I'm happy to say as promised, 1.4.3-1 has been finished.

A couple of notes before you download and install:

1) i686 and x86_64 were fully tested on clean F12 installs and worked without
any issues, so I am satisfied. However, I spent hours trying to debug an
"audiosink" issue on my x86_64 install and it turned out to be a leftover
config from when I was running F11 and my X-Fi sound card, which was not
supported properly and not using autoaudiosink. The point is, songbird is very
sensitive to which audio engine you are using. If you have playback issues on a
system that has been upgraded F10->F11->F12, etc, most likely that is your
problem and you're not running the same way as a fresh F12 install

Example: Something along these lines...
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rhythmbox/+bug/442157

2) I do not have a PPC/PPC64 system any more, so the builds are untested. They
completed successfully, but I can't verify functionality.

3) I recommend using the absolute latest gstreamer and gstreamer-plugins
available in the repo, Songbird constantly upstreams patches. Old gstreamer
versions can lead to playback issues. As always, mp3 support is through the
full suite of gstreamer-plugins not available or licensed from Fedora.

4) To take the load off the devs, when reporting bugs back to Songbird please

I've been holding off on venting my frustration for the last couple of months now, but I've finally had it with Gamefly, the self-touting "#1 online video game rental service." It's really a shame that they choose to run their business in such a shoddy manor, because with no real competition around (except for maybe Blockbuster) they could easily be as big as Netflix. Yet, time and time again they prove to be 100% deserving of a ride on the FAIL boat.

Having been a long time customer of Netflix, I've come accustomed to a huge selection, extremely fast turn around time, and hassle free issue handling. Naturally, when I decided to try out Gamefly six months ago I took for granted that I would be receiving the same level of service. Holy shit was I in for a surprise!

First off, let's compare the rental plans. I'm currently signed up for the three DVD plan with Netflix for $16.99 and the single game rental plan with Gamefly for $15.95. Understandably, games cost three times as much as a DVD, so the cost was one thing I wasn't too concerned about. The queue system also seemed to be the same, so I went down my list of wanted games, ranked them accordingly and ended up with about ten games queued with some exploratory fillers at the bottom. From there everything started to go downhill FAST.

After waiting a couple of years for the right opportunity, I've been lucky enough to spend ten days in Belgrade, Serbia hanging out with a good friend and following the up and coming heavy metal band Draconic. Not only is this city extremely fun to hang out in, but the metal fans here are some of the friendliest and most hardcore group of people I've ever met. The first night I was already head banging and drinking beer with them only a few hours after getting off the plane. It's going to be an interesting week to say the least!

But moving on to the band... these guys rock HARD. Not only are they very tight and play like pros, but the amount of energy they bring to the show is impressive. Every song results in an all out explosion of sound from stage and is matched by the feedback from the audience. I expect great things to come of them in the near future. Their first major record From the Wrong Side of the Aperture is already available in Europe and is set to be released soon in North America as well. According to the bass player, Lazar Galic, the band already has a great deal of new material and is hoping to start work a new release soon.

Just a small update, the Songbird 1.1.2 Fedora RPMs are now available in the usual place. Fedora adoption is moving along and hopefully will happen in the near future. The main push behind the 1.1.2 release was a couple of bugs, including a top crasher that was identified after the 1.1.1 release. Updating is recommended, although you shouldn't see too much of a difference.

The last couple of weeks have seen some interesting bugs creep up in the Songbird 1.1.1 release. First we had the annoying gconf popup with bug 15432, and then everyone quickly noticed that songs would hang after a plays, which was noted in bug 15401. Well I'm happy to say that these bugs have now been squashed and you can go back to happily listening to your ridiculously huge library of mp3s... except that's only half true, and so begins my rant...

As we soon found out, the bugs actually were never present in Songbird. They are, in fact, a bi-product of the package (rpm) building. I collaborated with a few different package builders from Gentoo and SUSE when we quickly realized that the bugs weren't in official Songbird builds, but were in every Linux package build.

What's the problem you say? Sadly, it's the way Songbird is developed. You see, unlike many other open source project in the Linux world, Songbird is built much like a Windows app. Now, that could be because it started out as a Windows app to begin with, or just because that's the particular model that the developers choose to go with, but the fundamental issue is that Songbird acts as it's own universe instead of fitting into the various popular Linux models out there. Much like Windows apps, it is all inclusive and provides everything it needs.