Filed under: Audio, Internet, Windows, P2P, Beta

Want to download popular music without paying and without breaking the law? Qtrax is a new advertising-supported service that lets you download music from two of the four major labels, Universal and EMI as well as several smaller labels. The service uses a modified version of the Songbird Media player to let you search or browse for music and download tracks. Some music willbe available through P2P connections while music from Universal and EMI will be hosted on Qtrax servers.

The files use Windows Media digital rights management and are designed to be played with the Qtrax media player. But once you play a song using the Qtrax software and acquire a valid license key, you shold be able to play it using the media player of your choice. The one thing you cannot do is transfer songs to a portable media device like an iPod. That makes sense, since Qtrax makes money by showing ads while you search for and listen to music. There's no particularly good way to do that on a mobile device.

The music selection is somewhat limited at the moment. Not only are Sony and Warner Music Group tracks missing, but there are plenty of albums that show up in the Qtrax interface even though the songs are not yet available for download. But since the service just launched in beta, we're willing to cut Qtrax some slack.

The Qtrax client is Windows only for now, but a Mac version is in the works.

[via Silicon Alley Insider]

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Filed under: Internet, Linux, Windows Mobile, Symbian, Mozilla, Browsers

Now that Firefox 3 has finally shipped, the developers at Mozilla are starting to make time for other projects. Don't get us wrong, those busy little bees are already working on Firefox 3.1, but they're also working on something entirely new: a mobile web browser.

The mobile version of Firefox, (currently codenamed Fennec -- a final name hasn't been picked yet), will use the same rendering engine as Firefox 3. In other words, any web page you can view with the desktop browser will be usable on a mobile device. That includes AJAX-heavy web applications. But nobody's pretending that you can just run Firefox 3 on a cellphone without making any changes. After all, mobile devices have small screens, slow processors, low amounts of memory, and often rely on relatively slow internet connections.

Last week we showed you a first look at a concept interface that might make its way into the final product. But it might not. So we decided to speak with Jay Sullivan, VP of Mobile for Mozilla. He gave us a run down of what's in store for Fennec, including what types of devices will be supported and when you'll be able to try the browser out for yourself.

Continue reading What to expect from Mozilla's mobile Firefox web browser

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Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

MySpace has rolled out its anticipated site-wide redesign today. There's a shiny new search engine which displays results from your friends first and lets you sort your results by movies, music, the web, or all of MySpace. And site navigation has been improved so that it takes less clicks to get from one part of the site to another.

There's also a new video player which supports higher quality videos playing at 480p resolution. That makes the MySpace video player a lot nicer than YouTube's current offering. But if you're a MySpace traditionalist, don't worry, the site still has its obnoxious side. For example, when you visit the main page you'll be greeted by a huge advertisement which pushes the content about halfway down the window. Classy, right?

And of course, if you're worried that you won't recognize MySpace with its new look and all, you can always install a Firefox plugin that will alert you any time you accidentally find yourself on the social networking site.

[via TechCrunch]

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Filed under: Design, Fun, web 2.0

Stylized cartoon images are great, but what if you're not artistic enough to make one. That's where sites like Befunky can lend a helping hand.

Befunky takes images from your computer, webcam or on the web and with some input from you, creates a cartoonish effect that you can share with others. You're free to adjust the amount of sketching, color and pencil strokes applied to get the look you're after. If you want to further customize your image a host of borders and speech bubbles are available as well.

What's really interesting about Befunky is the use of layers to make editing so much easier. If you're familiar with imaging software like Photoshop or Gimp the ability to use layers is a must. While Befunky doesn't list the layers out, you do get the ability to send the active layers back or to the front which helps when you're trying to get that heart shaped frame just right.

Currently, the site supports the creation of images and avatars. Video effects are currently under development.

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Filed under: Internet, Mozilla, Browsers

This morning it looked like Mozilla was on track to set a world record by serving up 5 to 7 million downloads of Firefox 3 within 24 hours of the web browser's release. But by day's end, (well, 24 hour's end anyway), you all smashed that number and downloaded Firefox 3 over 8 million times.

Mozilla is still waiting to get confirmation from the folks at the Guinness Book of World Records before proclaiming the official number, but Mozilla Links pegs the number at 8,290,908, give or take a few. And NetApplications says that Firefox 3 went from less than 1% of the browser market this morning to almost 3% in a matter of 13 hours.

