Spotify

So, I booted into Windows7 yesterday to install TF2, and since I have the free Spotify account, I decided to evaluate it.

Holy damn.

This service is awesome.  I set up a playlist of all Classic Hollywood songs (Gene Kelly, Judy Garland, etc) and I love it.

I’m “this close” to buying 3 months of premium so I can evaluate it in Ubuntu.  I’d really prefer an unlimited account since I don’t have a mobile phone that plays Spotify.

It’s better than Pandora because I can search for what I want and get exactly what I want in the playlist.  For instance, on Pandora, I search for “Gene Kelly” and it plays everything but Gene Kelly.  I’d like some of his music mixed in with the Bing, Dino, and The Voice, please.

We’ll see.  I might get myself a gift sub to it.  I’m not keen on having a recurring subscription right now.

New App: Radio Tray

Well, not really new. Radio Tray has been around since September of this year, but it’s gone pretty far since then.

Basically, Radio Tray is a tray application that lets you listen to internet radio. Simple, and very easy to set up. I first installed the application from the Ubuntu Software Center, but I noticed there was a newer version in a .deb package that afforded categories for your music. I have categories for BBC, SomaFM, and DI.fm.

Drop down menu showing categories.

If you’re using Ubuntu, the installation is simple: download the .deb, double click, install, then start adding your radio stations. I’ve found it best to go to Shoutcast to get everything off of SomaFM and DI.fm. I recommend the Beebotron to get the direct links for the BBC radio feeds.

List of radio stations in the configure window.

I really like this app, partly because I’ve had awful luck with Rhythmbox and Banshee and internet radio. I either get everything or nothing with these apps, meaning I can get all of shoutcast (too much) or I have to add radio stations individually, which doesn’t always work well. It’s a finicky process, and Radio Tray handles it well.

Give it a shot. This is a great app that allows you to listen to internet radio without having your massive music player open and taking up a lot of computer cycles.

D’oh! (Also known as importing radio stations to a different music player)

Well, I had a d’oh moment today.  I’ve been trying to figure an easy way to transfer my radio stations from Banshee to Rhythmbox.  I searched in my config files, I looked over the web, I even looked into commands on how to do it.

Until I got a brilliant idea to try: Why not create a playlist of all my internet radio stations, and then export the playlist, then import it to the player I want to use?

I did that, and it worked!  All this time, spent searching for a how-to… It’s that easy.

If you want to do the same, open your media player with your radio stations.  Create a new playlist, highlight all the stations you want to be in the playlist, and save it.  Go up to your menu, click “export” and save to the desktop (good for creating a backup anyway).

Now, go to your other player, click on where you want to put your stations (a radio folder or some such), click on your menus, click “import” and *viola!* you have your radio stations transferred. Awesome!

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Pandora

Pandora is my newest internet radio obsession.  First it was last.fm, then it was iTunes, now it’s the aforementioned Pandora.

This free internet radio service is quite cool.  It runs through flash, so there’s an Adobe AIR app that will allow you to control it right from your desktop.

I have yet to get AIR working on Ubuntu (I hear it’s buggy).  I’d like to give it a try, but if it’s buggy and crashy, I don’t think I want to use it.

Anyway Pandora has many different stations all ready for you to listen to.  You can set them up in your “queue” and listen to them on a “shuffle” mode.  That sounds really cool.  I haven’t tried it yet, but if I ever get a chance to sit and code or whatever, I’ll definitely put my stations on shuffle and see what it comes up with.

Anyway, I like this program for different reasons than last.fm.  Don’t get me wrong, I like last.fm (and always will) but this is different and I’ll give it a test drive for the next couple of weeks.  I might end up going back to last.fm, but who knows?  Last.fm seems to have more indie stuff.  I like indie stuff.  :)

I guess the concensis is that I’m still undecided.  I won’t limit myself to one or the other, but last.fm is more integrated into other applications: Banshee, iTunes, Rhythmbox and others.  If Pandora becomes more integrated into these other applications, I might use it more.

Like I said, we’ll see.

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