Red Sox Faithful - Web Tools

Red Sox Faithful Forums >
Non-Sports Forum >

Web Tools

#1 - February 28, 2006 @ 6:42 PM EST

Boston Red Sox

363 Posts

Hey guys! Since I'm more of a techie, I thoought I'd share some of the web tools that I use daily. These aren't like development tools, but just sites with great features that I use regularly. Some would call them Web2.0 sites. Bloglines - Designed to read news from blogs, but works for any RSS syndication (ESPN or almost any news site). This way you can read all your news in one place instead of bouncing all over! Last.FM - "The Social Music Revolution". Basically, it lets you keep a record of the music you listen to on your computer and share that with others. It also builds a custom radio station based on your preferences, which is pretty neat and great for work! (At least for me!) You can check out my page here. del.icio.us - This is the place I go when I'm bored and want to find stuff. The idea is called "social bookmarking" and basically allows you to build bookmarks like you would use in your browser and have them all at one site. You can then see how many others dog-ear the same sites you do, and find other popular sites from their main page. Really shows you how much is really out there. Those are probably my three favorites right now. You guys got anything you use that you think is handy?

#2 - February 28, 2006 @ 7:39 PM EST

BosoxBob

Pawtucket Red Sox

206 Posts

Last.FM - "The Social Music Revolution". Basically, it lets you keep a record of the music you listen to on your computer and share that with others. It also builds a custom radio station based on your preferences, which is pretty neat and great for work! (At least for me!) You can check out my page here.

I don't know the particulars of this site, but I use Pandora. They leverage off of the Music Genome Project - a catalog of over 10,000 songs in which the songs features (melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, etc) are characterized. You can set up your own stations based on an artist, song, or set of songs. The site then scans their database and plays songs which have similar characteristics to the one(s) you specified. As songs play, you can fine-tune your station by indicating which songs you like or dislike. I've got 12 different stations set up so far. I don't know if this qualifies, but: SourceForge.net - the single best site for Open Source software, all of which is free. I regularly use several programs from this place, including Audacity (an audio recorder/editor), FileZilla (an FTP client), and Azureus (a Bit Torrent client). And others I have download and played with a little are Eraser (a secure file removal/erasing utility), FreeMind (a mind-mapping tool for organizing data in a somewhat non-linear way), StepMania (a Dance Dance Revolution clone), and Celestia (an astronomy/planetarium program).

#3 - February 28, 2006 @ 9:27 PM EST

GuruGreg

Boston Red Sox

363 Posts

I've looked at Pandora before, but what I like about Last.FM is that it pulls the song information from things I'm already using. For example, I use iTunes with my iPod at home, but I use Yahoo's LAUNCHcast at work to listen to music. Last.FM's plugins will grab the information from those and add it automatically. The main difference between the two is how they suggest music. Pandora suggests music based on the style of the music you select. If you like heavy metal, it'll suggest other heavy metal. If you like polka, it'll suggest other polka. However, Last.FM makes suggestions based on others who like specific artists. For example, I'm a big fan of Everclear, and Last.FM likes to suggest other bands from people who like Everclear, even if they are a different style. I think the thing I like about Last.FM is the public record which you can share. I didn't see anything like that with Pandora. I usually let the LAUNCHcast give me new suggestions at work based on their rating systems instead of relying on Last.FM for that. Also, yes, SourceForge is a great resource for all kinds of great stuff. I don't think I could list the stuff I get from there because it's so numerous. Currently, I use at least GAIM (AOL/MSN/Yahoo/Jabber instant messanger combo) off the top of my head. I've also used FileZilla at work, and toyed around with StepMania.