Years ago when I was first using Napster on a then blazing-fast dual-channel ISDN connection, WinAmp was my media player of choice. It's come a long way since the early days, and gone from being used by those in the know to the go-to player of more than 84 million people worldwide.

When I finally updated from my trusty old RCA Lyra to an iPod Touch, I quickly downloaded WinAmp again and let it go to work on my library. Autotagging, organizing, and syncing was a breeze.

Tonight, version 5.5.6 arrives and brings with it beefed up discovery and social features thanks to the Orgler plugin. Orgler has been available separately since May, but it's now included as part of the main WinAmp download.

Similar to Last.fm scrobbling, the plugin keeps tabs on your listening and allows WinAmp to provide discovery features. Tracks you play are automatically added to your AOL Music profile page (here's mine - keep in mind I only activated the Orgler this morning). Streaming tracks aren't currently supported, though that will likely appear in future releases. Don't feel like sharing? It's not required, so just change your options in the Orgler preferences.

Over the past year, there's been something of a gold-rush for Twitter clients on the iPhone. From Twitterrific to Twitterfon, Tweetie to the recently-launched TweetDeck, there's a bucketload of apps to let you use Twitter on the go. Today sees the launch of another challenger for space on your homescreen: Birdfeed [iTunes Link]: "A very nice Twitter client for your iPhone".

In trying Birdfeed this evening, it's clear that a huge amount of time has been spent on the application from the exceptional icons (similar in style to those in another Download Squad favourite-app, Things) to some smart touches. Here's just some that caught my eye:

• a small dot in the 'Compose Tweet' button to show the presence of a draft
• a super-handy 'home' button that takes you back to your original list of tweets when you're drilling-down in the options
• the auto-loading of more tweets once you reach the bottom of the list
• integration with services like Favrd.

It's worth noting that Birdfeed doesn't do absolutely everything you may see in other clients. However that's of little concern to me quite frankly, as it features all the options I need on the go. Birdfeed is extremely well designed, super-snappy and well worth the $4.99 price. I know, we're fickle here at Download Squad when it comes to Twitter clients. However if you're wanting a slick new Twitter client, Birdfeed gets our thumbs up.

Love Aero Glass and the Windows 7 taskbar? Then clearly you're the type of person who also enjoys the much improved Vista-style start menu. Right?

Right?

Maybe not. Someone's betting that some users hate the updated menu system enough that they'll be willing to pay for an application that mimics the Classic start menu.

Oh yes, it's yours, my friend. As long as you have enough rubies.

Or $25, whichever.

What the hell, people. There may be other little annoyances in Windows 7 that we'd prefer had never changed from the XP days, but the start menu? It's so much easier to just tap the Win key and start typing what I want to launch than browsing through an immense list of folders. I can't recall the last time I actually clicked through the start menu to find a program.

The fact that this program exists doesn't surprise me. After all, charging money for access to outdated features is a time-tested way for IT companies to rake in a little extra cash.

[via Supersite]

When pricing information for Windows 7 upgrades first appeared, it sounded like more good news for consumers. The leaked Best Buy memo offered a price of $49.99, and Windows 7 fanatics everywhere cheered. That, coupled with the free upgrade coupons OEMs were offering to consumers sure made it look like Microsoft was going to be extremely aggressive with pricing.

Fast forward, and now we know that the rock-bottom price is for pre-orders only and retail copies will set you back $119.99 for Home Premium and $199.99 for Professional. That's only $10 less than Vista upgrades ran initially, and hardly what I'd call aggressive.

Further disappointing news is that Microsoft has now instructed OEMs to cap free upgrades on volume purchase at 25 units. While that's plenty of room for smaller businesses, it's a sharp two-finger salute to medium and large business.

Four small businesses can get 100 free upgrades, but your large enterprise has to pay for the extra 75?

Ouch.

That's not really the kind of announcement that will make IT administrators jump at the chance to get new metal running Windows 7.

