Ogg Vorbis for the Mac.
Undoubtedly you're using your Mac to play mp3s but are you aware that there's another compressed audio format available that's free (in all the best of ways) and technically superior to mp3? Its Ogg Vorbis and its making its way onto the Mac, brought to you by the good people at Xiph.org.

Today the QuickTime Components Project just released the first alpha of their Ogg Vorbis QuickTime plugin. Being alpha and all its likely still got some issues but thus far its working well. There are also stand-alone Ogg Vorbis players available for X as well. Check out either of the following: Unsanity Echo or Audion.

'Course none of this is of any use if you don't have any Ogg Vorbis files, now is it? For that you'll need Ogg Drop, a freeware encoder from No U-Turn Software. It'll encode your plethora of audio formats into svelt little Vorbis files.

I say: here's to making Ogg Vorbis the standard format for digital audio and to doing away with the absurd licensing fees and technical limitations of mp3. Viva Ogg Vorbis!

[Side note: while digging out the links for this posting I came across the Mac Digital Audio site. Well worth checking out if this sort of thing tickles your fancy.]