SidePlayer and Pandora radio gadgets for Windows Vista Sidebar are easy convenient gadgets to stream free music right from your desktop. These are fun to play with and together make a great pair of tools to listen to free music any way you want. Listen to specific free songs with Sideplayer, and listen to random customizable playlists built on your tastes with Pandora gadget.

As I write this article I am listening to music that I have not purchased. No I didn’t download it illegally. I am streaming it right from my desktop.

All I have to do is type in the artist and a song title, and the songs just start playing. It feels magical. I am the magician. Where do the songs come from?

I was ecstatic to be able to go to Amazon or I-Tunes and listen to samples of music before I either downloaded or bought at a retail store. Another thing I loved was user reviews of the album. I read these reviews to learn how the new album, or old one, compared to other albums. This took the unknown factor out of buying music and allowed me to see if the music was something I will enjoy hearing.

Artists also started allowing their music to be streamed from their own websites and others promotional sites years ago. Now we don’t have to buy an album until we have heard the entire thing or close to it. This makes the album art and commercial hype less persuasive. I love it.

Now even better than that you can have convenience of playing the songs right off your desktop with a Windows Sidebar gadget. It is called SidePlayer, and it streams over two million songs for you to play at your convenience. Giving you near limitless access to free music.

Pros:

• Totally Free
• Easy to use (download, install, and operate)
• Fast (most songs play in just a few seconds)
• Convenient (It sits on your desktop)
• Hear entire songs
• Decent to great quality
• Great tool for sampling an artist, album, or genre
• Over two million tracks available

Cons:

• You have to know the name of the artist and/or song title
• Some obscure artists are unavailable
• Only plays one song at a time (you have to keep typing in songs if you want to continue to listen)
• Only works with Windows Vista (I think)

TechGuy, the creator of SidePlayer commented on this hub. Here's what he wanted to add:

• You can download the latest version of SidePlayer directly from TechSupportPages.com
• Have fun with the gadget! Don't forget to give us feedback, let us know if you like the gadget. You can give feedback either at TechSupportPages or on Windows Live
• SidePlayer has an automatic update facility. You can check for updates by going to the settings page in the gadget. We'll be releasing new features in the future so don't forget to check back.
• Thanks for your support.

1. Go to search with windows explorer
2. Type in "sidebar" Click it to open it
3. Click the link to the right and download the Gadget.
4. Follow the prompts to download and install.

Now you are ready to go. Just type in whatever artist and song you want to hear. If you need to look up a song title, you can easily find what you are looking for on the web. Then type in the song you want to hear. I hope that the developers will add some functionality to the SidePlayer, such as playlist function or shuffle an artist’s songs. This way you won’t have to type the names in constantly. It is still an impressive, convenient tool.

Since writing the original article about SidePlayer, I have found another Gadget that fills in for the weaknesses of SidePlayer. I suggest using Pandora Radio Sidebar gadget as a compliment to Sideplayer, because neither do it all. Here's what Pandora Radio gadget does:

• You type in an artist
• It creates never ending playlists based on an artist or song
• A link to album info is included, and tells you why the song is suggested for you
  
• You can skip up to six times per hour for each playlist
• It learns what you like based on thumbs up and thumbs down function
  
• It can suggest music based on a summary of all of your artist playlists
• It displays album artwork
  

Pandora Radio is great for hours of casual listening, but don't get rid of SidePlayer though because you can't just type in an artist and a song and hear it on demand. You are at the mercy of what comes up from typing in the artist. You will probably like it, but you don't get the ultimate control. So download and install both for the best of both worlds. Both are magical. Enjoy wasting countless hours discovering great music now, for free, from your desktop.