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Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013

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Re: Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013

#221
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd pitch in towards the $20 a year for the domain + vps.

Will you also indemnify AOL against all third party claims should someone use the software, it messes up their Windows 9.3 filesystem, and they end up suing... however meritless the case may be? Will you accept responsibility for acting as the DMCA contact and updating the site within the time limits provided in the Safe Harbor provisions should a skin, plugin, or visualization infringe someone else's copyright? Will…

This is why I really, really hate the modern, diversified corporation.

The decision of whether to continue a product line within a large corporation is very, very different from whether or not a product line could keep a small business afloat. If you're a small business, the only question is "are we making payroll?". Within a large, diversified corporation, you have to ask if a project is as valuable as your alternatives. Mom-and-pop's with a sustainable business can't and don't say, "Yeah, this is profitable, but it'd be more profitable if we dropped everything we're doing and put our resources towards a different sector entirely." But it's entirely feasible and rational for a large corporation to look at it's hundred sub-businesses, axe the ten least profitable, and put the people to work on the ten most profitable.

I'd be a lot happier if modern corporations were small, narrowly focused beasts, and not the monstrous conglomerations we have instead.

Re: Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013

#222
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a great example of why I don't move all my data to the cloud Music is a great use-case for keeping data in the cloud. You can have a consistent music library and can use any player client-side. Personally I prefer the spotify "all-you-can-listen" model, but I have a bunch of MP3s that aren't on spotify that I seamlessly stream from dropbox (either to winamp or the spotify client, which allows you to sync lo…

I think they complement each other rather than directly compete with each other. I have all my files stored locally, but I also have them all uploaded to Google Music so I can listen to them on my phone. Even if Google Music shuts down, I have local copies.

This is the smart strategy. If you're that concerned about the hands you're putting your music in, then all or nothing isn't a good plan.

Instead, diversify and maintain. I use iTunes Match, Google Music and keep everything locally as well as a backup on my server. It all happens automatically when music is added to the local library. Nothing is lost, and redundant access is gained.

Re: Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you ever try Foobar 2k - its arguably a better replacement for Winamp on windows

TheSOB88, you're hellbanned so barely anyone can see your comments.

What's this about? Parent's unsername is not TheSOB88.

Re: Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013

#225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is so much lost when moving to the cloud. Off the top of my head: You tie your data to one provider instead of simply physical media, you lose discoverability (will your kids browse your album choices 30 years from now?), exporting/importing quality is at the mercy of the provider (for example Amazon dropped several dozen mp3s when I migrated a few gigs to Google), and of course you place your data at the mercy…

That's why you run your own "cloud" music service. Personally I use Subsonic, and it is amazing. http://www.subsonic.org/pages/index.jsp

Sounded really good until I got to the part about needing to pay a subscription fee.

Re: Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013

#226
post #157

Show me one product/service/platform that got acquired by AOL and got better/bigger at there. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_AOL

I'd say Mozilla/Firefox somewhat counts. They acquired Netscape around 1998, and although they eventually ran Netscape itself into the ground AOL-style, they allowed the devs to work on Mozilla for quite some time. Long enough so they could create what would become the foundation of Firefox (Gecko and XUL, most notably).

Re: Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013

#227
post #36

Was using Winamp 5 for the past year but recently switched back to v2.95, which is allegedly the best version out there. Although it's 10 years old (!!), it's still the best music player available: lightweight, fast, responsive, and kept simple . I had hopes for the Windows 7 Media Player. But it turned out to be a dreadful experience. Me: Can't I pause that song by hitting space? WMP: No, there are no keyboard short…

The nice thing about old, simple software is that the attack vectors are often known publicly and are easy to work around. In the instance of Winamp, older versions of 2.x have a buffer overflow exploit in the playlist parsing. So.. don't load playlists from untrusted sources, something most people never do anyway.

Re: Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013

#228

I just switched back to Winamp after getting fed up with the latest release of iTunes. At least it's a real application that I can download and own for myself, and doesn't stop working just because it's no longer being supported. This is a great example of why I don't move all my data to the cloud, or use browser-based apps for things that matter to me. Hopefully they'll release the codebase to the world.

I also recently switched back to Winamp. It just works and it's easy to control.

There's also a plugin called Chipamp which ensures you have all the latest plugins required to play video game music files (nsf, rsn, usf, psf, etc.). This is the best PC tool for listening to video game music.

Re: Winamp shutting down on December 20th, 2013

#229

I just switched back to Winamp after getting fed up with the latest release of iTunes. At least it's a real application that I can download and own for myself, and doesn't stop working just because it's no longer being supported. This is a great example of why I don't move all my data to the cloud, or use browser-based apps for things that matter to me. Hopefully they'll release the codebase to the world.

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