Pandora

Music lovers, take note! Pandora (pandora.com) is a great music-listening website with minimal commercial interruption. Here’s how it works.
After creating your user profile (not necessary for previewing the site), you name a genre, song, or artist that you particularly enjoy. Pandora then creates a radio station with that genre, song, or songs by that artist and similar songs. You have a list of radio stations that are kept separate, and you can create a quickmix station that plays music from the chosen stations on your list. For each song that plays, you can give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, bookmark the song or the artist, buy the song, and get tons of info about the song or artist (lyrics, bio, similar artists, and more). There are a bunch more features, but you’ll just have to check out the site to see them.

Pandora is part of the Music Genome Project, a music analysis endeavor described by its founder like this -

Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or “genes” into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song – everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It’s not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records – it’s about what each individual song sounds like.

Since we started back in 2000, we’ve carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists – ranging from popular to obscure – and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.

The result? You really hear music you like! For example, I created a quickmix station from four stations: Pat Benetar, Johnny Cash, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Brandi Carlile (four artists who would never have their songs played on the same radio station!). I listened to great music for hours, heard much more than is in my personal collection, and discovered some new songs and artists that I happen to really enjoy.

And for the technophiles out there, note that Pandora works not only on the computer, but also on an iPod Touch, an iPhone, and a Blackberry. For all-around town, non-stop grooving.

The Magical iPod Touch

Not everyone can afford the iPhone and the AT&T cellular contract that comes along with it. I personally have been using T-Mobile for my cell phone, so an iPhone isn’t in my near future.

However, I did trade in my iPod Nano for an iPod Touch. When the Touch came out, I wasn’t too sure what the point of it was. Why have all those application on an iPod. But now that I’m using it every day, I fully appreciate all of its features.

I bought the iPod Touch with 8 Gigabytes of memory for $230. It’s about 4 inches high by 2.5 inches wide. It’s a mere 1/3″ thick. Amazingly thin, in my opinion. The home and power buttons are the only actual push-buttons. Every other feature is done using the touchscreen.

What’s great about the iPod Touch is that it does more than just store files and play music and movies. Much more. Most applications and programs that can run on the iPhone will also run on the iPod touch. Basically, the Touch is an iPhone without the phone (more on that a little later).

Besides using the iTunes song and podcast features, I also use other programs daily.

Calendar
I use this simple calendar program to use as reminders for my appointments and dates.

Notes
This is a simple note taking application. Typing long notes using the touchscreen keyboard can be a bit tricky until you get used to it, which really only takes a couple minutes.

To Do’s
This is one of my most used aps. It doesn’t come standard. I transferred it for free using the iTunes store (the same way you add more music to the iPod). I create “tasks” and can add details and set the task’s priority. Then you tap to check them off as you complete them. My only wish is that it integrated with the Calendar program.

ShopShop
This is another free program I use. Type in what you need and the quantity, and it adds the item to a list. When you buy it, you check it off the list. You can even have more than one list. It remembers what you’ve bought before so you can quickly add them again later to a different list.

Safari, Last.fm, Public Radio Tuner, Mail, Tweetie
I also use these programs, but they are all internet-based applications. This is where the iPod Touch is different from the iPhone. With the iPhone you can make cellphone calls everywhere as well as using the internet everywhere. But with the Touch, you have to be in an internet wifi zone to use the internet programs.

Chess, Books, Maps, etc.
There’s just too many included and free applications that you can add to the Touch. Free books are available for download that you can read on you iPod. You can also get free games and 3D games that you play using the touch screen and gyroscopic accelerator that really enhances game-playing because it controls the game by not only the touchscreen, but also how you move the iPod up and down and around.

Jailbreak
This is for super advanced users only. Basically using instructions from the internet, you can hack into the iPod and install really sweet programs that truly expand the possibilities. The downside of this is that there is a chance you will irrevocably break your iPod. And Apple won’t refund or fix it for you if you’ve attempted to “jailbreak” it. If you do jailbreak your iPod, you can add more free programs and utilities. The especially awesome program you can add is one that turns you iPod into a phone that can use free calling services like Skype, but you do have to be in an internet wifi zone for this to work.

Apple Store
Lifehacker’s list of good and FREE iPhone and/or iPod Touch programs
Feature Guide for the iPod Touch (pdf)
Gizmodo’s review of the iPod Touch