T11M

Last.fm and Pandora are my two absolute favorite streaming music players.  Pandora set the standard for streaming, near commercial free, music and Last.fm has brought a social networking aspect to the same service.  As I develop my Internet presence, I have come to prefer Last.fm for its social networking services.  I have linked my Lifestream to my profile to pull down my scrobbled tracks.  It also allows others to see what songs and artists I have enjoyed.  The one downside to Last.fm (and Pandora, for that matter) is the web browser controls.  I hate having to leave a browser tab open to keep the music streaming and then when I want to change the station or skip a track, I have to navigate to that window and make the change.  So I went hunting for a Last.fm client for my Mac and I stumbled across this article by Download Squad about Amua – a Mac Last.fm client.  Of course I downloaded Amua immediately, entered by Last.fm credentials and started listening to music.  So far I am very pleased with Amua; it hides in the menu bar nicely, the controls are simple to use, and I can quickly access it.  The one major downside is it links to Last.fm via iTunes, which means you have to have iTunes open.  Thus if you aren’t an iTunes user, or you like to keep it closed since it is a terrible resource hog, Amua probably isn’t for you.  Check it out on the Amua Sourceforge page.