Nullsoft Winamp Pro is a fast, flexible, high-fidelity media player for Windows. Winamp supports playback of many audio (MP3, OGG, AAC, WAV, MOD, XM, S3M, IT, MIDI, etc) and video types (AVI, ASF, MPEG, NSV), custom appearances called skins (supporting both classic Winamp 1.x/2.x skins and Winamp 3 freeform skins), audio visualization and audio effect plug-ins (including two industry dominating visualization plug-ins), an advanced media library, Internet radio and TV support, CD ripping, and CD burning.

Winamp Highlights:
• New portable device features – transcoding, new sync options, USB thumbdrive player support, video sync, direct-from-device playback
• Faster ripping
• Improved AAC and aacPlus encoding
• Unicode metadata, filename, and title support
• iTunes-compatible gapless playback (MP3/M4A) and encoding (M4A)
• Optional 24bit playback
• ReplayGain support
Winamp Player Features:
• Plays Music and Video Files (aacPlus, MP3, AAC, WMA and more!)
• Compatible with Winamp 2 Plug-ins
• Full Support for Classic and Modern Skins
• Plays Videos (NSV, WMV, and more!)
• Powerful Media Library
• Browse SHOUTcast Radio & TV Stations
• Browse Winamp Music Videos & Songs
• Integrated AOL Video Content (News, Sports, Movies & more)
• AOL Radio Featuring XM
• SHOUTcast Wire (podcast directory)
• Predixis MusicMagic (dynamic playlisting)
• Bundled Visualizations
• Burn CDs (Limited to 2x – 48x in Pro!)
• Rips CDs (Limited to 8x aacPlus, AAC, WMA – Unlimited aacPlus, AAC, WMA and MP3 in Pro!)
• 50 free mp3s from Emusic
• Includes Winner of the Internet
• Surround Music Project!
• Includes an MP3 of ‘Mercy Me’ by Alkaline Trio
• Rip/Encode music into aacPlus, AAC, WMA, or MP3!
• Burn CDs up to 48x!

What’s New in Winamp 5.552?
• Improved iPod Sync Support
• New iTunesLibrary Import
• New Online Services Gallery
• New OurStage Radio Online Services
• New Spinner MP3 of the Day Online Service
• New Turkish, Romanian, and Portuguese Language Packs

As always Winamp also features:
• Now Playing: Discover Artist Songs, Videos, Radio and Photos
• iPod Support: Play and manage music on your iPod
• AOL Radio Online Service Powered by CBS Radio
• Album Art: Retrieve and view Album Art
• Expanded Flash video support
• Auto-Tag: Automatically update your song information
• Media Monitor: Playing the music web just got even better
• Remote Media: Access your media remotely
• Thousands of skins and plug-ins to make Winamp even better
• Free videos, radio stations, MP3 downloads and more

Changes in Winamp 5.552:
• Fixed: [gen_ff] memcpy integer overflow vulnerability in maki script loading

Size : 13.2 MB

Winamp.v5.552.rar

Winamp es un reproductor de audio y vídeo muy práctico, funcional y con un vistoso aspecto.
Winamp, el famoso e histórico reproductor de Nullsoft, es ahora capaz de reproducir con soltura prácticamente todos los formatos de audio y vídeo, lógicamente, siempre y cuando dispongas del codec instalado.

Tamaño: 8.6 mb

Week 2 (for Feb. 9, 2009) – design critique

When I got a new computer last year, it took a while to get used to. One thing I had to change was my music player software; iTunes, which I had used for several years on my old computer, did not work very well with the new one, so I switched to Nullsoft Winamp. While Winamp perfoms the same function as iTunes, playing music, its interface is vastly different.

WinAmp has a very complicated interface*. The top left of the window is the “Now Playing” section, where the song title, song progress (both in a digital clock and a progress bar), play options buttons (play, stop, pause, forward, back), and volume are displayed clearly, if small. Next to this box along the top is a box containing more details about the song; this part can be customized. Along the left edge of the window, there is a navigation tree, showing libraries and playlists for easy access. Along the right edge of the window is the current playlist, which can be edited in window without affecting existing playlists. Under the playlist is album art. Both the playlist and the album art boxes can be minimized so they don’t show in the window. The main box in the center is the selected playlist or library; the title bar at the top can be customized as well. There is a lot going on in such a small area, with a very small font, and upon first glance, it’s quite overwhelming.

