After hearing and reading so much about MP3 = MPEG audio streaming players, and finding that Quick Time (audio) is about as quick as cold thick honey, I spent a couple hours downloading 2 different MP3 players and loading some music and talk stations from around the world to each of their PLAYLISTS. It is really unbelievable how FAST they load the buffer and continuously play sounds, which can be SAVED as files which you can listen to offline, share with friends, and even broadcast on the WEB!
How can YOU listen to streaming music, news, radio stations and other goodies on the Internet? First, you need a virtual MP3 player on your computer, and there seem to be many of them on the Internet. Finding one basically suited to your system is as simple as doing a net SEARCH for MP3.
Hey, I know that a lot of you in cyberland know loads more about this stuff than I do. THIS page is for the zillions of web denizens who are trying it for the first time.
1 - I chose AMP Radio, from Subband Software , and MACAST as my players, simply because they were the first two MAC OS (= operating system) formats that I found. Both are shareware - AMP Radio costs only $10, while MACAST costs $19.99 or something like that. You originally download a trial version, each with its limitations, and upon payment automatically receive the full versions.
AMP Radio is somewhat simpler than Macast, but they are equally efficient at playing whatever stations or senders you eventually select according to your personal tastes and interests.
2 - Selecting stations is also sort of easy. Most of my stations come from Live365.com which offers thousands of different senders in a multitude of catagories.
3. Find the senders you like the most and add them to your PLAYLIST, SAVEing each.
It is as simple as that! I am sure that there are loads of other main sender web sites where you can get different goodies to add to your playlist.
OK, so you now have a MP3 receiver and have added a few stations to listen to. What else can you do with this new toy?
A - SAVE the streams (= music, talk, or whatever) as files on your computer, to listen to while you are offline - you can only do the stuff in 1-3 above while you are online.
B - if you have a RW (= READ - WRITE) CD (= compact disk) player, you can burn (= make) your own CDs of your favorite stuff, music and talk. I still have to try this.
C - if you do not like the MP3 player console that comes with your download, you can always change it to a new SKIN (= a new kewl console format!) Some of the ones that I have seen are extremely creative! And if you are really advanced, you can always make your own skin and share it online with others!
D - if you really want to get into it, you can start your own station or sender by signing up with Live365.com (OR any of the other main station sites on the Internet), using your own CD as the music/talk files that you want to share with the world. And you can always update the stuff you transmit.
OK, so what have I added to my playlist in the dozens of hours that I have been playing with this new discovery? The radio playlist that I originally listed below had the internet addresses (which have since changed, so I removed them) and a very brief title of the senders currently on my playlist. I would very much like to get the addresses of radio stations in Madrid and the Canary Islands in Spain, but have not found them yet - IF they exist. If you know where I can find these stations, please email me at CyberNut.
OK, so I just discovered how to take a pic of anything on my screen and can now provide you with some actual full-sized pics of MP3 players in various stages of functioning! Thanks go to my mentor, Amaury, for the tip! He has helped me since I started work on my site a couple years ago.
Above you can see what the AMP Radio console looks like, before connecting to a sender.
Macast console before selecting a station from the playlist
Cadaques Radio selected as my sender - great for guitar music; you can see the buffer loading the stream
streaming music, with station identified and streaming time indicated above, and the acoustic wave pattern shown in one of the various modes
changed SKIN - this one is kewl! Loads of controls to play with!
changed to another skin, and also changed the sound wave pattern generator style
Ok, so you get restless and want something else to go with the sound? You then turn on any of the visual PLUGINS and are transported into a world of color imagery in sync with what you are listening to. This composite pic shows 2 different visuals superimposed on one another.
OMG! I accidently was online when Steve Jobs was presenting his Keynote Address at the Macworld Conference held in San Francisco, California on 8 January 2001 -- so I clicked on the LIVE presentation and watched for about an hour and a half as he explained the features of the new MAC OSX! I was absolutely amazed at all the kewl new stuff!
Then I went to the Apple site and downloaded the FREE iTunes software. Bad idea! I then spent MANY hours getting out some of my favorite CDs and loading music into my new audio library! After 37 CDs and 66 song and radio stations added, it was daylight again!
I shall not go into all the features (you can find them at the apple site ), and only want to show a couple screen snapshots that I took of the player in operation......
this is the main, expanded iTunes screen where you can change ALL of your CDs to MP3 format, label, organize, adjust the sound qualities, listen to them -- and eventually even burn CDs and DVDs of them!
clicking the BROWSE button on the top right shows you an alphabetically arranged list of all the artists in your Library and the song titles. Once you have your Library set up, you can then listen to all the stuff playing sequentially in the background as you do other things on the puter -- just reduce the footprint of the player, drag it to a corner of your screen, and do some work....
OK, so you say THAT takes up too much room on your screen? Try this
And there is a kewl graphical sound thingy, which can be sized from small to full screen! I assume there will be more styles coming out as iTunes becomes more popular.
Incidently, what is the advantage of reformating your music files from CD to MP3? Einsteinium Space and Time!! Let's look at Madonna's TAKE A BOW as an example : the track is 5.21 minutes long -- CD track space = 54.2 megs, while the MP3 file space is a measly 7.4MB!! That translates into you being able to burn a CD containing MANY more MP3 files! That was my next step......
