In light of all the recent news about record industry's fight to prevent MP3 usage, WINAMP is definitely on the MP3s side, giving the new technology an attractive side that users have trouble turning away!

My favorite feature is the ability to "skin" WINAMP , making it more personal to the user. On the <a href= http://www.winamp.com >WINAMP home page</a>, literally thousands of categorized skins are available for download including catagories such as Sports, Beverages, or my personal favorite, Hot Women (ok so thats not a specific category, but you can find skins on the site that would fit into that category). The cool thing about the skins is that in order to have them work, they must be in the
c:\program files\winamp\skins directory, and if you just click on the skin on the website, it is automatically installed, and you see the new skin immediately. This is an important implementation for users who love music, but arent all that keen on downloading efficiently.

Another really interesting user-friendly tool is the usability of WINAMP plug-ins. My favorite, the Geiss WinAmp plug-in, kept me enthralled for hours when I first discovered it. That may explain my lower than preferred GPA but that's a different issue...It's a seamless graphical plugin that varies according to changes in the music. Very mesmerizing, and cool, it's great for parties supposing you have something to throw the output on a wall...

Overall though, aside from the bells and whistles, WINAMP truly does it all. It will even play WAV files if you choose to do so for some reason, and can be set up as a default CD Player, which is super cool since it automatically access the CDDB and fills in the song & artist names, unlike some programs which require that the user input that data.

The only faults I have with WINAMP is the random play feature, I have over 1100 MP3s on my playlist yet I hear a lot of the songs rather often, something I would love to avoid. Also, you should have the option of having WINAMP begin playing as soon as it opens up...if you know how to do so let me know...

So if you love music, that's all you need to love WINAMP too, it doesnt take a degree to be able to operate it as long as you have had exposure to some kind of CD Player in your life. It's really a major facilitator in a new technology that's changing the way music becomes popular, and I don't see that changing.



Recommended: Yes