The interface can be customized in hundreds of different ways, which is helpful, but it takes a while to figure out how everything can be changed. The color scheme can be changed, and there are about 50 different combinations. There are lots of options for playback, interface, and internet settings, but the program assumes a certain level of savviness that most typical users do not have. For example, on this options window, there are several options that make no sense to me (even though I consider myself fairly computer-savvy), like “Allow multiple instances,” and they are not readily explained in the window. They can probably be found in the help, but if it’s not readily available, it will likely frustrate the average user. The buttons located all over the window are small and the images on them are hard to see and hard to translate. A rollover with the mouse will reveal their uses, but often they still don’t make much sense.

When a user switches from iTunes to Winamp, like I did, the changes are rather hard to get used to. The program can’t upload cd tracks into mp3 files without paying money like iTunes does for free. There is no live update (a form of feedback) of Play Count or Last Played as the songs are played; it requires a re-load of the page to see the changes, and there is no refresh button or any other intuitive way to refresh the page (I just click on a different page and then go back to the first one; this is enough to refresh it). The music file information cannot be easily edited in Winamp, and the playlist views only have the title and length of the song, not all the options of the libraries. Also, the keyboard shortcuts are not only completely different from those of iTunes, they are also vastly unintuitive.

As can be seen in this composite of screenshots, all the keyboard shortcuts are seemingly random letters or combinations of Alt/Ctrl/Shift and random letters (also, I could not figure out for the life of me what “Num. 1″ and “Num. 3″ are. It’s not the numbers 1 and 3, nor the numbers with Num Lock on, or F1/F3. It made me mad.). The letters don’t necessarily correspond to their functions, either; it requires memorization to use them. In iTunes, the space bar is used as Play/Pause, and the left/right arrow keys are used to move between successive songs. In Winamp, the spacebar does nothing, and the left/right arrow keys move 5 seconds forward/back in the song, which is a rather useless function in my opinon. Play/Pause is C, and Z/X are used for forward and back, respectively. This initially makes no sense, but upon examination of a QWERTY keyboard, all the playback options are along the bottom left of the keyboard, in order (ZXCVB). This makes ergonomic sense, but it’s not immediately obvious. Also, the playback keyboard shortcuts only work when the Now Playing box has been selected (just clicked on). There is absolutely nothing in the interface that indicates whether the Now Playing box has been selected, nor is there anything that tells the user that it has to be. If Z ,X ,C, V, or B is pressed in any other selected box, it jumps to the first item that starts with that letter, which, if it’s not the desired effect, can be irksome.

While a lot of Winamp’s features are annoying, there are a lot of good things about it that are better than iTunes. For one, there is an internet browser right in the interface, so listening to music and surfing the internet can both be accessed without switching windows; this mapping is very convenient. The visualization in Winamp is much more sophisticated than that of iTunes; the images pulsate to the beat, and the visuals go well with the music itself. The title and artist of the song are mentioned at the beginning of the visualization and then swirl into the visualization itself, which is very aesthetically pleasing. There are dozens of skin (window layout and design) and color options in Winamp, something iTunes doesn’t offer. Not all people like the same colors and window design, so Winamp lets the user choose what he or she likes. Also, the program lets the user upload music on to almost any portable music player inside the program, whereas iTunes is only really compatible with iPods. The location of the Now Playing box is good mapping; Now Playing is the most important part of a music player, and the top left is where humans will first look at a window, so the most important thing will be the first thing seen. Also, the digital clock is in a bigger font than the rest of the entire interface, so it will be the first thing people will see.

A few things I would improve to make the experience even better:

• Explain all the options better. In the options window, there could be small text boxes that will pop up with a mouse rollover briefly explaining vaguely-worded options. For more advanced users, the pop ups can be turned off.
• Make the keyboard shortcuts more intuitive, like making the letters of the shortcuts correspond to the functions they serve.
• A live update of the song data would be very useful–more feedback is always good in any interface, and instantaneous feedback is even better.

Once I figured out how to use all the many features of Winamp, I really grew to like it. The learning curve is longer and steeper than iTunes, but it’s worth it.

*All images are screenshots of my own computer. Hopefully my music choices aren’t too embarrassing.

