Trying out the virtual iPods

I've been checking out Web sites which function as a kind of virtual iPod. MediaMax and XDrive both allow free storage of MP3 music files. Both sites all0w the users to stream the files to any computer with a fast Internet connection.

MediaMax allows users to store a whopping 25 gigabytes of music, a great service. But there's a big bummer for classical music listeners: You can't stream or download any file larger than 10 MB. This is no big deal for, say, country and western fans, but many pieces within classical compositions exceed the limit. So for the kind of music I favor, MediaMax is not very useful. I also could not figure out how to get playlists on the site to work.

XDrive offers 5 GB of free storage -- puny compared to MediaMax, but still quite a bit of music. And the site seems to work really well. You can stream the music to your computer and user your own media player. Or you can open the file on XDrive's site, and XDrive will supply a media player of its own. (This function does not always seem to work; perhaps there are problems when the site is busy.) There is no limit I've been able to detect on the size of the file -- I played Terry Riley's "In C" from the site the other day -- and it's reasonably easy to put together functional playlists at the site.