OK, when I got this iMac over a year ago, I also got a Que! CD R/W drive, and after doing the iTunes thing, I actually turned it on for the first time and burned my FIRST CD. It has 14 music files on it, and I was interested in finding out if the new CD could be used by someone else -- so I immediately, after 8pm, rushed over to a friend's place on the other side of Trenton to see if he could listen to my tracks on his PC. I was in luck because he already had an MP3 player on his computer. After a bit of work to find my CD on his screen (PCs are a tad more difficult to find things, as compared with a MAC), he got it AND IT ACTUALLY PLAYED! Although it was simply logical, nevertheless I was amazed! Try it, you'll like it!
To make it easier to see what I change/add to this page, I shall have dates in RED to make the new stuff easier to find.
2 January 2002 - OK, I had the URLs of a bunch of worldwide radio stations in this space, BUT most of them changed WWW addresses since I first wrote this, so I deleted the list. You can always find hundreds of them, according to your own music preferences, in the links listed above.
WOWSERS! I received a VERY surprise Christmas present from a new friend in Florida. You can find the entire story at . It took me a couple minutes to get the iPod set up and I loaded my meagre original iTunes Playlist of 57 songs in MP3 format. Last night I got out a bunch of CDs and loaded a pile more and now the count is up to 296 and I still have 3.1 gigs of memory left! A lot of Spanish songs by Maria Dolores Pradera, Julio Iglesias, Roberto Carlos; in Portuguese by Amalia Rodriguez - and a bunch of Moody Blues, Cat Stevens, Neil Diamond, Feliciano, Bob Dylan, Randy Travis; and some Christmas carols - among others.
I have 3 Playlists on the iPod - Christmas, Español and Favorites -- and the selections are organized according to Playlists, Artists and Songs. And, hey, I just launch a CD while I am online, and automatically get ALL the data about the CD title, artist, track titles and more!
I am amazed at how easy it is to use this high tech marvel! And the sound is fabulous. It has been my constant companion while at the puter, in the car, feeding the cats and even washing dishes!
Although the specs say that a single battery charge lasts about 10 hours, maybe I have been lucky, but I have had it going for 12+ and there was still juice left! Charging is a snap using the FireWire connection, and it is fully charged in about an hour, while I am plugging away at other things and surfing the WWW with my Cube.
OK, I have been trying to figure out a cheapo way to maintain the iPod screen and the polished Stainless Steel back nice and clean and without scratches...
Last night it occured to me that if I could find some of that clingy plastic (vinyl?) sheet they sell for putting stuff on windows (NO, NOT THAT Windozeoff!) -- which is sort of kewl because it can always be removed and replaced somewhere else -- I have a set of Holiday designs like that, and other goodies...
I was actually going to finally take the cllngy stuff off of the kewl blue Apple on the front of my Cube, but didn't like that option very much. I get in a finiky preservationist mood a lot and like to maintain things as they originally were! If I could only do the same for myself!
I just found a set of USA flag stuff I got at Sam's Club recently, and one of the 2 LARGE American flags has a sort-of nice non-printed border on the bottom, after the last red stripe. So I cut off that strip with backing and checked its width...
WOW, it just covers the screen! -- so I cut the strip long enough to go all the way round the SS part. OK, there was just enough to make 2 more strips to cover the rest of the back, up to the white plastic, more or less.
It will have to do until I can find another piece of static cling large enough to cut out a pattern to match the front top and the entire back somehow.
If any of my readers find a better way to protect the iPod front and back, and I don't mean a carrying case - they have them already, please email me at MUSICFREaK -- tanx a pile!
was ALWAYS extremely innovative and WAY ahead of all the others - and if you take the time to check out the developmental history of Microflacid and Apple products, it might surprise you that a pattern appears suggesting that the Microsucks R+D team just sits on their butts all day waiting to see what Apple comes out with, then they attempt copying it -- as ratty as they eventually copy the features - and as really curiously close that some of the product names look and sound to the original Apple goodie! Forget about that legendary MHz fantasm -- although a PC may nominally have a gHz label on the clunker, the operating system is structured entirely differently, and even a 650Mhz Apple puter is way FASTER than a PC gHz footwarmer!
OK, Apple is going to hold a MacWorldExpo in CA the second week of January. At Steve Jobs' ( MY HERO! ) keynote address, he is supposed to announce some really kewl goodies. Expectation is extremely high, and the rumors are rampant! I hope to watch it in streaming video, accessible through the Apple site (see link above). IF you have one of the new, trendsetting Apple Stores in your area, they are supposed to have a satellite hook-up to the keynote (starting at noon), so get there early, as seating/standing room will be limited, and may even be by invitation only - a list of Apple Store locations may also be found on their site. IF you are really into computers, even though you may be a PC user, it might be worth your while to check out what MAY eventually be available to you from those copypussys.
The Next Step - OK, my next step is to be able to put a lot of stuff I have on oldish LPs (33 1/3 rpm records) into MP3 format and be able to have them in my iTunes playlist and perhaps make a CD of selections to send pals. I have not even started the process yet except for having hundreds of LPs as potential candidates, many of them foreign.
It is not a really simple process, but with the right tools it cannot be all that difficult. Since my last update I have found a couple kewl links which are useful for this and other iPod reference material -
Turn Your LPs or Cassettes into CDs
iPoding
iPod Hacks
MP3 - iPod to Mac