OTHER TECH

Rhapsody 3.0

The latest version of Rhapsody, launched this spring, now offers three tiers of service. To compete with the "free" services, the Rhapsody 25 tier lets you listen each month to 25 full tracks from the library of over a million songs without entering a credit-card number. Since Rhapsody 25 is advertiser supported, the music industry gets paid. If you like what you hear, you can download the track for 99¢.

For $10 a month, the Rhapsody Unlimited tier lets you download as much music as you can fit on your computer's hard drive and play it without necessarily being connected to the Internet. When you are online, you have access to some 100 preprogrammed radio stations that let you skip to the next track if you don't like a song. You can also create a station based on your favorite artists. You can buy songs for 89¢, and most albums are $9. Downloads are 192-kbps AAC files - the same format used for burning the tracks to CD. Rhapsody says you can play its tracks on WMA-DRM-compliant players like the Creative Zen and Dell DJ, as well as iriver and Samsung Portable Media Centers and on all iPod models - making it the only site besides iTunes that supports 'Pods. Just be aware that the last time Rhapsody tried to make its downloads iPod-friendly, Apple changed its software so the files wouldn't be compatible.

For $15 a month, Rhapsody To Go gives you all the benefits of Rhapsody Unlimited while letting you transfer as many tracks as you want to compatible portable players, and you can play them so long as you keep subscribing. When you stop paying, you can't play them. While Rhapsody works with many of the same PlaysForSure devices as Napster as well as other portables, Microsoft hasn't yet officially certified the service. (Rhapsody To Go is not iPod-compatible.)

Rhapsody's home-networking options include the Sonos Digital Music System, GoVideo's D2740 wireless media receiver/DVD player, and Netgear's MP101 wireless digital music player. Rhapsody.com