eMusic

eMusic, an online subscription-based site, is an incredible music resource.

For the past year I’ve paid 9.99 a month for 40 songs from an array of incredible indie labels.  There are also other subscription plans, some of which offer 120 songs each month.  And the bigger your subscription, the cheaper the music becomes.

Some of the music offered includes popular acts such as Dashboard Confessional, Saves the Day, and the Arcade Fire, among others.  But there also classic albums from underground favorites like Animal Collective, Joan of Arc, American Football, and Of Montreal.

The collection isn’t limited to rock, either.  The site offers an expansive collection of hip hop, jazz, folk, country, and classical.

And what’s more, all songs are in an unprotected high quality mp3 format (192kpbs VBR), which stands as a huge improvement to the security-encoded, low quality (128kbps CBR) iTunes downloads, which are only available in Apple’s m4a format.  This format often presents a problem to music fans who use portable devices other than iPods, because m4a song files are not compatible with many other players.

Sites like eMusic represent the future of music business.  Hopefully one day a site will offer security-free downloads of equal quality at equally reasonable prices that span across the mainstream and underground spectrum.  But until then eMusic is your best bet.

If any of you readers out there decide to sign up for a subscription, let me know so you can cite me as a reference, which will ensure us each 50 free downloads in addition to the 25 you receive for simply signing up.

Down with the Zimbra

Well, I have a full-length review to do, so I’m sure I’ll be posting later on this evening or tomorrow afternoon.  But before then…

To all my fellow Hilltoppers, how often do you use Zimbra, our web-based mail client?  And how reliable do you find it to be?  I have this sneaking suspicion that I’m getting emails many hours after they were sent to me.  In effect, I didn’t know I was supposed to study for a quiz this morning.

And now I get home, and there’s an email time-stamped at 4:22PM yesterday telling me exactly what to study!

But I still did alright.

Down with the Zimbra.