If you’ve ever taken a class with me, you know that I have had Sirius satellite radio for years and I love it. I can’t go back to terrestrial radio. I’m glad Sirius and XM merged so that the industry is more viable long-run, and I’m glad that they agreed to freeze prices for a few years so that their current customers don’t get screwed. I don’t listen to regular radio any more, only when my girlfriend borrows my Sirius for a road trip. I actually don’t even listen to music that much any more. In the car, I’m listening to either Howard Stern, Colin Cowherd, or Andrew Wilkow. But at work, I can’t have talk radio — too distracting. I’ve been listening to more music in the office lately (that’s why my door is closed, not because I don’t want students to bother me) because of two relatively new music sources. I like them so much I thought I’d share them with you. 

Simplify (www.simplifymedia.com). Free download, also available for the iPhone. You install the program on your home computer and create an account. It asks you what music files you want to share — I share my iTunes folder, since that’s where all my music is. You can add up to 30 people as friends. Your friends can listen to your music through iTunes or WinAmp, and you can listen to your music on a different computer. You just have to have your computer on and connected to the internet. While I’m at work, I have access to all my music at home on my desktop, as well as any of my friends’ music. With just me and my department chair, I’ve got access to over 4,000 songs. I need more friends with big music collections. (James, that means you.) Feel free to add me. My Simplify profile name is, of course, profswitzer.

Pandora (www.pandora.com). Nothing to download — it plays in your web browser. Available for the iPhone also. They have some pre-loaded radio stations in a variety of genres that are pretty good. But without question the best part about it is the ability to create your own radio stations. Create an account and log in — it remembers you in the future. Type in an artist that you like, or even just a song, and it creates a radio station filled with songs that it thinks you will like. You can add more artists to your station to increase the variety. If you hear a song you don’t like, give it a thumbs down and you’ll never hear it again on that station. If you hear one you like, they’ll increase the frequency with which it plays on that station. It’s a great way to be introduced to new artists (great for someone like me who doesn’t listen to much new music). You can even share music stations with friends — haven’t done it yet, but it sounds cool.

If you have an iPhone, you can use both of these and never have to take up memory space with music files. And it also means that whenever and wherever I am driving, I have access to my music. I’ll probably be listening to Howard anyway, but it’s nice to have options.