Whenever I’m near my computer, I like to listen to music, and I’d rather use my PC and its sound system than a boombox.

If you’re like me and want your MP3 – or other kinds of digital music – then you’ll want to check out my column this month. I’ll show you amazing new ways to listen to high-quality music streamed to you over the Internet for free. And I’ll clue you in to ways to customize your favorite MP3 player, and even include MP3 players for those with Windows CE devices.

I’ll start off with one of the most amazing downloads I’ve come across in a long time: MP3.com’s Beam-It. This great free software lets you listen to your own CDs on any computer when you’re connected to the Internet – without the CD being in your computer. Run the software, register at the MP3.com site, then pop in a CD. Later, head to the MP3.com site, and it’ll stream the music from your CD to you in high-quality MP3 format. (As I write this, I’m listening Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue.) Naturally, the backward-looking music industry is suing MP3.com over the technology. So get this software now, in case the courts ultimately squash it.

Here’s another great way to listen to music over the Internet for free: get a copy of RadioSpy. The free software searches for all the radio stations that play music in streaming formats. It tells you what format they use (MP3, RealAudio, or Windows Media Player), organizes them by type of music, gives you the bit rate, shows you how many people are listening to each, and even "pings" each site to see how responsive it is. It’s great, great software.

If you’d like to be your own DJ, then get a copy of RadioSpy DJ Tools. It lets you broadcast your MP3 music over the Internet, and even allows you to mix voice over the music, and chat with your listeners.

There’s another way to listen to music stations over the Internet: get Spinner Plus. Like RadioSpy, it lets you find and listen to Internet radio stations – more than 120 of them at last count. The only drawback to this one is that you listen to music using RealPlayer and so the audio quality isn’t nearly as good as with streaming MP3.

» Get the Music Players, Juice them Up, Let It Rip