By The Way...

I've been getting mail from people that says "We understand that AOL won't let us automatically load music from our AOL Journal pages -- but we still want have people able to listen to music when they come to the Journal. What should we do?"

My suggestion -- which I of course back up by way of example -- is to take the file of music you want to share, upload it with FTP into your Hometown area (or other Web space you might have), and then place a link in your "About Me" area, which is always there when people visit your AOL Journal. Alternately, you can point to piece of music that is publicly online somewhere else and available for streaming, and use that too.

In the first case above, people can download the piece of music or have it play while they download; a MIDI file I tested this downloaded and played automatically through AOL, although you might want to tell people to have it open in a new window (which you can do by right-clicking the link with your mouse), so they can listen and read at the same time. In the second, the piece will automatically stream.

This is the best of both worlds with personal music because it allows people to hear the music you want to share with them, but it's their choice to click or not -- you're not using the resources of their computer without their permission. Don't worry, people will click, especially if it's a piece of music you've made yourself. People visit AOL Journals and other blogs because they're interested in what you're thinking and doing, after all.

Some hints: If you upload a file through FTP, make sure it's a piece you have permission to use -- a copyright violation is a copyright violation. Second, with AOL's FTP, I'm thinking small music files are best -- MIDI files, for example (which use your computer's soundboard to create music rather than carrying a copy of a performance), are extremely small: One I just downloaded is a mere 22kb, which is the size of a small picture.

About the piece I'm linking to in my own "About Me" area: Yes, it's a piece I wrote. Be glad I'm not linking to the track I wrote where I sing. I don't want to scare you.

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• #7 Comment from teaandr0ses 
  6/13/04 8:39 PM | Permalink

  OK REMEMBER YOU ARE TALKING TO SOMEONE WITH BLONDE ROOTS HERE
  I REALLY WOULD LOVE TO PUT MUSIC ON MY WEB SITE BUT I CANT FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THIS ...COULD YOU SEND ME THE SAME THING YOU SENT TO THE ONE WHO ASKED YOU TO >>>I'm still not understanding this. Could you send more detailed instructions to me. I need this explained to me like a little kid :P. Thanks and God Bless. :)  http://journals.aol.com/glopsblink/JournalRulesTheBirthofGlopsblink
  Comment from glopsblink - 4/21/04 4:20 PM<<<<<<PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE
  THANK YOU
• #6 Comment from asckb 
  5/12/04 5:43 PM | Permalink

  Any of you that want to add some music to your journal the easy way, just do this: In your about me section; click, drop, and drag the heart from aol radio into the edit part of about me.  It's so easy, and a great thing to have!  The funny thing about it is this:  I talked to an online tech to see how we could add radio to our journals, and he said aol journal did not offer that!  What a dork!
• #5 Comment from glopsblink 
  4/21/04 4:20 PM | Permalink

  I'm still not understanding this. Could you send more detailed instructions to me. I need this explained to me like a little kid :P. Thanks and God Bless. :)  http://journals.aol.com/glopsblink/JournalRulesTheBirthofGlopsblink
• #4 Comment from shedatfreak4u 
  4/20/04 12:04 AM | Permalink

  well i've figured it out... you can add music to your page from one of the various music code sites... i've added music videos to my journal entries by selecting view as html while creating your entry and adding the html code for the music at the end of your entry... finally i can have music streaming from within the page itself without the hassle of clicking links and extra windows showing in order for it to play... check my page out and enjoy everyone.....  Realizm  ...http://journals.aol.com/shedatfreak4u/Realizm/
• #3 Comment from bart162 
  3/27/04 10:05 AM | Permalink

  IWOULD LIKE YOU TO GO THOUGH THIS PROCESS STEP BY STEP PLEASE. IM NOT THAT GOOD AT THESE KINDS OF THINGS, SO PLEASE ITS DRIVING ME CRAZY, I HAVE A SOFTBALL HOME PAGE AND IM TRYING TO PUT WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS ON IT, TRIED TO FOLLOW YOUR INSTRUCTIONS BUT TO NO AVAIL.
  ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED. THANKS JOE