First of all, I created a "space" for myself at MSN Spaces. Ahhhhh so many websites... I think it's more confusing for me than it is actually for others. I know many people who have multiple sites or blogs but I usually like to have everything in one place. So why the new "space" you ask? I like their photo sharing feature. Very user-friendly and looks great. I also considered the new Yahoo 360 beta.... but decided to just choose something and go with it. "Blog"-wise, it'll be the same, i.e. I'll be totally lazy and just cut and paste entries from my main blog to the msn space. But instead of trying to update my online photo albums regularly and failing miserably, I'll just toss a few pics over to spaces every now and then so at least something gets posted. Of course I still will upload the full albums eventually... yeah... maybe... oh and there's still my moblog which does see new stuff somewhat frequently. Hmmm.... perhaps I need to find a central place for all my photo posts. Well, for now, this arrangement will have to do!

 

As I was searching for certain Nightwish songs to download, I found a website called All of MP3 after having no luck at Rhapsody, Napster, and even iTunes. It's a Russian website and they charge music downloads by megabytes. You can get a whole album's worth of music at decent quality (192kbps) for about a dollar and change. Yes, a whopping dollar for an album, not one single song. It's dirt cheap, still it's not free, but is it legal? According to a couple of posts I found, as well as the info on AllofMP3's website, it is legal for us in the United States to purchase and own the music files. For now. (of course, the usual restrictions apply, you can't resell or broadcast the materials etc.) I think the really cool thing is, aside from the price, the ability for buyers to choose from various encoding quality as well as different audio formats! It's not restricted to just MP3s.... you can select OGG or WMA or even AAC. Whichever tickles your fancy. The "Online Encoding" feature transcodes on the fly when you place an order. Getting hard-to-find music at the quality/format I want at a great price and without breaking the law? I'm sold.