Scrobbling audio at Last.fm

Posted on By Mark Wilson

I hate it when websites gather more information about me than is necessary and more than a few sites now have nonsensical entries in their marketing databases as a result; however I have found one site recently that I’m more than happy to give information too – because I get something in return. You see, as I write this, I’m listening to a mixture of laid back beats, chilled house and trance, recommended to me by Last.fm (incorporating audioscrobbler). It’s being streamed to me over my Internet connection, free of charge, based on my musical tastes. How did it find out what I like? Well, I have a client application on my computer, which hooks into iTunes and each time I synchronise my iPod, play a track in iTunes or listen via the Last.fm website it “scrobbles” my recently played tracks to my profile.

I’ve been using the service for a few months now and still can’t get my head around just how useful (and varied) it’s many features are – so I’ll point you to this review by Steffie for a better idea of just what Last.fm can provide for your listening pleasure. For a review from a more mainstream media source, try CNET. Meanwhile, Steve Krause looks at the differences between Last.fm and Pandora – another popular music recommendation site that is often referenced alongside Last.fm but which, as Steve explains, is fundamentally different in the way it determines its recommendations.

If you’re anything like me, you’re probably wondering how sites like Last.fm can stream music free of charge whilst others wrangle with the complications of DRM-protected content. Well, that’s because it’s not just a free online music library – whilst you can hear “radio stations” based on your preferences there is no choice in what is played next and if you do search for a particular track then only a 30 second sample is played. As for the viability of the site (a question that should be asked of many “web 2.0” sites) – it’s viable enough for CBS to buy it (for $280m – and hopefully not just to shut it down). The theory is, that if I like what I hear, then I’ll buy some more music and to some extent that’s feasible. If I enter the name of a well-established band then I’ll probably recognise the names of similar artists (those who like Kylie Minogue may also enjoy Madonna or Britney Spears – or, closer to my tastes, if I like Faithless then why not try Groove Armada and Moby, etc.) but for something more obscure (e.g. The Age of Love), then I’d never have known to try something by Kamaya Painters, The Thrillseekers or Nalin & Kane. As for CBS, they get access to a huge database of musical tastes (whilst others are relying on a combination of software and intuition to predict their next hit).

Microsoft’s MacBU is moving in the right direction, just not fast enough

Posted on By Mark Wilson

Office for Mac product iconsA few weeks back, I wrote about the frustration of working (or rather not be able to work) with Open XML documents on a Mac. Some wag even pointed out on a recent podcast that Apple beat Microsoft to provide support for its own document formats in the new iWork 08 application suite. I hear good things about iWork and it’s very reasonably priced (especially when compared to Microsoft Office) but I work with Microsoft Office 2007 on Windows and need something functionally equivalent for the Mac so I’m sure I’ll be getting a copy of Office 2008 for Mac in due course (attempts to get a beta invitation have failed dismally). There is light at the end of the tunnel though – since my original post, the MacBU has released a (time-limited) beta of the Microsoft Office Open XML File Format Converter for Mac, so that at least gives me something to work with for now (the previous version was only for Word documents).

Mac RDC logoAnother new product from the MacBU is (at last) a universal binary version of the Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac. I’ve been beta testing this and whilst it’s far more stable on an Intel Mac than the old version, it still doesn’t seem to offer something that I need – support for multiple client connections. I’ve provided feedback on this (others were less charitable in their contributions). In the meantime, I’ll be sticking with CoRD.

It seems that the MacBU is releasing new products but at an almost glacial pace. I don’t care that it’s been 4 years between Office releases – there was a similar gap for the Windows product – but surely the file format converters could have been ready when Office 2007 shipped on Windows. Similarly, based on what I’ve seen with the Microsoft’s RDC client for the Mac, it’s not exactly worth waiting for.