In general I have always been fairly late to the party where digital music is concerned. In high school, I only had one disc of music that had been lent to me by a friend, and I played it on the most basic version of winamp there was. No different skins, no apps (though I don't think apps really existed then). My stay in digital music purgatory lasted until college, where I discovered the glory that was Napster. Backed by the power of the colleges T1 servers, I went on a music downloading binge. 24/7 that program was running on my laptop. I was still playing it all on winamp, but at least I had some quality music to play. After college I got my first iPod and iTunes has been a constant and often frustrating companion since then. Recently though I have been getting truly fed up with it. The software is bloated, taking up massive amounts of ram and constantly tries to get you download Safari and Mobile Me. You also never truly get rid of the feeling that you are somehow Apple's bitch. The worst aspect of the program however, was how difficult it made sorting, relabeling and adjusting your files. Most of the time, changes had to be made to individual tracks, and when your library is in excess of 5,000 songs and podcasts, that is just unacceptable. So, spurred by the fact that my girlfriend needed a program that would allow her to rebuild her library from her iPod, I searched for a suitable alternative. I found Mediamonkey.