The Untouchable DJ Drastic Broadcasts Exclusive Mix Show On JellyRadio.com (New Years Eve 2009 & New Years Day 2009)

New Years Eve December 31st, 2008 | New Years Day January 01st, 2009

Website URL: www.JellyRadio.com

JellyRadio.com hosts a special 48 hour mix master broadcast to ring in 2009. Jelly Radio is a 24 hour urban radio station that currently broadcasts online. The station also broadcasts via Apple iTunes and Nullsoft SHOUTcast Radio. Apple iPod and Sony PSP users can also tune into the station directly from their devices. The Untouchable DJ Drastic provides exclusive mix show content for the celebration. Check your local listings for broadcast dates and times.

Call The Untouchable DJ Drastic courtesy of SayNow.com @ (718) 354-8774 or go to www.saynow.com/djdrastic

The Untouchable DJ Drastic Broadcasts Exclusive Mix Show On JellyRadio.com (New Years Eve 2009 & New Years Day 2009)

New Years Eve December 31st, 2008 | New Years Day January 01st, 2009

Website URL: www.JellyRadio.com

JellyRadio.com hosts a special 48 hour mix master broadcast to ring in 2009. Jelly Radio is a 24 hour urban radio station that currently broadcasts online. The station also broadcasts via Apple iTunes and Nullsoft SHOUTcast Radio. Apple iPod and Sony PSP users can also tune into the station directly from their devices. The Untouchable DJ Drastic provides exclusive mix show content for the celebration. Check your local listings for broadcast dates and times.

Call The Untouchable DJ Drastic courtesy of SayNow.com @ (718) 354-8774 or go to www.saynow.com/djdrastic

Inno setup from jrsoftware.org is a free installer for window program. Another one is NSIS, and open source system to create window installer.

Wix Installer is another option. Just found out about Wix recently and it seem a very good option.

Wix Project page
Wix Tutorial page
Innosetup homepage
NullSoft scriptable install system

Este nuevo proyecto es unicamente un explorador de Radios Online, que esta basado en la tecnologia de NullSoft “SHOUTcast”, que es un protocolo (por decirlo de alguna manera) usado para la transmision en stream de Radios y emisiones locales por usuarios.

Todo esto es gratuito, incluido mi software, que no es otra cosa que un gestionador-explorador de las emisoras de SHOUTcast.

Mi programa sera capaz de buscar una cancion determinada, o un artista determinado en el servidor, y mostrarte todos los resultados , tambien permite buscar una radio por genero (Rock, Rap, Pop, Dance, hits,….). Claro esta, tambien permitira escuchar la emisora haciendo -doble click- sobre la emisora deseada, y automaticamente comenzara a oirse usando por el momento -software de terceros- para la reproduccion en stream.

Bueno, esto es solo un adelanto de lo que estoy haciendo, que ya es funcional (hace todo lo que describo en el parrafo de arriba), pero que todavia no esta preparada como para ver la luz.

En breve, una version de SeX (Shoutcast eXplorer, no confundir con otra cosa.. xD) estara disponible para probarla.

Aprovecho este post, para mencionar que esta casi lista una nueva beta de Controleitor, en este caso la 0.9.5, con un nuevo nucleo PCore, para mejorar el sistema de pings, que fallaba en determinadas circustancias.

There’s something amazing about laying in bed listening to my favorite live internet radio programs for the first time. It was something like playing Super Mario World on Game Boy advance while out and about. Too good to be true.

AOL radio is great and all but it’s a little controlled. CBS Radio has a stake in the programming and the stations are run by large entities. It’s perfect for listening to AM 1090 KPTK here in Seattle for portable Stephanie Miller or dial into 97.1 Free FM for Adam Carolla’s incessant ramblings or Tom Leykis if I want to resent women.
But let’s say I want to listen to something more off the beaten path. This is where the Tuner app from Nullriver, Inc excells. Stations vary in size from large major radio stations to dank old basements running playlists unmanned.

Random Loveline is self explanatory and is one of my favorites to listen. Dr. Drew and Carolla had perfect chemistry and impeccable ability of diagnosis mostly to abused women with the desire to find their long lost daddies.

FartSTEAM has a playlist of a cubic butt ton of prank calls and comedy bits and is host to live prank radio shows in which you can hear pranks as they happen and even participate yourself by calling in.

