The George Lite Zone

I was playing about with Last FM last night. Last FM is an application that keeps track of the last tracks you played on your PC, then allows you to display them on social networking sites such as Facebook or on blogs, such as this one. This is done via plugins to popular music players such as Windows media or Win Amp.

Sampling some of these goodies I’ve added, two music quilts on the right hand side of this blog. Far better than the sort that Grandma used to make, these cycle through the pictures of album covers. I created two. One for Hawkwind and one that cycles through the bands listed in my MySpace profile.

I also added a radio widget which allows you to play bands in my favorites or that are similar in nature. Hit the play button on this to get some quality music to listen to while you surf the net.

Finally I’ve added an RSS feed from the site to display the last five tracks I’ve played.

Check it out, I’ve got a feeling that Radio Motörhead will be appearing on a blog in the near future.

RSS Feeds are a useful way of keeping tabs on changes to websites and getting information on a variety of topics of interest to your screen without the need for trawling through a myriad websites. A bit like the internet equivalent of fast food, without the fries. There are many ways of subscribing to and reading feeds. Some browsers, such as Firefox (or my browser of the moment Flock), have the ability built in. However by far and away the best way of accessing RSS Feeds is to use an aggregator (a.ka. RSS Reader or Feed Reader).

For the last couple of years my aggregator of choice has been FeedDemon. Easy to use it is widely held to be the best of breed when it comes to bringing you your daily fix of RSS Feeds. I just learned today that Newsgator who own FeedDemon are making it available as a free download. Bah humbug, if like me you already paid the piper to subscribe, whoopy doo for everyone else.

Give it a whirl. Now it’s free there’s no excuse not to.

FeedDemon can be downloaded from http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/FeedDemon/Default.aspx.

Another interesting freebie from Newsgator is Newsgator Go!. This allows you to read your feeds on your mobile phone and is synchronised with the feeds you add to feed demon. This is available for Blackberry, Java Mobile Smartphone (including my Nokia N95, huzzah) and for Windows Mobile. Windows mobile phone owners can also get it to play streaming video and audio too. To get this go to http://www.newsgator.com/Individuals/NewsGatorGo/Default.aspx and click on the aproprate free download link. Sign in with an existing newsgator account, or create one if you’ve not already got one. You’ll eventually get asked to accept the software license agreement. Accept this and an e-mail will be sent to the e-mail address you registered. Open this mail and get a link you can type into your phones browser. Do this and you can install the application on your phone. Enter your Newsgator username and password when asked on your phone and as though by magic your feeds will appear before your eyes in miniature. Fantastic. So now not only have you got internet fast food, you’ve got it to go to.

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