The online music company, Napster has updated their controversial software that allows users to listen to and trade MP3 files.
This new release comes at a time when the company is surrounded by laws suits from mega-recording artists such as Metallica and Dr. Dre.
Version 2, beta 9 of Napster offers users many new features as well as increased stability, performance and options to purchase music from CDNOW.
It looks like Napster now has direct ties to corporate America via the recently added CDNOW button. The navy colored button resides in the upper right-hand corner of Napster and is small in size.
The presentation and positioning of the CDNOW button is inconspicuous and should not distract users from the task at hand.
Downloading MP3s
If you do hear an artist's music via Napster and decide you would like to own the CD, clicking the CDNOW button makes it possible by transporting you to CDNOW.com's "Shop for music" section.
"It looks like Napster now has direct ties to corporate America..." File transfers have been made more user friendly. According to Napster and Napster users, version 2 beta 9 is more stable and keeps timeouts and file transfer errors to a minimum.
The search feature has also received a tweak. By adding a minus sign before a search term, that term will be excluded from the search results.
A Rename function has been included in the latest release of Napster. This allows you to change the name of your MP2 or WMA files without having to leave the Napster client. In addition, you don't need to type the extension. Napster does that automatically for you.
A quick note: If you can't find your recently downloaded files, there is a reason. Napster now saves them to a new folder called "My Files".