As for music, there are countless stations to choose from. Every genre you can think of. There are even karaoke stations playing the average Joe’s attempt at their favorite ballad. (Listen with caution)

The world of music is now accessible on your iPhone/iPod.

BUT!!!

The first release of this software allowed access to all stations. Updates to the software inhibited most of the stations from showing up when you search for them. Bad idea. They killed the beauty of discovery as was possible with Shoutcast.Now, URLs must be found of the station you want (via Mac or PC) and you must add it manually. Why did they do this? I don’t know. If I researched a little I could probably find out, but I would like to think it’s because of higher powers associated with federal communications. The radio industry doesn’t really like internet radio, especially the small stations pumping out music that can be heard on the FM dial.

It’s a small road block and one that I can deal with.  I know the stations I’d like to listen to on my iPod and I have entered them in. For those who aren’t familiar with the range of stations available, I recommend searching through shoutcast without the limitations of Tuner’s search.

I recommend purchasing the Tuner app if you are into not just music but into radio. There’s just something about being able to listen to local radio in Sydney or paranormal radio from a portable device.

Use Pandora for music,
AOL radio for syndicated broadcast,
and Tuner for everything else you’ve ever wanted to hear.

—UPDATE—

Insight from a professional of the broadcast industry, Joe Cassara of WDNA FM in Florida

“The radio industry doesn’t really like internet radio, especially the small stations pumping out music that can be heard on the FM dial.”
Joe Cassara wrote:
Just a few notes:

1. The FCC isn’t a player in this. (At any rate, Nullriver appears to be a Canadian company.)

2. The NAB is lukewarm towards online radio.

3. The radio business itself is salivating over internet radio’s potential.

4. The *record industry* hates internet radio.

Saludos avinautas!! Pues ya se acabó el fin de semana, seguro hace poco que llegaron a su work station, tomaron su asiento, ponen su cafecito sobre el escritorio, hacen un largo suspiro para enfrentar lo que sea que les presente esta semana… y encendieron su computadora… “hmmm pero, ¿mientras que hago?”, seguramente se preguntaron, donde en ese momento deciden navegar por los blogs como buenos avinautas que son y visitaron éste (motivo por lo que les estoy muy agradecido =D).

Si alguno de ustedes que tienen un poco de tiempo que no se paraban por acá, les platico rápidamente que en las más recientes entradas se ha explicado los elementos básicos para ser un DJ en SL. Hoy concluimos el tema en como lograrlo con la ayuda un programa completamente GRATIS!!

Me refiero a winamp, es un programa algo básico, no cuenta con algunos detalles que ofrecen otros software, pero cumple su cometido y lo logra sin que les cueste ni un linden (o sea gratis pues). Si no cuentan con este software hagan click aquí para descargarlo.

Una vez descargado, instálenlo en su disco duro, pero para poder llegar a nuestro objetivo de transmitir audio, antes hay que bajar e instalar su plugin llamado SHOUTcast, también es gratuito y lo pueden descargar aquí: PC o Mac, Linux o FreeBSD. Tengan cuidado ya que hay que instalarlo con el winamp apagado/cerrado.

Una vez instalado abren winamp, se van a la sección de Preferences (Ctrl+P) seleccionan DSP/Effect  (en la izquierda de su ventana) y en el campo de la derecha le dan click a Nullsoft SHOUTcast Source… donde aparecerá una pequeña ventana, con las siguientes pestañas:

MAIN: Info general, te da la lectura de volumen e indica que output esta activado.

OUTPUT: Seleccionas en que output dejar tu stream (preferencia Output-1). También se ingresan los datos del stream como address, password, encoder. Como se apreciará en la imagen estos campos se llenan de manera similar al SAM, es un procedimiento sencillo.

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ENCODER: Aquí se configura la calidad de stream que se va a manejar, recuerden que debe tener una buena compatibilidad con la velocidad de su conexión. Escogen en que numero quedará etiquetado y listo (éste último debe coincidir con el # encoder de la sección de output, dejémoslo en 1)

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INPUT: En esta área se lleva a cabo la selección de ingreso de audio. Puedes decidir entre winamp que es lo recomendado o también pueden seleccionar Soundcard Input que les sirve para transmitir a través de aparatos conectados a tu PC tales como micrófonos, iPods, mezcladoras, etc.

