Like.com Visual Search Matches Shoes, Bags and Dresses [Shopping]
If you're looking for a pair of shoes that will exactly match the color of a favorite handbag, or love a designer's style and want something similar but cheaper, check out Like.com's Likethis visual search tool. It will help you find women's handbags, shoes and dresses based on a photo you upload, and will match by style, color or pattern, with the results sent in a few minutes via email. I ran a quick search on a beautiful pair of men's dress shoes from Prada, and it found strikingly similar choices from Jos A. Bank, Cole Haan, and Sherman Brothers — all of which were priced $600 less than the designer Italian kicks. You can even upload photos from your iPhone, making it easy to see if you can't find something similar for less money while window shopping. For other products, the "visual search" button did a pretty good job of turning up related results for other products like men's suits already in the Like.com catalog.Thanks, David!
BonkEnc Manages and Converts Your Digital Music [Featured Windows Download]
Windows only: For ripping CDs or changing the format of your digital music collection, try downloading open-source BonkEnc. It supports a number of popular encoding formats, including LAME for MP3 and the eponymous Bonk audio, and by installing WinAmp's decoding libraries you can convert files from any format supported by the popular player. It will interface with CDDB to make sure album and track information is included in the output files when ripping CDs, assuming you're online, and will even create playlists from discs and folders. It supports all sorts of advanced options to optimize encoding quality in a small, light package — and is another option to rescue your music from Windows Media Player. BonkEnc is a free download for Windows. Thanks, nicholassimon!
First Look at Songbird 1.0, aka iTunes Killer, aka Sloppy Mess [Screenshot Tour]
Earlier today we featured the first release candidate of Songbird, an open-source, cross-platform media player cut from the same cloth as Firefox. Songbird has been in development forever, but now the exciting media player is finally approaching its 1.0 release, and we were eager to sink our teeth into it. Keep reading for a closer look at Songbird—including where it soars and where it sucks.
What's Exciting About Songbird
Songbird is a forward-thinking media jukebox. It's all about using information and media freely available on the internet to transform a typical media player into a music-lovers utopia. It does this in a number of ways.
First, and foremost, Songbird is based on the Mozilla code that runs apps like Firefox and Thunderbird, which, among other things, means that it's extensible in the same way those applications are.
It's also a tabbed browser, capable of playing any embedded MP3 or searching popular music sites—like previously mentioned Skreemr—and seamlessly downloading that music to your library.
Songbird also promises dream-like integration with iTunes for those of you who are just too hung up on iTunes to give it up. When you first open run Songbird, just tell it to Import your iTunes library. You can even have Songbird update its library with any changes made to your iTunes library each time it runs. When the import finishes, all of your iTunes playlists (regular and smart) should be sitting comfortably in your sidebar.
Songbird suggests several extensions when you first install it, including one that adds iPod support and another called mashTape, which integrates with web services Last.fm, MusicBrainz, Google News, YouTube, and even Flickr to give you artist info, videos, and photos while you're listening to music.
At first glance, I love everything about Songbird. In fact, I've been excited about Songbird ever since I first learned of the project almost three years ago. Unfortunately, then and now, Songbird has its problems.
The Downside
When I tried importing my iTunes library out of the blocks, Songbird took forever to import my 6500+ tracks. It took rougly 17 minutes to hit 99%, then sat there for an additional 20 minutes before I gave up on it and hitting cancel. When I did, I got the error message below.
I don't know for sure whether or not the unsupported files were the cause of the delay or not, but either way it was a drag.
Unfortunately the bugs don't stop there. At one point, I double-clicked on the album art for a larger view, but it displays as a pop-up, so when I couldn't close it, I couldn't do anything. I hit Cmd-Q to quit the app, but that just closed the album art window. That made me happy until I realized that everytime I tried double-clicking a track to play it, Songbird thought I wanted to edit the track instead. That was interesting because I wasn't aware of the inline editing and I love that kind of inline editing, but it's not what I wanted to do at all.
I also received alerts every time a track changed from my Flash player telling me that "Adobe Flash Player has stopped a potentially unsafe operation." The alert prompts me to change my Flash settings, so when I click Settings as it asks me to, I see the disturbing alert message at right. (I suspect the mashTape extension is at fault, but as a suggested extension, it reflects poorly on the core application whether the extension is at fault or not.)
