamer .I personally felt the quality of sound generated by songbird was better than amarok.No clear winner this time.

3.Scripts available

Amarok has been in market for long and has a lot of fan following so it has got more number of scripts available(click here for a list of cool scripts).Whereas the scripts of songbird are less in number but are more efficient in have better quality specially the themes.Amarok gets an edge here.

4.Integration with applications

Amarok being a product of KDE has the capability of integrating well with all other desktop applications.Also the way its scripts communicate with applications like IM and twitter are great.

Songbird has a long way to go before it comes even near to amarok in this area.

5.Browser integration

Songbird has a complete firefox built in and can be even used to browser the web in a new tab.This is one of the reasons of it being called the firefox of media players.Whereas amarok is can be used only to access the Wikipedia page of the artist and the links in the page.

6.Cover fetcher

The cover fetcher of amarok gets a 10 out of 10 here.It gets the covers from the net with a high efficiency without any constraints of the language of the song.Wheres I was unable to use it with songbird even after installing 2 additional scripts.Amarok wins again

7.Memory Usage

This has been a big issue with Songbird since at times the memory usage jumps to severral times the normal usage.It uses twice as taken by amarok.Moreover the search engine for songs is too sluggish and so is the cover flow.Its the biggest drawback of Songbird.This is expected to be resolved in future(check for updates)Whereas amarok never has any such problem.

Final Verdict

Amarok is the winner by a little margin but is expected to face tough competition from songbird in future.While for those too comfortable with iTunes,songbird is a good option provided they are ready to compromise on some issues.Finally if songbird is the firefox of media players then amarok is opera!!

Posted in computers, linux Tags: , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments »

Easy ways to access twitter

December 1st, 2008 admin

Social networking and blogging has been around for a long all over the web.The internet is all flooded by social networking sites(MySpace,Facebook,Orkut just to name a few) and blooging platforms(blogger,wordpress etc).But the concept of Microblgging is reletively new and involves a touch of social networking.The best example of microblogging is “Twitter” .It has been a superhit ever since it was launched.And now the situation is such that is hard to find a site having more applications for acessing the site than twitter!

Here is my compilation of some of the easiest methods to tweet
1 Using the web: TWITTER
I must be foolish to add this to the list.But This still remains the most used method.Just log on to twitter.com and tweet.As simple as that.Believe me the next ones are also simple as this but are more easily acessable than this one.

2 Usning a google desktop: Google Desktop

If you are using google desktop then the using a plugin to tweet is the easiest way to tweet.Good way if you are using windows.twitter_gadget_shot3 Using a windows PC: Twhirl

The next one is available for both windows and mac and gives many more options like changing themes and connecting to multiple services like laconi.ca, Friendfeed and seesmic

twhirl

4 Uing an iphone: Pockettweets

This little application can be used to tweet from your iPhone and Ipod touch and is probably the best one for iPhone.

pockettweets

5 GPRS Phone Widsets

To Stay connected to twitter using your phone.

widsets_screenshot 6 Using an IM disgby and ping.fm

These two services allow the user to tweet using the instant messenger.Just adds a bot on the friends list and sending a message to the bot us all it takes to tweet.They are not only for twitter but can also be used to manage various other accounts.Digsby also suppots using multiple IM accounts like pidgin.

digsby_screenshot

logo

7 using a Linux Desktop: Qttwitter

This is an easy to use twitter client made by one of my friends Mr.Shashank Singh.It is all made on Qt and is best used on a system running opensuse10.x and 11.

qttwitter

8 Using firefox plugin

Surf internet and tweet whenever you like. Get FoxyTunes and TwitBin for your Firefox. FoxyTunes plugin not only allow you tweet your own words. But also tweet what you are browsing, watching, reading, etc.

1.9 using opera: opera widget

If you are a big opera fan.then using twitter is just istalling an sript away !

opera_widget_screenshot_small

10 Using a blog plugin in wordpress

With Twitter Tools wordpress plugin, you can tweet from front page or admin page. It is quite similar to Web tweet, but from your own blog.

11 Using amarok

This the strangest method of using twitter.A script that catches the name of the song you are listening and send it to twitter.This is a great way to irritate the ones following you!With this you are sure to loose some followers!

amarkotwitter

12 Using email twittermail

Well again a strange way to tweet.this servise just needs to be configured for the username and password.I would recomment not to use it since a lot better options are available.

13 Sending SMS

Finally if you are a real twitter fan you can spend a little money by sending SMS to twitter.The prices are decided by your service provider.Check it out on the sidebar on your twitter profile

And after using all this, you are still not having a twitter account then rush and make one on twitter.com

Posted in Internet, linux Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 3 Comments »
« Older Entries