The open source alternative to iTunes is downloadable in it’s first major version (1.0.0) for Windows XP & Vista.

Songbird has been in the works for a long time, with the project started nearly 3 years ago, in February of 2006. Since then the music player has seen lots of differences to appearances and usability, but everything being forward thinking and progressive. Sadly missing with this release is iPhone or iPod Touch support, however, but Songbird does still support other iPods & MP3 players – and I’m sure it will be fixed very soon (it’s on their list of high priority bugs). Audio enclosures in RSS feeds (podcasts) are supported, along with SHOUTcast radio integration (much like many media players) and also last.fm support.

This project is exciting and I’m glad to see the first major release, as I’ve been keeping my eye on the media player for a long time. The interface is very clean and inviting, which looks and feels like iTunes – although seems to be slightly less responsive than it’s heavily funded cousin. Podcasts are a little hidden to start with as well (cryptically under the menu as "New Subscription…"). But thankfully, as it’s written around the Mozilla code base (like Firefox & Thunderbird) you know that it’s going to be stable and functional. The player has the ability to have add-ons installed, much like Firefox, to help with things like different music formats (like quick-time, or protected Windows Media files) and other features like the ability to book concert tickets through songkick.com. It also supports tabbed browing, and is very functional surfing the net – with an added bonus that any audio feeds found on the page will pop up for you to download or play in Songbird.

There are more features on the way, and a growing collection of add-ins available. But then in it’s very first release, the team behind Songbird said, "…take a long hard look in the direction we’re pointing. We assure you, this is just the beginning" so we can be sure Songbird isn’t going to stop with version 1. To have a look, and support the project, you can download the latest version from the getsongbird website.

Unbelievable to think that this was cutting edge, and in the same way so long ago.. An early 80’s advert for the Atari home computer systems (like the VCS/2600)

—This article supersedes the previous OpenDNS article, to bring everything up to date.—

I previously wrote an article about how to fix the search results that get thrown up by OpenDNS when you’re trying a quick search in Firefox’s address bar. However, if you use the Google Toolbar, you will have the same problem. There also appear to be issues with OpenDNS’s default behaviour (which perhaps should be an "opt-in" rather than an "opt-out"?)

It’s surprising how used to the Firefox address bar feature you get. I, for instance, just type “gmail” into the address bar and Firefox/Google gets me to where I want to go. Some people I know of have actually got rid of OpenDNS for this reason alone. Well all is not lost!

First things first, go to the address bar of Firefox and type about:config and hit return. You may be given a warning message, simply click “I’ll be careful, I promise!”. What appears is a list of the configurable variables that Firefox uses. Beware, messing with the wrong ones can break your browser. We’re interested in only one of them. In the filter box, type keyword. Double click the keyword.URL entry in the list and change the contents of the box that appears to http://www.google.com/search?btnI=I%27m+Feeling+Lucky&q= click OK. And for those of us in the UK, just substitute the google.com with a google.co.uk.

Secondly, you’ll need to have an account with OpenDNS, so you can manage your network settings. For those of you that have a static IP it’s very simple, simply register your IP with OpenDNS, give it a friendly name (like Home Broadband or something) and you can start managing everything within minutes. If you do not have a static IP address, please read their section on Dynamic DNS first and then download a small program that notifies OpenDNS when your network address changes.

Once you have your IP address registered with OpenDNS, you can manage the settings yourself. Click on advanced settings for the network and make sure, right at the bottom of the page, Enable OpenDNS proxy is ticked. The OpenDNS proxy will allow Firefox address bar traffic through unscathed (hopefully) – but it only appears to work in combination with the Firefox fix above (at least in my case). You may also want to disable the typo correction (personal choice).

Anything you now type into the address bar of Firefox, if it’s not a valid website address, will be redirected to Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” search. I’m Feeling Lucky, for the uninitiated, is a button next to Search on the Google homepage that you can use if you’re sure the first entry that’s going to be returned by Google’s normal search will be what you’re looking for. Firefox will now act exactly the same way when you type your search term into the address bar - bypassing that horrible (and annoying) OpenDNS search page.

The old fort, which it’s owner (Roy Bates) declared a principality - although the UK still claim it’s within their waters - was involved in hosting data off-shore, in an attempt to circumvent internet hosting laws in most countries.

For the last couple of days, however, the main website for "HavenCo" is not hosted on Sealand anymore. This almost certainly points to the end for HavenCo after a troubled recent history. Although the idea initially is pretty good, it’s such a niche market that the customer base must have been pretty small to begin with. Couple that with the reality that any traffic that flows through the Sealand servers, also flows through the UK, and it seems less and less attractive.