No matter what, Mozilla will have set a world record though -- since they're competing in a brand new category.

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Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Freeware

Sure, we don't actually have any real idea what Windows 7 will look like. But if you believe the screenshots floating around the web, the next version of Windows will look an awful lot like Vista. With a few new effects. And so when the folks at DeviantART decided to put together a few Windows 7 themes for Windows XP, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the themes look and feel a lot like Windows Vista.

That said, they're much prettier than the default themes available for Windows XP. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't make it easy to install third party themes for Windows XP. Officially you're pretty much stuck with Windows XP, Windows Classic, and a Microsoft Zune theme. So the first thing you need to do to install a third party theme is to install a program called UxTheme Patcher.

If you're running Windows XP SP2 or earlier, you can download a Windows 7 theme and UxTheme Patcher in one fell swoop at MegaLeecher. Just unzip the file and click the multi-patcher file in the UX Theme Patcher Folder and then click the Windows 7 M1 VS.msstyles file in the Windows 7 M1 VS subfolder in the Themes folder.

But the included UxTheme Patcher isn't compatible with Windows XP SP3. So if you have SP3 installed, you'll need to download and install a patcher from another location. Once you've done that and rebooted your system, you should be able to install third party themes like the Windows 7 theme. Just don't expect it to look like much other than a Windows Vista theme.

What are some of your favorite third party themes for Windows XP? Let us know in the comments.

[via Life Rocks 2.0 and Shell Extension City]

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One of the two big differences in the new iPhone 3G is the included GPS technology. Restaurant locator/review site UrbanSpoon knows this very well, and they've taken advantage of the GPS with an iPhone native app for UrbanSpoon. Without even having to tell it, it knows where you are, it knows where restaurants are, and it's ready to get food into your mouth.

It gets more fun than that, though: you can actually shake your iPhone like a Magic 8-Ball to get a random recommendation near you. This is great if you're really hungry, don't care where you eat, or just like trying new places. An iPhone native app gives UrbanSpoon a leg up on other review sites like Yelp (which we also find very useful!) by making its information more easily portable. Look for it in July, when Apple launches the iPhone app store.

[via MG Siegler at VentureBeat]

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Filed under: Fun, Games, Freeware, Time-Wasters

Kitten Cannon addresses one of mankind's most primal urges; firing small fluffy animals out of a cannon.

The goal is simple really; shoot the kitten out of the cannon as far as possible. You can adjust the aim and velocity of the cannon, but the real distance is obtained when poor fluffy lands on a pile of explosives, or is trampolined into a balloon-bomb. Watch out for the Venus Cat-traps and death spikes that will stop fluffy DEAD in her tracks.

Some may think that there is a trivial amount of strategy involved in firing a Kitten from a cannon. Obviously they haven't reached 2,164 ft!

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Filed under: Audio, Social Software, web 2.0

YourSpins is a social network site dedicated to those who love remixes. To start remixing your music, you'll need to download a plug-in for your media player (Windows Media Player, Quicktime and WinAmp are currently supported) as remixes are created from within the player. From there you'll be able to download the completed song with all the associated parts from the site to start your remix.

YourSpins has worked together with musicians to provide you with tracks that you can play with. This means each songs will have multiple instruments for you to choose from. And because all the tracks are provided, you won't run into issues of certain parts not being in tempo or instruments playing in the wrong key.

When you're done, the completed remix will be saved to your YourSpins page where others can listen to your mix. Points are given out depending on how well your mixes are received. Overall points are grouped in levels ranging from "Noob" on up to the "Omnipotent Grand Overlord".

If you want to give it a "spin" without downloading any plug-ins, you can try out their ecards service. While it doesn't give you the full experience it does give you a fun taste of remixing.

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Filed under: Video, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

Instructional videos or online reviews can sometimes be difficult to follow. Depending on watch you're watching it might be nice to have a second video displaying additional information that would aid in the presentation. Viddix may have found the answer to this in the form of their iPanel.

Once you've uploaded your video to the website, you'll need to add cuepoints. These cuepoints allow you to add text, links, photos, html pages, charts or other media rich files that your viewers can read and interact with. Viddix also provides cuepoint presets to ease the production of your video.

From start to finish, the production concept is straight forward and the average user shouldn't have many issues with producing their own videos.

While still in beta, we find the concept very useful, especially since we've started taking guitar lessons.

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