Oh, boy here I go again... I swore I would not endorse or write
articles about 3rd party software, but really I consider it more of a
recommendation than an endorsement.
So I have been
going through my software that I need on a daily basis, I listen to
music a lot and have a ton of music ripped from CD, downloaded from the
net (legally of coarse), and I am running a Toshiba Laptop, with Vista
and Office 2007.
As I am programming the day away,
sometimes music is the only thing that keeps me sane or at least from
going crazy debugging and testing code all day long. The problem is
this, I was extremely happy with Music Match, then Yahoo had to go and
buy them and in my opinion screw everything up. It has been rewritten
from the ground up and renamed Yahoo Jukebox. I just was not happy with
it at all. It has been very buggy to this very day, to the point it
would freeze up my laptop, and all of my mp3, which are on a network
hard drive, was not very compatible with the watch folders option. I am
sure it will be developed into a great program but i need something
now!
So I was with a client awhile back and I
downloaded Rhapsody, which is what they used to debug a network
problem. At first I loved it! however when I was running Outlook it
would freeze up the laptop. Also I found the watch folder with my
network drive also buggy? Hmmm how could software that was developed
years ago (Music Match) be so reliable, and have every option that I
needed and these newer programs, not be. Sure there interfaces are
sleek and modern, dare I say sexy. Wait can a GUI be sexy? Probably
not. Anyhow, I love the drag and drop features of the new programs too,
but call me old fashioned but bells and whistles are pointless if it
doesn't get the job done.
Then I saw and ad for the
iPhone one night watching tv, and i thought to myself what about
iTunes? I know your thinking, wow you were obsessing over this that
badly that it was on your mind after hours well watching tv with your
wife and a commercial for a different product came on, and you made the
leap to iTunes? Yeah I was and I did. So I downloaded iTunes the very
next day. My opinion, boring, not nearly enough features, memory hog,
and most importantly NO watch folders! For those of you who don't know
watch folders keeps all your local music in sync with the media library
in the player.
Well that wasnt going to work, so I
moved on to Napster after hanging out one night with a buddy of mine as
that is what he uses. All i will say about it is this... Great to
stream music as a subscription service, but otherwise not my cup of
tea.
Then after about a month of not listening to
music on my laptop much I stumbled across a product I havent used,
seen, or heard anything about in
years....
So after all of this mindless
reading your thinking, "dude, what is it!".
It
has all the managemnt features I was looking for including watch
folders, it plays the most formats (out of the box with out hunting for
codecs), even video! and for you streaming service buffs it has that
to, even streaming your library to your mobile phone! Seriously more
features than you can imagine. The downside must be the cost then....
NO its free! There is a pro version ($20) which allows for faster
ripping and burning of CD's. I bought it. Mostly to donate to a good
cause, they know what they are doing! I provided a screenshot
below:
Enjoy!
