digital music

Oh, I know there's an unholy amount of music websites and services online (I think I've written about a few . . .), so I'm a little bit more conservative now about both highlighting and getting sucked into a new service. Thankfully, Sonic Living took the notion of there being so much music-related web stuff and ran with it: It's a website that syncs your bands and likes from iTunes and Last FM and lets you know when a concert is coming up or alerts you of any breaking news and pictures from Flickr photostreams of your "wishlist" bands.

Like almost any new website, there's a social network aspect involved, but it's pretty useful in this case, as you can share upcoming concerts with the friends you'd like to attend it with. Sonic Living is like a one-stop shop for all your favorite music services — you can even add concerts to your calendar and buy tickets with one click from Sonic Living!

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I am totally anal when I rip a CD onto my computer — I input the song title, artist, and album name as accurately as I can because when typos and lowercase text come up on my iPod, it makes me insane. When I get files from someone else who is not quite as OCD as me, I painstakingly try to fix any misspellings. I hate a disorganized-looking iTunes!

FixTunes had me in mind — it corrects your mp3 file names so that you don't have to look at something ugly, AND with the correct spelling, FixTunes gets you the right album art!

After downloading (Macs and Windows both welcome), you'll notice several FixTunes playlists in iTunes — when you go into the "Not Looked Up" playlist, you can select any song, and the FixTunes window will display the probable match. Click "Fix" and voila!

Now what else can the internets help my neuroses with . . . ?

Instead of visiting your friend's house to rip all of her CDs one by one, you can save yourself the trouble with Mojo — it's a download that gives you convenient access to your friends' iTunes libraries. Now, you can't download Mojo and just grab everyone's music willy-nilly — the friends need to be on your network at the same time, and they need to have downloaded Mojo as well.

After you've both downloaded Mojo, you get your friend's username and add each other. When you open iTunes, the compatible library will show up in the left margin, and as you browse through his or her library, there's a download option next to it you can select when you see something you like.

It's easier and more efficient than sending songs and albums via IM or email, and it's available for both Macs and Windows. Have more questions? Check out the Lifehacker post for more details!

Since I'm sure all you geeks are total party hounds, or maybe just dig organizing your music and busting out the disco balls every so often, I wanted to show you this cool download I just tried out called beaTunes.

Yes, it's yet another iTunes music organizer, but this time it does all the work for you. Unlike Moody, where you have to tag all your tunes depending on how the music makes you feel, beaTunes analyzes your music and tags them with a color and bpm (beat per minute) so when you're playing DJ, or just chillaxin at home, your music will always match what you're into. To hear more about this awesome download, read more

Don't you miss the mixtapes of yesteryear? You know the ones you poured your heart and soul into for your BFF and crush and labeled with a black Sharpie?

You can get your digital mix tape fix with Mixwit, an awesome site that lets you build a song list, design a tape cover and share with friends. The site's instructions read: "It's your mix, so make something unique. Add pictures, photos, artwork, drawings..." Now there's a fun, nostalgia-inducing project!

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If you're like most people and have the majority of your music collection saved on one computer, take note! Jukefly is a "social music player" that allows you access to your music from another computer.

All you have to do is sign up and download and install the small, secure music server on the computer that has your music and you'll get access to your whole collection from another computer. It's perfect for those of us who want access to our music while on our work computer. Note: The JukeFly music server does not upload the songs to their server, it streams the music from your main computer.

JukeFly supports non-DRM'ed iTunes, WMA, ogg and mp3s. To learn how to post your favorite websites to our Website of the Day group, read more

I honestly will never get tired of new downloads, websites, and applications for digital music (especially free ones) because music is my constant companion to my all-day computer sessions and keeps me sane. Or somewhat sane.

Anyway, Songbeat is an application that lets you download or stream any previously played music from Seeqpod (and I assume, most other streaming-music hosting sites). For now, it's only available for Windows, but will be available for OS X "soon," so fingers are crossed. Enjoy, Windows users!