Mindful Ink

A core issue for many college students is music. Have you seen how many ipods are around campus?

Exactly.

On my Macbook, for instance, I don’t like keeping music on the hard drive - it simply takes up too much space, and trying to coordinate between my two machines is a pain in the butt. Also, I’ve almost always got my iPod with me and simply don’t need my laptop to deal with it. But, with a few tips and programs, I’m never short on music when I want it.

Today we’ll take a brief look at music options on the computer without paying a king’s ransom, loading it all onto your hard drive, or doing much of anything else. All you need is an internet connection…

Astonishingly, few people really understand how many free music sources you have on your computer right now - without installing anything new. I’m addressing Windows and Mac users here - I’ve no clue what you Linux guys have, but.. a lot of this will help you out, too.

Already on your Computer
Let’s start with what you already have: iTunes or Windows Media Player. Both couldn’t be simpler.

iTunes
iTunes, for both Mac and PC users, has two options for music without asking for your wallet or your hard drive.

The first, and most basic, is clicking on the “Radio” button under the Library list on the left hand side of the screen. From there you can choose internet radio stations from about 20 categories or so, each having MANY stations. Higher bit-rate means higher quality broadcast, so keep that in mind when picking stations.

The second option with iTunes is to make use of “Shared” playlists. Apple really neutered this feature a while back so that you can only have 5 unique people accessing your shared music each day, so on big networks (like universities) you’re not going to be able to use this feature very often. Also, it does also necessitate other computers with music are on the network with you and sharing their music. I actually share the music from my desktop and require a password so I can access it via my laptop when I’m in other parts of the house.

Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player has radio, too. So you Windows users aren’t left out in the cold. For WMP, it’s a bit trickier, but not much.

MS sold out even more than normal, and now your Radio button is a link to Napster (at least, my install of XP Media Center Edition is like that.) You need to actually hit Guide and from there hit Radio then click on Internet Radio and then, finally, you can pick stuff out. Microsoft really never gives up the opportunity to try to sell you 10 things before helping you out. Luckily, you Windows users can still just use iTunes.

Things on the Web
The web offers many, many options like internet radio, but two particular services stand out in my experience.

Last.fm
This is my favorite way to listen to music on the web for free. Last.fm can either be used entirely in the web browser, or you can download a client for both Windows or Mac users. I prefer the client, but that’s just because I tend to accidently close my browser a lot. Last.fm is also a community site (though I really don’t use it for that) where you can share recommendations and stuff like that. It does let you create music stations based on artists or keywords, and then can also show you a tag cloud of similar artists for you to try out.

last.fm

Pandora
I hear a great deal more about this site, it may or may not be more popular than Last.fm. I do tend to use this site from time to time, as it’s simpler to use if not as robust in its options. Here you simply create stations based on artists or songs, and that’s it. You can help rarify your results by rating the songs you hear. I also understand it has some social aspects, now. I’ve also heard rumors that it is only available to people in the U.S.

Pandora

One More Thing…
There are MANY other services, as I mentioned. One new one I recently heard of via Lifehacker.com is finetune.com. I’ve not used this service yet, but it looks very promising.

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College Life, music, OSX, Software, Windows