Ruckus: Free Legal Downloads for College Students

Ruckus is a solidly legal, free music downloading service for college students.

Pros: An ever-expanding music selection, and a great place to explore new music without consequence. Any music you select downloads really fast. The Ruckus music player is a reasonably attractive model.

Cons: Ruckus music can't legally be transferred to any other music player (like iTunes or Windows Music Player). You can't put Ruckus music on an mp3 player. You lose your Ruckus music when you graduate, unless you pay a subscription fee. Tons of advertising. The music selection is good but sometimes lacking.

The Bottom Line: check it out. It's free, and its easier on your conscience than downloading illegally. Not to mention: digital music + no cost = green in every sense of the word.

The Green Dorm

It's a new school year, and you're moving in with new roommates and suitemates. Here are a few things that can help green your living space:

1. Use power surge protectors. Not only will you multiply your power outlets and have protection from power surges--you'll also save energy!

2. Agree with your roommate or suitemates to put all plastic bags in one place. That way, it's easy to find a plastic bag when you want to reuse one--as a trashcan liner, to carry things, or to take to the grocery store and ask for the grocery bagger to reuse.

3. Have recycling bins or boxes in the suite, and agree to take turns to take out the recycling (just as you would agree to take turns to take out the trash). Be considerate--rinse your recyclables before putting them in a bin--otherwise, it will start to smell!

4. Ask permission from your residential adviser to put a "free box" somewhere on your dorm floor. People can put stuff that they don't want anymore in the free box, and then it's up for grabs. Once a month, or whenever the free box is full, the contents of the box can be donated to charity.

A Free Personal Art Gallery

Imgfave is a free website that allows you to save and store any images you like on the web, without using any memory on your own computer. What's more, the images are kept for you in an aesthetically-pleasing, simple list with links to the original website so that you can always go back to where you found the image in the first-place.

Imgfave works through a free, simple toolbar button: once you have the button (click on the link), click on your imgfave button, then click on the image you want to save, and it's yours.

You can also peruse what other users are saving on the imgfave mainpage. Ffffound is a similar website with a more design-focused personality (ffffound is free to look, but invitation-only to use their image bookmarking service, so it can be hard to get in).

The only downside of image-bookmarking websites is a certain lack of privacy: although your account can be as anonymous as you want to make it, all your images are published to the main page.

Update: Free Digital Mixtapes

Earlier this month, I blogged about Muxtape, a website where you can create your own digital mixtape and share it with friends. The website has since had some problems with the RIAA, and the website has been shut down for now.

In the meantime, similar websites Mixwit and GoodStorm Music are still legal websites where you can create and share digital mixtapes.

Consumer Review: iTunes

As noted in the last post, the Amazon MP3 store is usually a cheaper alternative to iTunes. The real gems of iTunes are what's for free: the iTunes software itself is a convenient and attractive way to organize your music collection, and thousands of free podcasts on news, music, yoga, Sesame Street, etc.

Free Podcast Gems:
Today's Top Tune from the taste-making radio station KCRW

This American Life from Ira Glass, a collection of personal stories from around the nation that are always honest and always entertaining

The Onion's hilarious fake news broadcast

Consumer Review: Amazon MP3 Downloads Store

Legal MP3s are greener and cheaper than buying CDs. Over the next few days, we'll review several online sources of MP3s and help you find the best deals.

The Amazon MP3 Downloads Store provides some real price competition to the more popular iTunes. On iTunes, where the vast majority of albums are $9.99, with individual songs going for 99 cents. On Amazon, discounts seem to be the norm.

Expect to find popular music, classic rock, and anything that can be classified as "indie" going for $7.99 an album or less, and 89 cents a song. Movie soundtracks typically go for $8.99. Also, Amazon does not charge sales tax (iTunes does).

The special deals section is excellent--this week, among other deals, the classic album The Velvet Underground and Nico is selling for $5 (discount ends Friday). The special deals page is worth bookmarking, as everyday in the upper lefthand corner, there is an "MP3 Daily Deal" where you can snag a classic album for something ridiculous like $1.99. [ You can also follow the special deals on Twitter ]

The Free section also has some gems.

The Amazon download software is fast and easy to use. My music library is held in iTunes, and all my Amazon purchases automatically show up in my iTunes library, complete with album artwork.

Muxtape: The Modern Mixtape--Free , Legal, and Green

The world changes, but a mixtape is still one of the best ways to share music with your friends and show that you care. Besides, who doesn't love playing DJ every once and a while?

Enter Muxtape, a great website where a free account allows you to make an online, mp3 playlist and change it as many times as you want. Then your muxtape gets its own short, catchy web address, making it easy to share with friends.

As the purpose of your muxtape changes (romancing Alice now and not Susie?), you can change the web address and the title of your muxtape without having to get a new account.

The only downside is that the website only supports mp3s as of now.

One of the most fun features of the website is that you can listen to the muxtapes of random strangers (click on any of the colorful blocks on the main page) and save the ones you like by adding them to your "favorites."

Not only is it free, but it's also legal and environmentally-friendly, since you won't be buying new tapes or CDs every time you want to make a mix.

last.fm users: You can scrobble any plays from muxtape, as long as you link your two accounts from your muxtape page, and stay logged into muxtape.