Earcandy

[likemindead]

Earcandy is a PulseAudio volume manager, which for me is probably the first thing that i ever liked about pulse audio. This volume manager could mute music in your amarok or rhythombox or literally any music player when you play some video in youtube(i am not lying) or VLC or other video players. Mute is not the right word, but instead the music slowly fades away, and the sound from video player fades in. Sounds promising eh? But it is much better than you think.

ubuntumanual.org

[mccracken]

[The Doctor]

Amarok 2.5 Adds New USB Mass Storage Support

Highlights of Amarok 2.5.0:

· Brand-new USB Mass Storage support using Amarok Collection Scanner;
· Integrated Amazon MP3 store;
· Auto-save playlist functionality;
· Formated strings can now be used for suffix and prefix in Playlist's layout items;
· Better support for iPods;
· Last.fm neighbour/friend avatars are now loaded on demand;
· Shorter and better Internet service descriptions;
· Added Move to Trash and Delete actions to the context menu of the collection browser;
· libmygpo-qt >= 1.0.5 is a new dependency for Amarok;
· Ability to disable or enable browser widget backgrounds;
· Tracks can now be dropped in Saved Playlists' empty area to create a new playlist;
· Added 'create new playlist' action in the empty space of Saved Playlists;
· Podcast subscription synchronization;
· Podcast status synchronization;
· Ability to browse through gpodder.net suggested podcasts;
· Playlist doesn't group nameless albums;
· Ability to make TagGuesser presets;
· The tray tooltip now shows current timestamp;
· BPM is kept during track transfer;
· Better playlist synchronization;
· Tracks are now updated only when needed in the recently played widget;
· Wikipedia Applet fixes;
· Dynamic playlist improvements;
· Bottom toolbars are now aligned;
· Fixed Amarok startup CPU issue;
· Fixed built-in volume control;
· Fixed Amarok startup imported playlists issue;
· Fixed Amarok startup Audio CD detection issue;
· Fixed MusicBrainz search crash;
· Lots of other bugfixes!

I'm not a big fan of Amarok.  I find it to be too bloated (too many bells and whistles).  It's usually the first thing I delete from a new installation.