Some time back I signed up for Napster. It is a deal where I get access to all of their music on my PC as long as I pay a monthly subscription. At the start I was a bit worried it might be a silly idea. But over time it has won me over. The range of music is expanding daily and to my great delight a lot of stuff I used to own on vinyl is now appearing.

And I really like the way that I hear a track I fancy on the radio and then go home and dedownload it. For no extra cost. Number one daughter likes Napster too. You can sign up three PCs and play music on all of them (even at the same time). The only problem that I've found is that because the library information is shared between us, she finds out what kind of stuff I like and vice versa.

Next I want something which is Janus compliant so I can take this content with me. Janus is the codename for the bit of Media Player 10 which allows subscription material to be loaded onto portable devices. I guessing that if you don't dock your portable at reasonable intervals the content on it stops working, but I can live with that. Some people are saying that Janus is restrictive and will limit the usefulness of portable devices. I kind of interpret this as "It will stop us from getting stuff for free".

I think I must be getting old, in that to my way of thinking there is nothing unreasonable about being asked to pay for something if you want to have it. And as long as they are not too stupid with their pricing, I'm looking forward to carrying Napster around with me.