Lala has become my music player of choice, simply because it is, as far as I know, the most affordable way to purchase music on the Internet. I’ve reviewed the Lala music player for another site, and an how-to article has been published here on MUO.

Lala has become my main jukebox and is used ten times more than I use iTunes. With my setup, it doesn’t take much effort to access my Lala account. This article explains the method I use as a Mac user. I’m sure there are similar applications for PC users.

What You Need

FluidApp
Butler
Airfoil (optional)

Each of the applications, except for Airfoil, can be downloaded for free. Donations, of course, are accepted.

Creating a Site Specific Browser for Lala.com

The Lala music player lacks a dedicated desktop web application to play music. You must sign into your account and use its web application. To get a dedicated player of sorts onto your desktop, you can use FluidApp, a “site specific browser” (SSB), for a dedicated website or page. Making your Lala account homepage a SSB is like making it an application, which means it’s less likely to get lost in the clutter of all your other web pages on your desktop, especially if you use some of its advance features that I will describe below.

Instructions for creating an SSB using the application are clearly explained on its website, so I won’t rehash them here. But the following are some extra instructions for how to specifically use FluidApp to create a “Lala Player” on your desktop.

• First off, when you’re creating a SSB for the Lala music player, you’ll want a well designed icon, so download Goggans’s design posted on his Flickr photostream (once you use the Fluid creation, it won’t have the black border that you see here.)

• After your SSB is created, you can customize the browser some.
• Your SSB includes a menu bar and a set of preferences similar to what you find on any web browsing application. In the FluidApp preferences you can choose to style the window of your SSB as I have done here. I like using the black top framing or “HUD” for all my SSBs. That makes them distinctive from my main web browsing windows.

• There’s also an option in Preferences (click on Behavior Preferences) in which you can have a SSB window immediately hide when it’s not in the foreground. Using this option means you can open up your Lala Player, select a playlist or album to play, and when you click to another application, the browser window gets out of the way so you can get back to what you’re doing.

Use Butler for Quick Access

Like any other application, your Lala.com FluidApp will appear in your dock for easy access. But in my opinion, using a launcher application like Butler or Quicksilver provides even faster access.

Butler allows you to assign a Hot Key or Hot Corner to an application to launch. Since I’m more of a mouse user, I assigned a Hot Corner to my Lala app. It’s easy to do: Start up Butler and click on its Configuration tab. Drag the Lala FluidApp to the Hidden section. With the application selected, assign a Hot Key or Hot Corner that works best for you.

AirFoil (optional)

Lala is beta testing an iPhone application for its site, but until the app is released, you can use a free iPhone application called AirFoil Speakers Touch to hear music on your Lala account on your iPhone or iPod touch. The only catch with using the AirFoil Speakers is that you have to purchase Airfoil for Mac ($25), which sends audio remotely from your Mac to its mobile counterpart speaker application. This is a cheaper solution than getting Apple”˜s limited AirPort Express, which can only be used with iTunes. Of course, you can also AirFoil to stream any other audio coming from your computer.

So what do you think of this? If you’re a Lala member, drop me a few comments and let me know what you think about the site and this set up.