Una vez configurado adecuadamente, regresen a la sección/pestaña de Output y le dan click al botón connect, si todos los datos del stream fueron ingresados correctamente, aparecerá justo arriba del botón el status de la transmisión indicando que están al aire.

Y así es como se configura éste software, como les decía no es muy complejo pero no afectará su economía y seguro l@s acercará a ese gran debut como DJ en los super-partys virtuales.

Recuerden, si quieren demostrar su talento, en Reforma les damos la oportunidad para hacerlo, solo póngase en contacto con el staff o mándenme un mail o IM y cuando menos se lo esperen estarán al mando de las super-partys como todo un DJ!!!

nitro sonic

I was looking for free installers on the web and found the following ones:

Inno Setup

Inno Setup is a free installer for Windows programs. First introduced in 1997, Inno Setup today rivals and even surpasses many commercial installers in feature set and stability.

http://www.innosetup.com/isinfo.php

NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System)

NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) is a professional open source system to create Windows installers. It is designed to be as small and flexible as possible and is therefore very suitable for internet distribution.

http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page

Advanced installer

http://www.advancedinstaller.com/feats-list.html

Windows-centric tools, such as Advanced Installer for Java enable you to build MSI (Windows Installer) packages.

Multi-platform tools can generate native installers for multiple platforms – Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, as well as RPMs and tarballs. install4j is one such tool.

Java-based setup authoring tools enabling you to create cross-platform installations, Those installations are essentially executable jars. InstallAnywhere is perhaps the most well known tool of this type, but if its pricing is beyond your budget, consider the cheaper JExpress or the open source IzPack.

Finally, the king of all installers – InstallShield can create both Windows desktop (MSI) and cross-platform installations, plus server and mobile ones, for any type of application and for a multitude of platforms.

Here are a few other installers:

install4j
IzPack
InstallAnywhere
InstallShield
Advanced Installer for Java
JExpress

I’ve just finished wrestling with a small wxpython application I wrote a few years back for our bookkeeper. It needed minor updating with a couple of new features. Now that I’ve finished the process here are a few remarks:

1. Python is a lovely language. After about 14 months of not touching this app (or much of python in any case) it only took a few minutes of review to get back up to speed on it. Granted, I made judicious use of comments and verbose variable naming when I wrote it, but dang is it ever nice clean, clear and simple code.
2. Once I had the thing running I downloaded and installed the latest version of py2exe (this app is to be installed on an XP machine). This little gem is invaluable in making .exe files from your .py files  and not requiring a Python install on the machine which is going to run the application. Our bookkeeper has no interest in what Python is, never mind running it.
3. I love the Nullsoft Installer System (NSIS). It’s an open source system for creating professional looking Windows installers. No funky console windows or command line gobble-de-gook for the person installing it – typical modern looking windows install  – wizard style.
4. Now the Nullsoft installer system is scripted (you have to create a script file to direct the setup) which allows for a lot of power and customization. But if you’re like me and have no interest in building these things by hand, you can use the wonderful HM NIS Edit application which lets you set up the whole thing through a nice friendly wizard.

So in the end, with the combination of my original .py file, py2exe, NSIS, and the HM NIS Edit, I have a very professional looking windows install file after about 5 or 10 minutes work. Brilliant!

Blogged with Flock

Miro is a free, open source, internet tv. Watch thousands of internet video podcasts and video rss feeds, as well as download each and every feed or video that you watch in Miro. It also works great with HD content.

Miro plays AVI, MPEG, MP3, Quicktime, ASF, Windows Media, DTS, Ogg, 3GP, 3G2, Flash, Nullsoft, PVA, Annondex, Xvid, Miro, Democracy, and mostly all major video formats. And it can even download and play Torrent files.

Create playlists of your favorite videos, and even insert an individual URL of a video file and automatically download the file. Miro is in it’s early stages, but looks to be very promising.

Link: Miro Video Player

Ah yes, the true reason for me not owning an iPod finally comes to light. I hate iTunes. As much as almost everybody fawns over it, I just don’t get it. I try to use it with every major release (5,6,7) and after about 10 minutes I promptly delete it off my system. It’s an annoying, buggy resource hog. Hey Steve, instead of always criticising Vista, why not try to ensure that with every major release of iTunes, we don’t get any major crash bugs or mystery errors.

