I’ve made a few posts about music, and it is perhaps more a time waster than anything remotely involving productivity - but I know music is important to me, I listen to it constantly, and I like it even when I’m studying. It helps get me in the mood and saves me from the million distractions even in the library.
More importantly, it’s important to students in general. And as the technological progress in this field extends beyond the latest iPod, many students have no idea what kind of amazing options they have at their disposal. And yes, generally, for free.
I mentioned eMusic on my last post on the subject, since then they’ve become one of my advertisers - I wouldn’t take them on if I didn’t like them myself. I still think it’s just about the best deal you’re going to find.
A few months back I also made a post about some of your online music options, this is something like a revision of that post. The goal? Music on the go, free and without taking up valuable hard drive space. The reason? I don’t know about you, but my laptop doesn’t have all that much hard-drive space and every so often an iPod isn’t an option. Also, these music services offer something beyond your own music - new music. You can find new artists and songs to love, and to me that is worth some serious investigation.
On The Web
- lala.com - Unique in the world of online music, this site allows you to upload your own music and listen to it wherever you have a web browser. I never really meshed with this site well. For some reason, my full music collection never showed up on the site after days and days of downloading (and it saying it was finished.) Eventually, I gave up - but many people swear by it.
- Pandora - My favorite, by far. I’ve found so much great music this way. As I said - this alone is a high priority. On a Mac I love to use it with PandoraMan (a little program that just runs pandora in a window.) Windows users can make use of OpenPandora.
- Shoutcast - Oldie but a goodie, the old Shoutcast stations are still around and you can use them. I always found internet radio like this kind of a mixed bag, but there are so many good options. Windows users will need Winamp or iTunes, Linux users can use XMMS.
- Last.fm - This was my favorite for sometime, but I found Pandora was giving me better music overall. Still, a great site with some social networking thrown in.
- finetune - Much like Pandora but a bit more like last.fm in its social aspects, finetune generally gives me a bit more obscure music than the others. Very smooth interface as well.
- AOL Music - I’ve heard surprisingly good things about AOL Radio, but it does require you to install AOL Radio on your computer. And sorry, dear reader, but years of AOL has left me uncomfortable installing ANYTHING from them on my computer.
- Deezer - Like many of the others… I couldn’t tell you what makes Deezer so different. They have a good collection of classical music, however, which for me when I’m studying - it’s a plus.
- Slacker - I really like Slacker. I tried it a few months ago and was kind of so-so about it, but playing with it some today I think this could be a serious contender to overthrow Pandora. We’ll see, the only way to know with these things is long-time use.
- SpiralFrog This came out today. I was excited about this service - add supported, downloadable music. Unfortunately, it is a) not compatible with Mac or Linux users as it uses Windows Media Files (which also means it is not compatible with iPods) and b) the site was so slow, awkward and frustrating that by the time I finally got it working I was already angry. Once I finally installed their software and had everything supposably working, I downloaded a song that never actually showed up on my computer. So… My suggestion is to avoid it. It also didn’t have a lot of artists I looked for. Oddly enough, I have no problem with the “ad” part of the equation. It was the disastrously poor implementation.
- Ruckus - Last year my campus made a big deal out of offering this service free to students. However, it is much like SpiralFrog - usable only by Windows users. Now, I mainly use a Mac - and I accept that a lot will simply not work with my system, but when a college campus where such a large percentage of the students have Macs picks a Windows only music system - it’s pretty much a load of bull. And that is pretty much how I find Ruckus. It’s a pain to use, the selection is limited, the ads are obnoxious, and what it makes up for in offering “on demand” music, it loses in all of that.
On Your Computer Already
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.
To Download
SongBird - I do so love Songbird. It’s like the Firefox of iTunes (and made by the same people.) It’s still in beta and not quite ready for primetime, but it has some excellent features and is a pleasure to use in general. It has radio as well as a number of innovative features for finding music online. Honestly, if it had a bit more functionality I’d be using i in a heartbeat. I truly believe SongBird is the face of things to come in terms of how we deal with music. And it works on Windows, Mac and Linux machines.
In Conclusion
You’ve a lot of options that don’t demand your dollars, and I think (as one starving student speaking to another) it is certainly worth your time to check these out. I’ve found some of my favorite music in these services, and I imagine you’ll find quite a lot to like, too.
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