FoxyTunes - Control Music Players in Firefox

FoxyTunes is a Firefox extension that lets you control a music player from the browser. The idea is not original, but this add-on supports a lot of music players (from Winamp, iTunes to RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, Amarok and foobar2000) and autodetects the current player. You can even use keyboard shortcuts if you don't like to click on small buttons.

If you use Winamp, you can obtain a similar effect by selecting the modern skin and entering the "Windowshade mode", a mini version of Winamp that could remain always on top. Windows Media Player can also be minimized to a small player integrated into the taskbar.

So why would you install this extension? Well, maybe you use a player that doesn't have a mini mode. Or maybe you want to use the search functionality of FoxyTunes. You can find information about the artist, song lyrics, videos and buy songs from iTunes. Foxytunes takes advantage of the new medium by letting you play files linked in a web page.

The interface is customizable and there are skins you can download. If you spend most of your online time in Firefox, it's a good idea to try this extension.

Related:
SongBird - Firefox as a media player
If Google developed a music player...

News Publishers Want Full Control of the Search Results

After a Belgian press organization sued Google for copyright infringement and won, World Association of Newspapers decided to create "an automated system for granting permission on how to use their content", reports Reuters. The system will be called Automated Content Access Protocol (ACAP).

If you're wondering why a such a system would be useful, you're not the only one. "Since search engine operators rely on robotic 'spiders' to manage their automated processes, publishers' Web sites need to start speaking a language which the operators can teach their robots to understand. What is required is a standardized way of describing the permissions which apply to a Web site or Web page so that it can be decoded by a dumb machine without the help of an expensive lawyer."

The publishers seem to ignore the fact that there is a system that lets you control what pages you want search engines to crawl: it's called robots.txt and it's available to every site owner. Probably some sites have an extremely valuable content and they need a new permission system, that will match their inflated self-importance.

Publishers were kind enough to offer an example: "In one example of how ACAP would work, a newspaper publisher could grant search engines permission to index its site, but specify that only select ones display articles for a limited time after paying a royalty." It's very strange to see this example. If you allow a search engine to crawl your site, you also allow it to display a small excerpt from the article (or at least the headline). If a site pays you to display the full articles (like Yahoo News), that site already knows it has the right to republish the content. Other sites, like Google News, send the visitors to the source of the article and they only aggregate and cluster articles.

I think news sites should be treated the same like the rest of the sites, and it's not necessary to create a new system for giving permissions to index a site.

Related:
Google Belgium homepage displays the court order
More about Google News