Music Downloads Legally

If you are really like get new music for fewer monies, there are several options on the Internet that are not all that advertised.

The most popular legal music downloading system is iTunes.  Personally, I think iTunes and is great and all, but it can be pricey sometimes and doesn't always have what I want.

Probably the next most popular place to download music is Amazon.com.  I never noticed before I had a twitter account that everyday Amazon has a Daily Deal on an album.  The usual cost of said album is usually about $3.99.  If you follow them on Twitter they will post the daily deal everyday so you can see if it is worth checking into.  They also usually have a free song of the day.

You can also find THOUSANDS of albums for under $5 on a regular basis on amazon.com. 

The third most "legal" place to download music is at 7digital.com.  This site is very similar to Amazon.com. They have a longer list of free track downloads than most places.

There are some Russian sites that are somewhere in between legal and illegal.  The Russian have a law that let them sell music without paying artist royalties unless the artist specifically requests it.  So they have the ability to sell whole albums for as little as $1.  While these are "legal" places to download music, if you are trying to be moral about downloading music (which most people today are not!) these sites are probably not the places for you.


Gomusic.ru  This site is slightly different in that you have to prepay are certain amount (I believe it is $25) in order to download the music.  Some people find it creepy to give some Russian Company your credit card number, but the site itself has a pretty reputation.  Most people suggest that you get a Simon Visa Card or something like it, if you don't trust them with your credit card information.  I haven't heard of anyone having issues with that though.

MP3Panda.com  Another extremely cheap site (I'm not sure if it's Russian, but I think so).  It has the same concept of putting money of a certain sum on your account and then using that toward music.  They also have the option to pay about $250 and get unlimited free music for life.

I'm sure there are other sites out there that have cheap downloads, these are just the ones that I have run into in my Internet researching.

Can you tell I'm really bored when I'm not in school? :)

Life Hacked

One of my favorite blogs on the internet is lifehacker.com.  Today they blogged about OpenCourses, which is what iTunes U provides. They have a lot of other resources as well. Check it out!

What's a DISorganized person to do?

What's a DISorganized person to do?
By Stacey Platt

I just proved how badly I need this book because I just spent 20 minutes tearing the room apart trying to find it so that I could tell you the author's name.  I found it, of all places, behind my dirty laundry basket. The room I spent 10 minutes cleaning up this morning is now trashed.  Again.

About 6 years ago I was officially diagnosed with ADHD-Inattentive.  My parents had me tested after my 3rd or 4th car accident at 17 (I caused 5 before I was 18).  I was put on medication which made me more productive than I have ever been in my life, and more boring than I had ever been in my life. I went off the things about half way through my undergraduate studies. I decided that I would rather change my habits than change my personality.  That transition probably would've been a lot easier if I had bought this book sooner.

Unofficially, I also have a mild case of obsessive-compulsive disorder (which is becoming as popular as ADHD).  This is what I get for having a creative, ADHD father and a logical, OCD mother (how did that happen?).  So while I'm completely disorganized, I'm also completely overwhelmed by the disorganization and go into these moods where no matter what one does, you can't stop me from cleaning EVERYTHING!  Labeling is one of my favoritest things in the whole world.  I plan on asking for a label maker for christmas, the office manager at the prep lab won't let me use hers anymore.

Anyway, a few days ago, my boyfriend and I are at Barnes & Noble trying to kill time and use up my $25 gift card.  I browse for a while and decided that I wante to read Eat, Pray, Love. Then I find the display table labeled something along the lines of "For the new college student".  I'm intrigued. I'm a very old college student, but I know that I should have been more educated on the college process/life before I had entered it. One of the first books I find is this book to help disorganized people because have you ever seen a college boy's room/house -- disgusting.  It's the perfect demographic.  Again, I wish I had had this book in college. So I buy it.  I leave the store with Eat, Pray, Love; What's a disorganized person to do?; and A Year Of Living Biblically: One man's humble quest to follow the Bible as Literally as Possible (more on that book some other time).

Anyway, I immediately opened this book when I got home.  I went through the entire thing cover to cover in about an hour and half.  Throughout my readings, I kept yelling at John to listen to the "coolest thing ever" and kept commenting about how much I love this book.  The sad part for me was that I'm living out of a storage unit right now, so I have no home or even drawers to organize.  So the next day I mention to John that maybe it's time for him to move his dresser out of his closet and do some reorganization that would result in all of his nice clothes neatly hung up and a couple shelves for his few other clothes.  He, God bless him, agreed to let me have my way with his closet.

It's nice having this book now, while I'm kinda homeless, because when I do finally get my own home again I can start organize from the beginning and maybe be able to find things more often.

The book itself is full of little tips from how to reduce junk mail to how to organize your toolbox to what to save for tax purposes and how to organize it as you go to reduce the stress of doing your taxes.

If you are a disorganized person, even if you're an organized person who just wants some pointers on how keep things organized more easily, I strongly recommend this book.

Anyone know of other books with good life advice?

iTunes U

Yesterday, I purchased an iPod Nano.  I haven't owned an iPod (or any portable music player) in about 5 years.  The reason being that I successfully destroyed 5 iPods in 3 years when they first came out.  The first thing my boyfriend asked me after I had checked out: "Did you get the accident plan?"  He knows me too well.

He had bought a nano the day before and was still in the "it's-so-beautiful" phase that everyone who buys their first Apple product goes through. He had decided that I needed one too.  After 20 minutes of trying to convince me of this I told him that I would go to the store and look at them (poor decision #1).  At the store the next day, I stood in front of the display for about 30 minutes trying to decide if I really need one.  I decided that I really don't need one, but it's got a video camera! Geez! And I happen to only pay about half of what I expected to pay for my textbooks. Ok, maybe I need it.

I gave in.

Her name is Nancy (aren't I clever, har har).

My real discovery came after I went home to play with Nancy.  I haven't really messed around with/updated iTunes in years.  Pandora has been my main source of music for a while now. And I'm a grad student, I have no money for new music.  Anyways, I stumbled upon iTunes U.  iTunes U is more or less the apple store for a college education.  You can take classes from Yale University for free.  And this is not like they are giving you a book to read.  There are videos of real lectures given at real universities and most come with complementing readings, or you can buy the textbook and do the assigned readings in the syllabus.

If you are an education enthusiast, or just want to learn about a subject without the assignments and grades of a real college course, this is the thing for you.  I tend to have a hard time listening to music while driving, I think this will help with my soon to be 3-hour commute to school on Mondays.

Personally, I've recently become interested in the debate between evolutionists and creationists.  So I downloaded a course on evolution given at Missouri State University and a course on creation from a Seminary.

I also downloaded an Intro to Psychology course from Yale University.