------- Clearing Up the Confusion E-Zine ------- Vol 3, Issue 14 Just so you know, in general, Kaylie is a pretty even-keeled little girl. She doesn't get too upset over things and seems to be laughing most of the time. Every once in a while, though, she gets in a mood when she's feeling not so happy (don't we all?) When that happens one of the things we've found that helps her calm down again is to sing to her. Now, I'm not much of a vocalist, but apparently Kaylie really loves my rendition of "Rainbow Connection" by Kermit the Frog. Often she needs only one pass through and all is right with the world again. I was thinking that, wouldn't it be great to have a radio station that plays songs like that for when I'm not immediately available? Heck, wouldn't it be cool to have a radio station like that for myself, that only plays songs that I really like? Guess what? It's here. I'll write about it in my article this issue. Oh, and for those who were wondering, yes, I did take a couple of months off from writing. Between being on vacation in Colorado and later in Atlanta and a few deadlines in the business, writing a newsletter issue didn't make it to the top of the task list. ---------------------------------------------------------------- In This Issue... ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article: The Sweet Sounds of (My) Music 2. Shameless Self-Promotion 3. The Fine Print ---------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Article: The Sweet Sounds of (My) Music ---------------------------------------------------------------- I love to listen to music while I work. Something about the flow of the tune seems to make whatever I'm doing go a little more smoothly. Given that I sit in front of the computer for most of my day, it's hardly surprising that I've been using a variety of Web-based music sites over the years. Most recently I've used Live365 (http://live365.com/) which had the added benefit of being able to play through my TiVo. I was reasonably happy with Live365. I even purchased a subscription for a year of VIP access (no commercials and access to popular "stations" which have limited users). Recently, my year of VIP was coming to an end. $70 felt like a little much to be spending on Internet radio, so I thought I would take a look around at some other services. The one that really got me excited was Pandora (http://pandora.com/). One of the limitations of Live365 is that, just like terrestrial radio, someone else gets to choose the play list. The main difference is that those someones don't have nearly the extensive music library of the average radio station. On Pandora, you get to create your own station. When you first go to the site, it asks you for the name of a song, artist or group that you like. It then generates a "radio station" for you based upon that one piece of information. It selects songs that are similar to the one you have chosen and away it goes! I was a little skeptical about how well this would work, but shortly after I entered the group "Men at Work", my computer was pumping out those eighties pop tunes that I grew up on. For kicks I tried to create a "traditional" Christmas station. Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" soon led to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole belting out the old classics. I even managed to create a station based on the music from Cirque du Soleil. Pandora uses data about songs generated by the Music Genome Project (http://www.pandora.com/mgp.shtml) to locate similarities in music. The folks at MGP have developed a list of music "genes" which allow them to describe music numerically. The Pandora software then uses these representations to see how "close" two pieces of music are. Interestingly, different types of music have different numbers of genes. Most pop music has around 150 whereas classical can have from 200 to 500 individual factors. Now, there are a few downsides. First, you only get 40 hours of free music a month. Also, during that forty hours, you may hear an occasional advertisement (though I think I can count on one hand the number of commercials I heard the first month). If you want to listen beyond those first forty hours, there is a 99 cent fee for the remainder of the month. The other downside is that you have to interact with Pandora at least once an hour or it will stop playing. They do this so they aren't paying royalties on music that's playing to an empty room. They do have a premium service which costs $36 for a year which bumps the minimum interaction time to five hours and removes the advertising and other restrictions. Still for these limitations, if you sit in front of the computer for any length of time during the day, having your own custom stations to listen to is really quite nice. Give it a try to see if it appeals to you. Of course, there are a variety of other music services out there and maybe one of those works better for you for whatever reason. If you use a different one, I would love to hear about your experiences. Drop me a line at gpeters@cyberdatasolutionsllc.com. Copyright 2009, Greg Peters ---------------------------------------------------------------- 2. Shameless Self-Promotion ---------------------------------------------------------------- The "Clearing Up the Confusion" E-Zine is a production of Greg Peters, owner, chief cook, and bottlewasher of Cyber Data Solutions. CDS has been helping website designers develop better web presence for their clients for more than a decade. Visit us on the Web at www.cyberdatasolns.com to see how we can help your webmaster. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 3. 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