_Well, I`ve been looking real hard

And I`m trying to find a job

But it just keeps getting

Tougher every day

But I got to do my part

Cause I know in my heart

I got to please my

Sweet baby, yeah

Steve Miller

I’ve been using Banshee for years now and I don’t know how I’d manage my (too) large music collection without it. The Banshee team released 1.7.5 on Tuesday. Banshee 1.7.5 has two new big features:

• Beta support for iPod Touch and iPhone, probably one of the most requested features that I’ve seen users ask for in IRC.
• Amazon support, probably my favorite new features in the last couple of years. Aaron has previously blogged about the Amazon integration and if you hadn’t heard, the Banshee maintainers have made the GNOME Foundation the beneficiary of the referral codes. Jaap blogged earlier today about the monetary benefit the Foundation is already seeing, and this is with the development version! Imagine when users will have easy access to the latest Banshee in openSUSE 11.4, Fedora 14 and Ubuntu 10.10!

Trying to do my part, I’ve been working on all new documentation for Banshee written as topic based help using Mallard. The first release of user help was last month in Banshee 1.7.4 and with 1.7.5 I’d call it functionally complete.

(Click through to see a bigger version)

Now is when the fun starts! My process is to write and write some more, and then come back and edit. I think I have most of the major help topics covered. Or do I? I need your help! Take a look through the docs. Have I missed any topics? Can you find mistakes I’ve made in how Banshee works? (I don’t pretend to be a Banshee expert or even use half of it’s features!) Typos? Grammar errors? (I wish I was a machine and could type perfectly, but sometimes I type like Aaron on a Thinkpad T410).

Lastly, I need to add content for common problems and advanced help, such as adding an is_audio file to some MP3 players to have Banshee recognize the player.

How can you help after doing one of the tasks above? File a bug! Drop me an email! Ping me in IRC in #banshee on GIMPNet! I want your feedback and ways I can make the help better, especially with the advanced topics and common problems that users may see.

And a big thank you to Aaron, Gabriel, Bertrand, Alex and all the developers who keep Banshee rockin’.