Free Music

I don't have an Ipod, but Tunstor looks like a great program for those who do. It lets you right click on an mp3 file download link on the web, select "Download Directly to iTunes" and Tunestor automates everything: "it automatically downloads the file to its music folder and adds it to the Tunestor playlist in iTunes. When you connect your iPod to your computer, all the music downloaded in this playlist will automatically get copied to your iPod!" This sounds like it would be a lot faster than manually downloading a file to a folder and then adding it to iTunes.

Back when I was a teen, I got a lot of free music by recording it off the radio on cassette or 8-track tapes. (I know I'm dating myself by mentioning I had an 8-track recorder.) This was a free and legal way to get copies of music. Heck, one local station would play an album straight through so you could easily record it without ads. While the RIAA hasn't yet managed to criminalize recording from the radio in the US, radio isn't what it used to be.

If you like music, you've probably heard of Pandora, a streaming music discovery web application. You give Pandora an artist or a song you like and it creates an online radio station based on that artist or song -- finding and playing songs it considers similar. Amazingly, Pandora generally does a good job understanding "similar" so it's a great way to discover new songs and artists you might like.