[via Daily Tech]

If your job has you tasked with monitoring your company's online presence, you're probably dealing with Twitter in some way. Running occasional manual searches for your company's name is one way to go, but a better way would be to sign up with a service like TweetBeep.

TweetBeep is a free service that will email you as frequently as once per hour with any Twitter mentions of the search terms of your choice. The service is ad-supported, but if you find that you need it, TweetBeep also offers a premium option for $20US/month that allows you to receive updates as frequently as every 15 minutes, up to 200 different alert searches, and no advertising.

While TweetBeep allows you to set a number of criteria for your alerts, one of the most interesting is the ability to set an "Attitude" criteria. You can choose from three:

• Positive attitude
• Negative attitude
• Asking a question

This appears to be a fantastic way to stay on top of how people are perceiving your company or brand, and gives you the ability to very quickly react to your customers or users. It can also be useful for heavy Twitter users to ensure they don't miss any mentions. I should note that as of the time of this writing I had some difficulty with the email confirmation process - it took multiple requests and over an hour before my email confirmation arrived in my inbox.

[via Stay N' Alive]

Last week Microsoft announced that it would be discontinuing Microsoft Money, the company's personal finance application. Download Squad readers came up with a number of great suggestions for anyone looking for a replacement. But the 800 pound gorilla in the room is Quicken. And now Intuit, the company behind Quicken are reaching out to Microsoft Money customers by offering tools to import Money data to Quicken. The company is also offering discounts of up to $50 on Quicken software.

Those coupons start at $20 off the price of Quicken Deluxe, bringing the price down to $39.99. You can also get $30 off the price of Quicken Premier or Home& Business, or $50 off the price of Rental Property Manager. Or if your finances aren't that complicated, you could just try Quicken Online for free.

The coupons are good through July 31st. Microsoft will stop selling Money at the end of June, although support will be available through January, 2011.

It's been a long-debated topic as to the pricing (and availability) of Apple's next operating system release: Mac OS X 10.6 - a.k.a. Snow Leopard. However at the annual Worldwide Developer Conference in San Francisco Apple has (if you'll excuse the pun) let the cat out of the bag and announced that Snow Leopard will be available in September for $29 (if you're upgrading from Mac OS X Leopard), with Family Packs for up to 5 computers costing just $49 - again, if you're upgrading from 10.5.

Long-touted as 'just' a behind-the-scenes update, Snow Leopard features support for Microsoft Exchange, a re-written Finder and an all-new QuickTime player with hardware acceleration and built-in YouTube uploading. There's also a tonne of new developer technologies to allow developers to handle multi-processor machines with Grand Central, and an all-round speed increase for all the OS components.

Apple's official web pages have yet to be updated with the pricing details or more information beyond the original holding pages, however in today's WWDC keynote Apple confirmed dates, pricing and some more features - as well as confirming that Mac OS X Snow Leopard is indeed going to only run on Intel-based Macs.

If you're running Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger on an Intel machine, the options are between a Mac Box Set (featuring Snow Leopard, iLife '09 and iWork '09) for $169 or 5-User Family Pack which brings you the iLife, iWork and Snow Leopard package for $229.

If you're wanting to stay up to date on everything at WWDC, be sure to stop by our good friends at TUAW who're covering the conference throughout this week.

Remember how I drew the similarity between Jack Napier dumping cash on the unsuspecting rubes of Gotham and Microsoft opening Technet to anyone who filled out a form?

Well, the poisonous gas has been released.

According to a lengthy phone call between blogger Kristan Kenney and a Technet support rep, you weren't supposed to have access to that offer. If you downloaded keys or software and weren't one of the select few actually invited in my Microsoft, you're a dirty pirate.

Don't use those product keys - they've been blacklisted, and WGA will eat you alive and burn down your house if you try to use them. They can see which keys were provided to which subscriber, and they'll track you down.

I understand that the link was leaked by someone outside Microsoft and they can't be blamed for the mayhem that ensued, but come on. Is this the best solution they could come up with? What's next? Waterboarding to find the original source of the leak?

