The NY Times recently published an article showing that digital music is the environmentally friendly way to consume music. Personally, I did it out of convenience. Ripping music and then storing the CD somewhere is a real pain. Once DRM-free music was available, I switched exclusively to buying digital music.
I started using Amazon MP3, and they are still a really good option. But Lala is better. They are cheaper: songs are only 79¢ vs. 89¢ with albums typically $7.49. I had a bad customer experience with Rhapsody, so I won't recommend them. iTunes is OK, but they are more expensive, and I'm frugal.
Once you get the files down to your computer, you need to back them up. That's where SkyDrive comes in. This is the best free online backup service out there (and amazingly it's from Microsoft, not really known for their outstanding web services). Before it came along, I was backing up files by attaching them to draft messages in my Yahoo mailbox. But now with SkyDrive, I have 25GB of space, which is far more that I expect to need for my music purchases. That would be about 250 albums.
If you bought the music off of Lala, you can now listen to it online too from your account. I'm still waiting for the iPhone app so I can listen on the go as well. Until then, I'm still using iTunes to sync my new music purchases with my iPhone. The desktop tether model has to go, though. I really can't wait until we get WiFi sync.
I started using Amazon MP3, and they are still a really good option. But Lala is better. They are cheaper: songs are only 79¢ vs. 89¢ with albums typically $7.49. I had a bad customer experience with Rhapsody, so I won't recommend them. iTunes is OK, but they are more expensive, and I'm frugal.
Once you get the files down to your computer, you need to back them up. That's where SkyDrive comes in. This is the best free online backup service out there (and amazingly it's from Microsoft, not really known for their outstanding web services). Before it came along, I was backing up files by attaching them to draft messages in my Yahoo mailbox. But now with SkyDrive, I have 25GB of space, which is far more that I expect to need for my music purchases. That would be about 250 albums.
If you bought the music off of Lala, you can now listen to it online too from your account. I'm still waiting for the iPhone app so I can listen on the go as well. Until then, I'm still using iTunes to sync my new music purchases with my iPhone. The desktop tether model has to go, though. I really can't wait until we get WiFi sync.
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