Songbird is one powerful tool. You can find the software in the DVD accompanying this magazine. Installation is as easy as any other Windows software. Now, what can you do with this Songbird? Okay, let me rephrase the question here: what do you want to do? First, it is one of the most powerful music players Once installed you can add media, the partitions or folders where your music files are saved, and Songbird will create a library of all of your songs stored on your hard drive.

But these are all basic features that just about any music player gives us, and certainly not the reason why I like Songbird so much. I like it because it can double up as an efficient iPod manager tool as well as a full-fledged Web browser. We will first discuss the iPod manager. You need to install iPod support in Songbird. Simply click on Tools~ Add-ons~Install. Now, browse the DVD and follow this path: Software~multimedia~audio~ Songbird. Here, you will find two files; select the one that starts with the name ipod-3. When you click on this file, it will install iPod support and ask you to restart Songbird. Now, Songbird will recognise and connect your iPod automatically.

You can now rename any playlist or track; you can even edit the ID3 tags which store meta data about your music, such as the album name, composer, song title, year and album art. Just like iTunes, you can transfer your songs and video to your iPod through the software. (I will later talk about how to easily convert your videos to be played on iPod.) Just create a playlist for the new album/song you want to transfer to your iPod, and drag and drop the album into that playlist.

Now, you have an option similar to iTunes, to sync music automatically or manually When you sync the music, it will ask you whether your 'library has been synced with some other library' and whether you want to erase all the tracks on this iPod; click on 'No' otherwise it will erase all the data, which you had earlier synced using iTunes. This is one stupid feature of iTunes that I hate the most. In the world of Linux, GTKPod and Amarok never do any such things. Not only do these two software enable you to simply drag, drop and save your files on your iPod, but they also allow you to take back-ups of music from the iPod onto your PC. But that is possible only if you are using Linux. So, I wish you migrate to GNUILinux soon.

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Songbird has another important feature: restoring your iPod if it ever gets corrupted. Click on the iPod icon and select the Tools tab next to the Music tab to restore to factory settings. Coming back to the music features, Songbird has a full arsenal of add-ons or extensions. Connect to the Internet and check the option 'add-ons' on the default page of Songbird. Click on this option and it will open a page of add-ons for you.

One of the most interesting features you will find is Lyrics. Click on this and it will install a script, which will enable you to automatically connect to the Internet and show you the lyrics of the song that you are currently playing. You can also save those lyrics locally so that the next time you are listening to that song, you don't have to connect to the Internet to view the same lyrics.

You can also listen to LasUm and share music with your friends. As I said earlier, Songbird doubles up as a Web browser also. Click Ctrl+T and you will see a new tab, just like in Firefox, and you can start browsing the Internet; check your e-mails if you like.