Oh well. At least we still have our Windows 7 RC to use for free until next year.

Adobe has been busily working away on the Flash/Flex platform, announcing late yesterday that three new releases were headed to Adobe Labs.

The Flex SDK has reached version 4, and Flex Builder has been re-branded as Flash Builder. The new version delivers loads of new functionality and focuses on three keys: developer productivity, designer-developer workflow, and data-centric development.

Since Flash Builder just hit labs, that means there's a free download for you. You'll need an Adobe account, but once registered you're free to download the Flash Builder 4 30-day beta (existing Flex 3 licensees will receive a serial number via email to extend the trial), the Eclipse plugin, a component kit for Flash Pro, and an HP QuickTest plugin.

On the workflow front, they have released Flash Catalyst, a tool which allows interfaces designed in Photoshop and Illustrator to be easily converted to SWF. The beta is available for download, and serial numbers are provided to extend your tryout beyond 30 days.

For a look at what's new in the Flex SDK, check out the post from Adobe's Matt Chotin and read up on the differences between version 3 and 4.

Reaper is a powerful multitrack digital audio editor for Windows and OS X. And it's dirt cheap compared to comparable apps like Pro Tools or Adobe Audition. While a full license will set you back $225, you can purchase a discounted license for just $60 if you're buying it for personal or non-profit use.

The company's also cool with you're paying for a discounted license if you're a for-profit, but you make less than $20,000 a year. Oh, and there's absolutely zero difference in a fully licensed copy of Reaper and a version with a discounted license. There's also a 30 day free evaluation period, after which you're hit with a nag message every time you launch Reaper.

Last week the team released Reaper 3.0. If you've been following the app's progress, you shouldn't be surprised by any of the new features. It seems like there's a new point release every week or two. But here are some of the major changes and improvements since Reaper 2.5.x:

• Improved memory use
• Native graphics rendering engine
• Automation lanes
• Multiple tabbed projects
• Improved MP3 seek accuracy
• Nested track folders
• Multichannel (greater than stereo) media support, including MOGG
• FX parameter controls on track and mixer control panels
• Customizable toolbar icons and actions

[via Making Music]

Computer World has published an article asking whether or not Adobe could be gearing up to open-source Flash. That's a question I discussed a while back with Adobe's Dave McAllister, and one that he's continually answered with "the Flash player is as open as I can get it right now."

While most of the inner workings of Flash are already open (The Flex SDK, Blaze DS, and ActionScript virtual machine) there continue to be cries for it to be fully open. Among the stumbling blocks preventing that are the proprietary codecs Adobe licenses (h.264 for video, HE-AAC for audio). "We will continue to open source the technologies that power Flash whenever we have the right to do it," McAllister told me.

Flash is by far the most dominant platform for delivering 80% of all web video and countless browser-based games. Computer World hypothesized that Microsoft's support of the OSS Moonlight project - which has brought Silverlight to Linux - may be putting the heat may be on Adobe to counter quickly.

Adobe sees things differently. Microsoft knows they can't close the gap without help, so getting behind a community effort like Moonlight "Open source can be used as a marketing tool and competitive weapon," McAllister explained. "Silverlight doesn't have the ecosystem that Flash does, so Microsoft is looking at different ways to compete," he continued.

Getting your hands on the upcoming Office 2010 Preview release might not be as simple as downloading the Windows 7 RC, but if you're looking for a way to get it right from the source, the registrar's office is now open.

Microsoft has set up a new blog for Office 2010 and is taking signups from users who would like to try out the technical preview when it's released on July 1st. The preview is invite only - just because you register doesn't mean Microsoft will be providing you with a link.

Three important things to know about Office 2010 right now are pointed out on the blog:

• the suite will be released in both 32 and 64 bit versions
• hardware that can run already Office 2007 will handle 2010 as well
• systems will need to be running at least XP Service Pack 3 (Vista and 7 are good to go)

While it's no Star Trek, Microsoft has also posted a trailer for Office 2010: The Movie for you to enjoy during what they call "the countdown to awesome."