Spring Break
Getting free, legal music less of a boon than before
Newest music Web site offers abundant music selection
Becky Radolf
Issue date: 4/14/09 Section: Focus
Believe it or not, there will come a time when you're not living at UConn. With this change of location comes one horrifying fact: you won't have DC++ either. Since the dawn of time (or maybe just since Napster), there's been an obsession to fill our computers with tons of free music and media. Instead of using Limewire or Bearshare only to risk a $10,000 piracy fine, get your hands on the music you want in legitimate ways, and still don't pay a cent for it.
One of the best streaming Web sites is Pandora.com. Type in the artist or song you like, and Pandora magically reads your mind and creates a station that plays only music similar to what you chose. If Pandora picks a song that sounds more to you like road construction, you can tell the Web site to stop playing songs like that until you've molded the perfect array of tunes tailored to your listening pleasures. You can't put the songs on your iPod unless you buy them, but Pandora will introduce you to tons of bands you never knew existed. Call it a fair trade.
We can't tote our laptops everywhere streaming Pandora, and the Internet isn't always readily accessible where you're located. That's why God (Steve Jobs) invented the Podcast. Podcasts are different media files in iTunes that can be streamed and downloaded to your iPod. By subscribing to a Podcast, you'll immediately receive every new episode the station offers, which will be downloaded to your iPod when you update it. Furthermore, there's a Podcast for just about every interest known to man.Instead of listening to the repetitive crap that the radio spews out, pick and choose what you want to hear based the genre you're looking for.
Podcasts also go beyond regular music. For example, there's Podrunner, the perfect solution for any runner who can't find seem to compile a group of songs fast enough for his or her pace. Podrunner mashes a bunch of techno songs together at a certain BPM - from 125 all the way up to 190 - and each compilation lasts about an hour. No more putting the iPod on shuffle and hoping "Teardrops on my Guitar" doesn't come on during your sprint.
One of the best streaming Web sites is Pandora.com. Type in the artist or song you like, and Pandora magically reads your mind and creates a station that plays only music similar to what you chose. If Pandora picks a song that sounds more to you like road construction, you can tell the Web site to stop playing songs like that until you've molded the perfect array of tunes tailored to your listening pleasures. You can't put the songs on your iPod unless you buy them, but Pandora will introduce you to tons of bands you never knew existed. Call it a fair trade.
We can't tote our laptops everywhere streaming Pandora, and the Internet isn't always readily accessible where you're located. That's why God (Steve Jobs) invented the Podcast. Podcasts are different media files in iTunes that can be streamed and downloaded to your iPod. By subscribing to a Podcast, you'll immediately receive every new episode the station offers, which will be downloaded to your iPod when you update it. Furthermore, there's a Podcast for just about every interest known to man.Instead of listening to the repetitive crap that the radio spews out, pick and choose what you want to hear based the genre you're looking for.
Podcasts also go beyond regular music. For example, there's Podrunner, the perfect solution for any runner who can't find seem to compile a group of songs fast enough for his or her pace. Podrunner mashes a bunch of techno songs together at a certain BPM - from 125 all the way up to 190 - and each compilation lasts about an hour. No more putting the iPod on shuffle and hoping "Teardrops on my Guitar" doesn't come on during your sprint.
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