Now if you, like me, “just don’t get it”, you’ve probably already looked at alternatives. I’m posting this to promote an old one that just got a makeover.

Yes, I’m talking about Winamp, the granddaddy of music players. Everyone remembers Winamp. how could we have gotten through the birth of the mp3-era without it? I’ve been using Winamp as my main music player since the 5.0 version. I took a break from it after a few Vista stability issues. But it’s back on my hard drive now. To celebrate it’s 10th anniversary, Nullsoft has released the much revamped 10th Anniversary 5.5 edition.

It’s now rock stable, has excellent podcast support and completely revamped visuals. Sorry foobar2000, you were just a temporary solution.

For anybody who is sick and tired of Apple screwing over users of Apple software on Windows (i.e. iTunes), check out Winamp. It’s free, it’s solid, you’ll love it. Trust me

Ich war ein jung, viel jünger als jetzt, als ich MP3 entdeckt habe. Seit diesen Jahren ist MP3 immer verbunden mit einem Programm: Winamp von Nullsoft. Es konnte anfangs MP3, jetzt ist es ein komplettes Media-Center.

Die heute erschienene Version Winamp 5.5 ähnelt Vorbildern wie iTunes oder AmaroK und hat zum ersten mal ein Ein-Fenster-Konzept, in dem sich die verschiedenen Listen anzeigen lassen. Was ist besondern schön finde, ist die Zusatzsoftware Winamp Remote, die Medien vom heimischen Rechner an alle Geräte streamt, die Internet haben: Meine Wii, mein Handy, wenn ich beim Kollegen bin.

Solche Lösungen gab es früher zwar auch, aber es ist überraschend wie einfach die Einbindung ist. Mit dem Handy im lokalen Netzwerk streamt der Rechner auch nur im lokalen Netzwerk. Videos werden so aufbereitet, dass mein Handy sie anzeigen kann. Über eine Weboberfläche kann ich “wie am Rechner” auf meine Medien und Playlists zugreifen.

Aber was ist nicht alles in den letzten 10 Jahren passiert:

Mike das Llama hat mich begleitet über die steinige Version 1.x, die auf meinem Pentium 200 MHz lief. Damals, 1997. Man konnte die Software für 10$ kaufen, es lief aber auch so. Shareware, heutzutage vielleicht nicht jedem ein Begriff.

Das Llama hat es in Version 2.x geschafft, die viel flüssiger und stabiler lief. Äußerlich hat sich nicht viel verändert, unter der Haube soll ziemlich alles geändert und optimiert worden sein. Neue Formate wurden unterstützt, es gab auch MP3-Dateiausgabe. Somit hatte man ziemlich billig ein MP3-Konverter an der Hand. 2000 war es der am meisten verbreitete Media-Player. Damals hatte ich auch ein Winamp 2-Skin vom Spiel Counter Strike gemacht, das es heute allerdings nicht mehr gibt.

Als Nullsoft 1999 von AOL aufgekauft wurde, war es mir etwas mulmig. Die eher studentisch organisierte, offene Struktur an losen und festen Mitarbeitern sollte sich einem Medien-Konzern beugen.

Winamp3 war dann schließlich ein CPU-strotzender GUI-Gigant, der mehr Wert auf Aussehen als auf Stabilität lag. Transparenz, stufenloses Zoomen, vektorbasierte Grafik, XML-basierende Skins und interaktive Oberfläche, das war Hauptmerkmal der 3er-Serie. Dass es nicht nur anfangs zu regelmäßigen Abstürzen kam, sei nur am Rande erwähnt. Das Konzeot von mehreren unterschiedlichen Fenstern für Hauptsteuerung, Playlist und Media-Bibliothek hat sich bis jetzt gehalten.

Eine Version 4 gab es nie. Da Version zwei und drei nebeneinander weiterentwickelt wurden, ohne kompatibel zu sein, hat man eine Version 5 herausgebracht (zwei plus drei gleich fünf). Diese hatte allerdings anfangs die Kinderkrankheiten von drei geerbt.

Man merkt an Kindern, dass man alt wird. Oder Filmen. Oder eben Programmen.