Personally, I’ve always seen Sealand as a bit of a quirk. And once the novelty wears off (worn off?), it’s just an old heap of bricks in the middle of the channel.

Jerry Yang is going to stand down as CEO for Yahoo, as soon as a suitable replacement can be found. Has he finally bowed to pressure after the Microsoft mess? Personally, that’s what my gut feeling is. With Carl Icahn on the board now, who publicly stated that he would fire Jerry Yang if he won his proxy battle, nearly six months ago, has convinced some of the other members of the board that the way forward for Yahoo is without Yang. Is this the right move for Yahoo, or could it destabilise the company further?

Tired of your tired looking GMail? Well you’re in luck, because along with the already growing customisations, there are now selectable themes. Previously only enjoyed by browser hacks, the option is now open to everyone. Some of the new ways to customise your inbox:

To select the skin theme for your GMail account (assuming you have one of course) go to your settings when looking at your email, and there is a new "Themes" tab. Don’t worry if you don’t have it, Google are rolling them out for everyone over the next couple of days, so check back every day or so until it appears..

OK, well it’s a way to show off this amazing piece of technology, but what I really wanted to see was it rescuing people from burning buildings, or fighting acid-spitting extra terrestrials – not bench pressing 50kgs!

Created by Raytheon, a military hardware specialist, the Sarcos Exoskeleton fits around a human to augment his or her basic functions. It’s able to walk, jog, work out or punch people (apparently) so all-round it looks a great idea. What amazes me is how quickly and fluidly it reacts to movements from the person strapped into it. Have a look at the video with a small interview with one of the creators, below:

The "Jaguar" in Tennessee, USA, has been crowned the fastest computer in the world and is to be used for science.

The new champion, consisting of 284 Cray supercomputer cabinets, will be able to crunch an amazing 1.64 Petaflops – 1,640,000,000,000,000 floating point operations per second. Tested so far up to 1.3 Petaflops, the team at Oak Ridge National Lab are hoping to crank the machine up to it’s full potential soon.

Specification:

45,000 Quad Core Opterons (AMD), 362 Terabytes of RAM (that’s 370,000 Gigabytes!), 10 Petabytes of storage (or 10,485,000 Gigabytes)

Performance:

578 Terabytes per second Memory bandwidth, 284 Gigabytes per second bus bandwidth (to move data around the system)

All in all an impressive machine which will knock the current champion, Roadrunner (at 1.34 Petaflops), off the top spot when it’s up to speed. Read The Register article, and also check out the top 500 supercomputers on Wikipedia (soon to be updated I’m sure!)

PC World reports today that the once full-proof wireless encryption standard, WPA, has been partially cracked by Erik Tews and Martin Beck - two researchers which are due to make an appearance in the PacSec applied security conference next week.

Erik Tews was involved previously with developing new ways to crack the older, and shown to be weak, WEP method of wireless security. He has now developed an attack, along with Martin Beck, that can compromise the TKIP protocol within 15 minutes – much less time than was previously thought possible.

TKIP is a wrapper protocol that surrounds the old WEP encryption, essentially turning the once weak WEP into the thought to be stronger WPA. The encryption standard hasn’t fully been cracked however as the data was decrypted from the router to the PC and not from the PC to the router. So even though the password you type in to your browser is safe, the data coming back that might contain your bank balance won’t be. I’m sure it will just be a matter of time before it’s fully broken.

For those who are worried, WPA2, the latest version, does not suffer from the same flaws, but is also not available on every router and PC. If you have the latest service pack for Windows XP, or Windows Vista, WPA2 is built in, but you’ll have to verify that your router supports it too.

The latest version of Media Monkey now supports the new iPhone 3G and iPod Touch version 2, making it the only application, other than iTunes, to enable you to synchronise your music and podcasts - without using Apple’s abomination.

I know, some people like iTunes, and I say power to them, but since I found Media Monkey I haven’t thought of going back.. Not only does it synchronise iPods and iPhones with your music and podcasts, downloaded with the built-in podcatcher, but it will also synchronise any mp3 player. Rather than having a handful of different programs (all without the power you need to organise and synchronise your music library), Media Monkey can synchronise all of your devices in one place. Add to that the ability to listen to shoutcast radio (Groove Salad is perfect for a Sunday afternoon), a handy selection of web links to popular music sites - all built into the player, and the usefulness of being able to sort and class your music collection according to your own tastes, you can understand why I like Media Monkey so much.

Changes to the recent code include the new iPhone and iPod Touch, more compatibility with other iPod models, plus some bug fixes. You can get a copy of the latest build from the Media Monkey website. There is a free and a gold version. The free version still has more functionality than iTunes, so it’s well worth the download. The free version can also be upgraded in the features if you want some more pro features.