Hello,
I recall that the Pandora music service has been talked about a time or two on this list. I thought I'd share a couple items I found of note related to how the service integrates with the Squeezebox music player from Logitech when updating to the latest version of the Squeeze Center software used to power the Squeezebox. For those who are not familiar with Pandora or the Squeezebox a brief explanation. The Squeezebox is a music player that connects to your stereo or other hardware device to play streamed music. Streaming software known as Squeeze Center (formerly Slimserver) powers the combination. The Squeezebox itself is no more accessible than most other consumer electronics but the nice thing is that you can connect to the streaming software and control the unit from a computer, web-enabled cell phone or any other method you use to access web pages. Pandora is a music service built around the concept that there is a genealogy to music. Stations are based on similarities between artists and songs you indicate you enjoy and other music categorized by the folks at Pandora. Pandora offers free and subscription services. The subscription offers a larger number of stations and the ability to integrate with the Squeezebox so you can listen to Pandora away from the computer. Learn more about the Squeezebox and Pandora at http://www.slimdevices.com and http://www.pandora.com respectively. Anyway, in updating to the latest Squeeze Center software, I noticed a few new items related to Pandora. Most notably, it is now possible to delete Pandora stations from within the Squeeze Center web interface. Given that the main Pandora web pages do not use Flash in accessible fashions, I found my Pandora stations list growing with stations I no longer wanted to use with no way to delete them. While Pandora support was willing to delete stations on request via e-mail, I found this to be a bit inconvenient. Now when viewing Pandora stations through Squeeze Center, you have a delete station link. Activating that link deletes the station from your list of Pandora stations. Other notable integration points between Squeeze Center and Pandora include the ability to rename stations, the ability to add music to an existing station and the ability to vote thumb up or thumb down on the currently playing song from Pandora. In the case of voting, this was formerly possible using the Squeezebox remote and is part of how you refine Pandora stations over time. I'm a big fan of Pandora and use it frequently both through the Squeezebox and directly from Pandora's web pages. If I can answer any questions from folks who are trying to use this service let me know. The unfortunate thing is that as far as I know the first time you use Pandora with your own account, it still requires sighted assistance to sign in once per machine due to the way they are using Flash. Many other functions can be accomplished outside the Flash interface by starting at http://www.pandora.com/backstage. I use this frequently to edit stations and such. Happy listening, Kelly Jonathan Mosen List Founder Audio List Help, Guidelines, Archives and more... http://www.pc-audio.org To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: pc-audio-unsubscr...@pc-audio.org
