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 The
Seedy Side Of Computing | Free Music
Free Music
Napster
hit the dirt a few months ago so people are on a quest for another
way to get free music. Napster was the answer to many a users
dream. Based on a central server for people to share files, it
was fast and pretty reliable. New technology is always a bit
experimental and sometimes a bit hard to use at first but Napster
made getting MP3 files a snap.
My first choice for this is a
Gnutella based
download client (software). If you don't know this by now, a
Gnutella based download client uses a technology that doesn't
need a server. It uses the internet peer to peer technology to
seek out other Gnutella based clients (software programs) running
on other users computers. All you do is load the Gnutella based
download program (ie. Bear
Share, Limewire
or Gnotella) and
wait for it to find others who are online sharing their stuff.
My current favorite is Limewire. Limewire is
great because they have versions for PC,
Apple and Linux and others. I think it has the largest
following of users. Limewire not only serves up music files,
but also music videos and other stuff. Just change your download
type on the top of the search page to Video and you'll have yourself
a collection of music videos soon. Keep in mind kids, that the
download times to download a music video is about 10 times longer
than a MP3 or music file as your average MP3 file is around 3
- 4mb and a music video can be 30mb or larger.
 Another new company from Europe
is making news as of late {07.07.01} called FastTrack using the
KaZaA service. The company
is based on the other side of the pond so law enforcement over
here will have quite some trouble dealing with them for now.
This is great because it will push the music swapping issue again
into the mainstream and music companies will finally be forced
to act more human to their artists. That's the whole point of
this (that and downloadable music...). The two artists Metallica
and Dre who sued Napster have their heads up their butts for
far that they can't see that they only helped MORE people see
that it's easy as 123 to get free music off the web and it's
only going to get easier. Here is some info your can read about
FastTrack. |
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It's very easy to get the songs
you want. I'm going to use Limewire for most of my examples here
because I find it to be the easiest to use.
 Step 1:
Get Limewire here at Limewire.com.
Step 2: Install it on your computer. It doesn't require
any registration process, no name collecting or anything. All
it wants to know is your connection speed. One note though; For
Limewire to work effectively for you, you'll need to have some
MP3's to share because Limewire has a setting in it's Options
for users to ignore you if you're not sharing any files. How
do you get files if you don't have any you may ask? You'll have
to rip some using a ripper. What's a ripper? A ripper is a program
that reads songs from store bought CD's and converts them to
music files on your computer. One cheap readily available program
is right on your PC called Windows Media Player. If you don't
have WMP you can download
it free from Microsoft. To find out all about Windows
Media Player for Ripping songs or making new CD's [coming].
Step 3: After you've loaded some songs onto your PC for
sharing, Limewire is ready to use. When you load it you'll see
a screen similar to this one;
Step 4: Let's say you want to get some Metallica or Dre
songs... All you do is enter in the name you want to search for
in the search box below... and click on the 
button.
Step 5: Now you'll see the results window...
Step 6: Highlight the one you
want to load or use the Shirt or Ctrl button to select one or
many and click on Download All. After a bit of time if the other
persons computer is ready, you'll see a download progress bar
on the bottom of the screen. When the download is complete you'll
need to check you download directory of shared files to play
the file.
That's it for now folks. Enjoy!
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