Over the weekend, Ryan found himself re-organizing our photos so that we could make the most out of using iPhoto. Some of you will remember our article comparing iPhoto with Windows Photo Gallery and how we still prefer Windows Photo Gallery to iPhoto.
"How many songs are in your music collection?" is the question we're wondering this week. With digital downloads easily accessible and rather affordable these days, some people have music collections with thousands upon thousands of songs. For us, our collection ranges between 1,000 and 2,000 songs and it's a collection we've been building for about 9 years.
We know many of you appreciate online music services, so we wanted to point out Jogli. It's a fairly new music search engine. They scan the internet to find music and music video clips, and then because they're a search engine, they index it all so that when people do a search, the music they are looking for is easy to find.
I swear that Napster is as close as it gets to a cat with 9-lives. In 1999 it started off as a file sharing service that exploded with popularity. People could share and download songs freely, but the service was doomed to failure since it used central servers to connect one user to another.
Today we're taking a look at Apple's Front Row vs. Windows Media Center. We're not really sure if Front Row can be compared to Media Center because right now, they serve different purposes. Front Row is more of an interface for controlling the media already on your computer while Media Center will do that in addition to recording television shows.
AccuTunes calls themselves "The easiest-to-use Internet Radio Station" and we have to agree that it is pretty easy to use. Not only is it easy to use, but they've got quite the selection of music as well. They must be doing something right because they were a recent winner of the 2008 Webby Awards.
Last week we wrote about how iTunes was getting new movies and making them available to purchase the same day as the DVD release. This is a pretty big step for Apple, and now we're learning that they're actually losing money on these new movies. The Wall Street Journal reported that while Apple is selling newly released movies at $14.99, they're actually paying the studios about $16 for each movie [...]
In the music industry, everybody is out for money these days. The artists want their fair share, and so the RIAA is out to make sure that they do, In addition to the artists are the composers and songwriters who want their fair share of money as well, and so the ASCAP is out to make sure that they do.
One of the things that I've grown accustomed to in iTunes is listening to the streaming radio stations. When you go through an entire work day sitting in front of your computer it's nice to have a variety of music at your fingertips without needing to assemble your own playlists. Wouldn't it be nice, however, if you could record some of the songs so that you can listen to them later on?
On this day five years ago, the Apple iTunes Music Store launched. The date was April 28, 2003, and ever since the launch, the store has managed to become more successful than I think anyone ever imagined. By early this year in 2008, over 4 billion songs have been sold through the store.
One of the questions that I get asked rather frequently is how people can take their media with them to places (normally work) without carrying a media player around. There are plenty of services out there that will let you upload, for example, your music so that it can be accessed from anywhere. But most of the time people want to stream it directly from their home machine.
Over the last year or so, we have watched as Apple's iTunes has become an ever increasing influence in the music industry. It was just last June (2007) when they passed Amazon and took over the #3 position as largest music retailer in the United States.
Way back in September of 2006, we wrote about a site called Blogmusik.net. The service used an iPod-like interface which acted as your own personal jukebox to stream music that you selected over the Internet. It was simple and provided decent music for free. That was the last that we mentioned it though, and to be honest, we had forgotten about it.
We have a terrific application that we are going to take a look at today called Videoraptor. Prior to writing this article I had never heard of the program, but I have to say that many of you will find it to be as useful as I have.
Radiohead is an English alternative rock band that has been around since 1992. Last year a big deal was made with their In Rainbows album because they were the first to sell it through their own site as a digital download and then the buyers chose the price they wanted to pay (this is similar to the approach that Nine Inch Nails is taking with their latest album).
Amazon MP3 has been getting a lot of great reviews for their 100% DRM-free music service that's been offered since September 2007. They actually have a rather large selection of music, and being able to play it on any of your devices without restrictions is a huge plus. And you don't pay any more for music from Amazon than you do on iTunes.
One of our favorite options for listening to music for free online with no strings attached is Songza. We did a review of it back in January and one of the things we liked most about it was its simple interface and the option they offer to create playlists.
The Band Nine Inch Nails really seems to understand where the music industry is headed. They recently released their new album called "Ghosts" on Torrent sites as a free download. NIN isn't contracted to any specific record label, so they have the freedom to decide how they are going to spread their music.
I'm sure some of you are truly music addicts with thousands of songs being lugged around on your music player. You might even have a few hundred CD's, or maybe you've broken into the thousands by now. I hate to burst your bubble, but you don't have the world's largest collection.
Back in May of 2005, Yahoo launched Yahoo! Music Unlimited, an on-demand online music service where users could pay a subscription fee to stream or download unlimited amounts of music for either $8.99 or $5.99 per month.