I love music. I think most people love music. Now I’m not suggesting piping music throughout the library, like they have done at some libraries. I think that is just, well, kind of weird and I wouldn’t want to inflict muzak on everyone. Besides, everyone has different tastes in music. So why am I bringing up music on a blog dedicated to libraries and technology? Well, for three reasons:
1. It is Friday and, well, Fridays call for something a little less serious.
2. I really think music can improve a person’s mood.
3. I love the online applications that let you create your own music stations and find new music.

So I thought, hey, why not share some of those online applications. I’d love to hear which ones are your favorites.

Hands down, my favorite online music application is Pandora. It is a great music discovery tool. Plus, you don’t have to download anything on your computer, so even if your work computer is locked down, you should still be able to stream music from Pandora. I quite like that.

Here is another music application, Sourcetone. Lifehacker talked about Sourcetone a while ago. It is an interesting concept; you move around a box to a spot on the color wheel that fits your mood at the moment and Sourcetone will play music that fits your mood. You can change the genre of music you want as well. I like this concept in theory, but haven’t had much success with it yet. Then again, Sourcetone is getting a lot of heavy traffic, most likely due to said Lifehacker article, that could explain some of the issues I’ve been having with it. Plus the ads on the bottom kind of annoy me. Let me know if you’ve had success using Sourcetone.

Music Artist Cloud is a super-simple music tool–just type in an artist whose music you like and there you go. I think it is a great mash-up idea with YouTube videos and tag clouds of other artists that you might like. This is so easy to use and another great way of checking out some new music. Plus you get to watch music videos.

And because I’d feel guilty if I didn’t link to at least one, obviously useful at work article, here is Lifehacker’s Five Best Free Data Recovery Tools. Seriously, take a look at this, because it is super helpful and at some point, you will need to use one of these tools.

Have a happy Friday and a great weekend. The Waki Librarian will be back next week.