The Upshot
Everyone (myself included) wants Songbird to be an iTunes killer, and frankly, if it accomplished everything it sought to, it would have a great chance at being just that. I understand that the application I'm using isn't the final 1.0 release, but we shouldn't be seeing all these bugs in a release candidate.
In the meantime, apps like the very popular MediaMonkey, foobar2000, and even Winamp offer strong alternatives to the status quo. (Check our Hive Five Best Desktop Media Players for more.) I just wish Songbird could fly a bit higher without making users feel burned.
Best Remote Desktop Tools? [Hive Five Call For Contenders]
Remote desktop applications have been around forever, giving power-users and administrators the ability to access and control a computer remotely from any other computer. Today, remote desktop tools aren't just for the power-user or IT admin; they're for anyone who isn't sitting at home or in the office but wants to grab a file from their computer, start or stop a download, or even shut down their system. For this week's Hive Five, we want to hear all about the remote desktop tool or application you count on to get to your system no matter where you are. Keep reading for details and to nominate your app of choice.
Hive Five nominations take place in the comments, where you post your favorite tool for the job. We get hundreds of comments, so to make your nomination clear, please include it at the top of your comment like so: VOTE: Remote Desktop App Goes Here. NEW RULE: Please don't include your vote in a reply to another commenter. Instead, make your vote and reply separate comments. If you don't follow this format, we may not count your vote. To prevent tampering with the results, votes from first-time commenters may not be counted. After you've made your nomination, let us know what makes it stand out from the competition.
About the Hive Five: The Hive Five feature series asks readers to answer the most frequently asked question we get—"Which tool is the best?" Once a week we'll put out a call for contenders looking for the best solution to a certain problem, then YOU tell us your favorite tools to get the job done. Every weekend, we'll report back with the top five recommendations and give you a chance to vote on which is best. For an example, check out last week's Hive Five Best Travel Web Sites.
Swaptree Extends Your Entertainment Budget [Saving Money]
If you want to trade in old books, CDs, DVDs and games for new-to-you replacements to keep your media library fresh and interesting, then sign up for free with Swaptree. There, you can list items you're willing to trade by entering the UPC code or ISBN number. Then browse items that people who want what you have are willing to offer in exchange. Swaptree will then let you trade mailing information, and will even print the appropriate postage directly from your browser. That box of CDs you've already converted to MP3 can be exchanged guilt-free for new music. For more swapping fun, try Rehash for clothes and PaperBack Swap for books. Thanks, OdeletteMelpomene!
GreatNews RSS Reader Takes Your Bloglines Subscriptions Offline [Featured Windows Download]
Windows only: If you can't always get online to read your feeds, and would prefer to browse more than just post headlines, check out GreatNews. The default browsing view opens up feeds in a two-column, full-post view that's more reminiscent of newspaper site layouts than long lists of post headlines. I had no trouble importing my collection of subscriptions from Mac's NetNewsWire using an OPML file, though it took a long time — even though the product's site declares "GreatNews is extremely fast. Even with hundreds of rss feed subscriptions." For Bloglines users, GreatNews will actually synchronize with your the online feed reader — so that you don't end up reading the same posts twice, and can keep reading even if you aren't connected to the web. Other helpful features include labels for articles, great search functionality and the ability to watch particular sites and keywords to make relevant articles stand out and harder to miss. Any GreatNews users out there willing to share their experiences, good and bad? GreatNews is a free download for Windows. Thanks, CharityAethalides!
Minimalist Firefox Goes Black [Featured Firefox Customization]
Reader and desktop tweaker extraordinaire Kaelri—who designed the popular Lightning at Sunset Windows desktop—is back at it, this time with a beautifully customized Firefox installation. The homepage you see above—which links straight to Google Contacts, Maps, Calendar, Gmail, etc.—is the result of some very light Firefox tweaking. Keep reading for a closer look at what he used to pull it off.
Theme:
- NASA Night Launch (Original post)Extensions (visible):
- Fast Dial (Original post)
- Tiny Menu (Original post)Icons:
- "ecqlipse 2" PNG
Got your own saucy desktop, customized Firefox installation, or other tweaked app? Share it and explain how you pulled it off in the Lifehacker Desktop Show and Tell Group.
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