More information is available about Spotify at the following links:

• Official Spotify website
• Spotify wikipedia article

The following Spotify guide is available on this website.

• How to get Spotify links to work in Linux

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Later today (1st October 2009), the Spotify client will be activated with a new feature – offline mode and the ability to syncronise playlists to your computer’s hard drive. The mobile Spotify applications, for Google Android phones and the iPhone, had this feature upon release and it is now being integrated into their primary product, the desktop Spotify application.

Update: Spotify have sent offline mode live and made an annoucement about offline mode on their blog.

The image above displays how Spotify will show tracks which are currently downloading to your computer’s hard drive and the playlist icon indicating whether or not a playlist is set to the ‘Available Offline’ status. To set a playlist to be available offline will be a simple matter of right-clicking the desired playlist and clicking ‘Make available offline’ from the right-click menu. The chosen playlists and all their tracks will then be downloaded to your computer’s hard drive (encrypted of course) and be available to play if your Internet connection goes down temporarily or even if you have no connection at all. I would imagine, although this has not be confirmed, that users will be required to login (online) to Spotify at least once a month so the client knows the Premium subscription is still active.

Spotify themselves announced the following regarding Offline mode.

“We’re proud to announce that later today we will be extending the popular ‘Offline mode’ that is available on Spotify Mobile and bringing it to the desktop version of Spotify.”

“Beginning later today, Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to select their playlists and set them to be ‘Available offline’. Those playlists will then be synced to the computer so you can listen to your favorite tunes even if your internet connection goes down or if you’re at summer house with no connection at all.”

It appears this idea was originally submitted by a Spotify customer on Spotify’s idea pages, as ‘Offline Spotify’.

“It would have been great if it could be turned on “Offline mode”. So the music that we listen to most, could be listen to, even in offline mode.”

More information about Spotify’s new offline mode is available from TechRadar, the Telegraph and Times Online.

If you liked this post, you may be interested in these:

1. Spotify – What exactly is Spotify? A fantastic steaming music service, that’s what.
2. Spotify – How to get Spotify links to work in Linux
3. Ubuntu 9.10 Release
4. New England Conservatory (NEC) of Music

Having been a tester of Ubuntu 9.10 during its development, I can tell you that Ubuntu 9.10 will feature the following upon its release.

• E-mail and Chat Features – Ubuntu 9.10 will feature a built-in instant messenging client, Empathy, which can connect to many of the most popular instant messaging services, including Yahoo, Gmail (Google Talk), MSN (Windows Live), Jabber, AOL, QQ and many more. In addition to instant messaging, the latest version of the e-mail and personal information management program, Evolution, is included. Evolution can manage your contacts, e-mail, schedule, tasks and memos – all for free.

• Internet – Ubuntu 9.10 ships will the very latest version of Mozilla Firefox, which is much faster and excellent for browsing modern websites and web applications which are heavy on dynamic client-side content, such as Javascript. Complex web pages such as Facebook, Google Maps and others will load and work lightning fast.

• Music and videos – Music and videos are managed with ease in Ubuntu 9.10. Simply plug in your iPod, PSP, MP3 or MP4 player and use the built-in media player, Rhytmbox, to download, store, buy and play your music collection. Ubuntu 9.10 can play many video formats with no problems and anything it can not play it will offer to download and install the required codecs automatically, and for free.

• Office and productivity – Word processing, spreadsheets or presentations can all be handled by the latest version of OpenOffice.org which is including in the latest version of Ubuntu. OpenOffice is compatible with all other office applications including, but not limited to, Microsoft Office.

• Store, share and synchronise – Ubuntu 9.10 features integrated ‘Ubuntu One’ service, which allows you to easily and seamlessly synchronise your contacts, notes, files and folders between all your Ubuntu computers. Even if you are on a computer running Mac or Windows you can still access all your files online, meaning you’ll never be at computer without your files.

• Software centre – The brand new software centre for this version of Ubuntu allows you to download and install thousands of free and open-source applications automatically with only 2 or 3 clicks.

• Gaming – Linux-based systems are generally not well known for their gaming prowess. However, Ubuntu 9.10 ships with the ability to download over 400 fun games directly from the built-in software centre. All these games are still completely free and installable with only a few clicks.

This latest version of Ubuntu provides advantages for both business workstations and home user desktops. Although not mentioned in this article so far, for enterprises and small home/offices, the server edition of Ubuntu 9.10 is also released tomorrow alongside the desktop edition.

For more information about Ubuntu, visit the official Ubuntu website.

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5. OSS – Open-source software and the related freedoms