SCOTT MOTIE
Staff Writer
Have you lost a love for technology? Do dreams of Bill Gates include horns and a pitchfork? Do you repeatedly watch the end of Napoleon Dynamite searching for inspiration in Kip’s “I love technology” song?
There are three online services that could rekindle your love for technology. And for the most part, they’re free.
They are Pandora, Skype and Writely. You may wonder what you ever did without these cool gadgets because they cover three basics of college life: music, talking and writing reports.
Pandora (www.pandora.com), an Oakland, Calif.-based company, describes itself as a service that launches streaming music based on musical tastes, tracked through existing favorites.
To use it, log on to their site. Create a few stations with names of favorite artists or songs and start listening. There is nothing to download or install and no advertisements to watch, but it doesn’t allow you to repeat any song — which means that over the 10-hour trial period (Pandora charges $3 a month afterward) a song might not play twice.
How does it work? Pandora analyzes the sounds of the songs or artists you recommend and identifies those sounds based on a number of musical “genes” developed by Pandora’s music genome project. It then plays a continuous stream of songs with similar genes.
Now that you’ve found all this new music, you need a way to let your friends in on your newfound coolness. Cell phones are expensive, so you need Skype. With Skype (www.skype.com), you can call your friends for free.
Skype users first need a microphone. Most laptops have built-in microphones, but portable ones also are available at any large electronics outlet.
Skype does the rest. It uses something called voice over Internet protocol to send your voice through the Net. Although this isn’t brand-new technology, Skype makes the most of it by far.
To use Skype, log on to the Web site and download the program. Tell friends to do the same, and start Skyping each other. Although it does take some patience, as there is a split-second of lag during most conversations, sound quality is good. You can also transfer files, access voicemail and make conference calls. Skype-to-Skype calls are free.
There is a nominal charge for Skype-to-phone calls, but there is a loophole for that. Skype offers free calls to 1 (800) FREE-411, a service that connects callers at no charge. Users can dial over the Net, give the intended number to an operator and get forwarded to a regular phone line for free. For the cost of a microphone (or telemarketer-style headset, if you want more privacy), Skype will do wonders for your phone bill.
After burning many hours listening to Pandora and calling friends on Skype, you’re probably behind on schoolwork.
It’s time for Writely (www.writely.com). The service allows users to collaborate in editing and publishing content online. It can be public or private.
Writely works similarly to Microsoft Word (though it cannot match Word in every feature), and facilitates writing entirely online. If you find yourself e-mailing documents as attachments, working on group papers or carrying around a USB drive with all your documents, then consider Writely. Documents are stored securely in an online account, and they are accessible from any computer with an online connection. Writely files can be downloaded onto a computer as a Word document.
Taken in pieces, Pandora, Skype and Writely can make life a bit more fun and productive. Taken together, they might cause you to fall in love with technology again. For your sake, I certainly hope so.
11-10-2005
