New tech-ey stuff

I recently updated the Firefox browser on my work computer, subsequently wiping out some of the extensions I regularly use and wreaking havoc on settings. For some reason, the download went awry.

So I installed Google Chrome, the new browser from (you guessed it) Google. I also downloaded Flock, which touted itself as being a "social networking" browser. But after trying them both out for a couple weeks, I decided to try my luck again with Firefox, which has been my favorite since the first version came out.

So I reinstalled the newest version of Firefox and transferred my favorites back. I then went about trying to get all the same extensions I had before, with mixed success. But I also came across an extension I didn't have from before. It's called Last FM and works a lot like Pandora.

Don't know what Pandora is?

It's a Web service where you enter in artists you like and it finds music by those artists and similar artists. You can give the music a thumbs up and it'll play more like it. A thumbs down will make it come up less often. You can also see what your friends are listening to on Pandora. For example, my roommate likes to listen to Jazz, while my friend Jennifer has a Pandora station for Timbaland. Personally, I have a "Classics" station that has some of my all-time favorite songs and artists in it - from the Rolling Stones to Sugarland.

At any rate, Pandora is great.

But this new Last FM is better, simply because I don't have to go to a Web site to have access to it. It's at the top of the browser window.

Clever.

And convenient, too, which is why I can go from Miranda Lambert to John Hiatt to Nelly Furtado to Timbaland - all without having to hit a button. (Unless I click on the heart button, which marks the song as track I love.) And, unlike my iPod, I don't have to purchase the music.

And that makes me like it even more.