Image by Acid Zebra via Flickr

The recently released Banshee media player sparked interest after i read a linux.com review about it, so i thought i would check it out and compare it to my favorite player Amarok.

Since Amarok is well ahead of its competitor, lets focus on what they did right from the start:

• Video Player: since you dont have only MP3's and you like to use your iPod for something other then those.
• Bookmarks: when you just dont want to make a playlist
• CD Media extraction: When you want to store that CD and find it later

Another important issue for me is Last.fm integration:
Amarok lets you play a preset list of genres and neigboors like radio station. You can add additional channels but thats about it.

It also reports the files you play and you can "love" or "ban" a song. Switching channels or skipping songs is best to be avoided. Also, stats sinhronisation on your iPOD and play reporting dont mix well. Banshee polished up Last.fm support. You can play induvidual songs from your picked channels or neigboors. So skipping/loving/hating isnt a problem.  What i missed was being able to put those songs on a playlist or que.

Media device integration:
Really not much to say. Amarok's failure to play videos relays to it not being able to fill your ipod with them so Banshee is the winner here.
On the other hand, Amarok can use iPods statistics and synchronise them with its own and can also fill the device with cover art.

At the end, i cannot really part with Amarok since it deliveres where Banshee fails, for now.
Specifically, plugins+browser, Megatune, Shoutcast, visualisations and contextual data are what keeps me in place.

For My €0.02

I was simply fascinated how the distro is well polished, recognised my madwifi-based wireless card, sound, and graphics card instantly, so i was able to continue my work as the distro itself installed.

KDE4 was the desktop of my choice. Trough it was not able to shine fully since OpenGL was not setup in the live version, I found the interface to be quite appealing.

Yast2 has gotten a really impressive makeover, cutting down processing time multiple times.

Many programs arent ported to KDE4 yet so any big changes from what i had setup on 10.3 werent expected.

All in all, Install is fast, the interface is simple, the programs are new.

Also on site was the Slovenian military showing off their gadgets, you can see the pictures i took after the jump.

The Away3d team are pleased to announce the release of the 2.0.0 update to the Away3d engine!

You can download the update from the trunk in the svn repository:
http://away3d.googlecode.com/svn/trunk

or go to the downloads section of away3d.com where a new zip file is available:
http://www.away3d.com/downloads

Highlights of the update (posted on the site together with a new demo):

• Simulated phong shading (with blinn-phong specular highlights)
• Environment-mapped materials
• Normal-mapped materials (an open source first for Flash)
• Z-depth filter for large outdoor scenes
• Fog filter
• Straight-to-bitmap rendering for fast scaled views
• Surface caching for fast rendered lights
• Package refactor for easier learning of basic classes

/******************************************************************************
Description.: Send a complete HTTP response and a svg file
Input Value.: fildescriptor fd to send the answer to
Return Value: -
******************************************************************************/
void send_svg(int fd) {
unsigned char *frame=NULL;
int frame_size=0;
char buffer[BUFFER_SIZE] = {0};

if ( (frame = (unsigned char *)malloc(MAX_FRAME_SIZE)) == NULL ) {
fprintf(stderr, "not enough memory\n");
exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
}

/* wait for a fresh frame */
pthread_cond_wait(&pglobal->db_update, &pglobal->db);

/* read buffer */
frame_size = pglobal->size;
memcpy(frame, pglobal->buf, frame_size);
DBG("got frame (size: %d kB)\n", frame_size/1024);

pthread_mutex_unlock( &pglobal->db );

/* make file */
FILE *filesvg;
filesvg = fopen("/dev/shm/svgpipe", "w");
fwrite(frame, 1, frame_size, filesvg);

fclose(filesvg);
free(frame);

system("/usr/bin/convert /dev/shm/svgpipe /dev/shm/svgpipe.ppm");
system("/usr/bin/potrace -s /dev/shm/svgpipe.ppm");

/* response */
sprintf(buffer, "HTTP/1.0 200 OK\r\n" \
STD_HEADER \
"Content-type: image/svg+xml\r\n" \
"\r\n");
if( write(fd, buffer, strlen(buffer)) < 0 ) return;
/* read -> send file */

FILE *filesvg2;
filesvg2 = fopen("/dev/shm/svgpipe.svg", "r");
while (fgets(buffer,BUFFER_SIZE,filesvg2))
write(fd, buffer, strlen(buffer));
}

Link here.