Internet Radio

June 9, 2000 - Evan Kleiman

One of the problems of living out in the suburbs, where there are many trees and tall objects, is poor radio reception. Is there any solution to this problem for those who like to listen to the radio? Of course there is - internet radio.

Internet Radio is a technology that has been around for awhile. However, it wasn't big until now. You might think internet radio requires a huge antenna attached to your computer, but you'd be wrong. In fact, you probably already have everything you need installed on your computer.

To listen to internet radio stations, you need an internet connection and a program to listen to the music. You probably already have one of these. My favorite two programs are Real Player 8.0 beta and Audion 1.5.

Once you have these programs, which you can get for free, you need to tune into some stations. Both of the programs I mentioned before have their own built in directories, however, they don't list a lot of stations. But, there are many good sites on the internet where you can look up radio stations.

One site to try is the MIT List of Radio Stations. This site has a very comprehensive list of regular radio stations that you can pick up on the Internet. Your favorite radio station could be on the list. But maybe you don't want to listen to a radio station that you could easily pick up with your home stereo - that's why there are internet only radio stations.

These stations can only be accessed on the internet, and usually you can find a radio station devoted to any genre of music. Real Networks is a good place to look.

This might sound like a great new concept, but there are some down sides. For instance, sometimes it can take a long time for your player to download the music from the radio stations. But this is a small price to pay for great music.

Recent Mac Happens Columns

• MP3 Forever!, 6/26/00. Closing down Napster will not help already rich artists, but may prevent new ones from being discovered.
• Internet radio, 6/9/00. Internet radio solves problems with poor radio reception, but also lets you listen to radio from around the world.
• Software to make life easier, 5/23/00. Helpful software you may never have heard of.
• Mac Happens index
• Evansite, Evan's own site.

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