The WEB CELT » Internet Radio

The Kindle Fire

WebCelt — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 15:56:27 +0000

This month in our new Go Technology column we take a close look at Amazon’s upcoming new product called the Kindle Fire. Set to release on November 15, 2011, the Kindle Fire is certainly about to set the digital and technology world on fire with 95,000 units already sold.

For a low price of just $200, buyers will get a great deal on a tablet that is going to change the way manufactures sell and market this wonderful little devices we call tablets. By the end of the year, researchers expect the Kindle Fire to sell over 3 million units!

So what is all of the excitement about? Kindle Fire will have 18 million movies, TV shows, songs, magazines and books available. It will contain an Amazon App store similar to iTunes App store and also a web browser. But here is the magic of the Kindle Fire – Ultra Fast Web Browsing using Amazon’s Silk cloud computing. To store all of your purchases Amazon will provide free cloud storage and that’s not all…

Movies, magazines and children’s books come alive on a 7″ vibrant color touchscreen that delivers 16 million colors in high resolution. Kindle Fire uses IPS (in-plane switching) technology – similar technology to that used on the iPad – for an extra-wide viewing angle, perfect for sharing your screen with others. Kindle Fire features a state-of-the-art dual-core processor for fast, powerful performance. Stream music while browsing the web or read books while downloading videos. Stay in touch using a built-in email app that gets your webmail (Gmail, Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL etc.) into a single inbox. Import your messages and contact lists from other email accounts.

This just touches upon a few of the many features of the Kindle Fire. Not to even mention the 8 hours of continuous reading or 7.5 hours of video playback. Of course this is a wireless device, just like an iPod or iPad, so you can take it with you on the go to all of your favorite places.

The workmanship, design and easy of use earns the Kindle Fire a 5 Star review from Celtic Radio. This system is a real genius of innovation. An impressive compilation of technology, internet and music to give you many hours of enjoyment. Make sure to pre-order your Amazon Kindle if you want this exciting new product before Christmas. This just may be the hot product that everyone wants this Christmas!

Grace Internet Radio

WebCelt — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:43:29 +0000

This month’s Go Wireless column features the Grace Digital Solo Wi-Fi Internet Radio Receiver is a combination Internet radio receiver and audio media streaming device that brings all the audio content of the Internet to your stereo system. With it users can listen to 18,000+ radio stations from NPR, FOX news, CNN, BBC, CBS to KROQ, and over 35,000 podcast as well as On-Demand subscription streams or your personal Pandora radio stations seamlessly from their home setup.

Additional features include the ability to stream files from local computer networks, compatibility with the free Grace remote control App for iPhone/iTouch and alarm clock functionality.

Convenient Access to Online Music in Your Home AM and FM radio stations all over the world stream their audio content over the Internet. Grace Digital Audio’s “Solo” product line of Wi-Fi Receiver and Media Streamers allow you link this massive amount of free content, as well as a variety of pay Internet radio services, conveniently and efficiently to your stereo or home entertainment system. Setup is simple, all you need is access to a broadband Internet connection and a wireless router. Acting like any wireless device, once configured to the Wi-Fi signal(s) available and its security, if any, the Solo Wi-Fi Receiver provides quick access to literally thousand of Internet radio stations and podcasts from your home stereo without having to fire up a computer. In addition, users can listen to the hottest premium online music services like Pandora, Live365 and Sirius.

Although designed as an Internet radio component for your stereo system, the Solo also allows users to do other things with their sound. For example, it can also be used as a clock radio/alarm—taking advantage of its built-in clock with backlit LCD display, five individual alarms and sleep timer—or acting further as a bridge between your computer network and your stereo, it can stream your digital music collection directly from your PC or Mac to your home stereo. Supported formats include: audio – AIFF, AIFC, WAVE, CAF, NeXT, ADTS, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WMA; playlist – ASX, M3U, PLS; streaming protocols – HTTP, HTTPS, RTSP, WSMP, Shoutcast. Users can also utilize either the full function remote control included, with its 10 presets, search and song skip functionality, or control via iPhone / iPod Touch.

Remote Control

Support for optional iPhone/iTouch remote app

Technical Details:

Listen to over 50,000 radio stations, podcast, and on demand content
Supports online music services: Pandora, Live365 and premium Sirius Internet radio
Compatible with the Grace iPhone / iTouch remote control application
4 line high contrast backlit display
Displays station, song title and artist info
Full function remote with 10 presets
10 presets on the radio + 99 station folder
3.5mm Stereo headphone jack
High quality RCA jack stereo connectors
Built in dual band equalizer
Supported audio formats: AIFF, AIFC, WAVE, CAF, Next,ADTS, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, WMA
Supported playlist formats: ASX, M3U, PLS
Supported streaming protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, RTSP, WSMP, Shoutcast
Built in media player streams your audio files from your PC or MAC
True 802.11g wireless connectivity
Works with all 802.11b/g/n routers
Supports WPA personal, WPA2-AES, and 64/128-bit WEP encryption
Support for optional iPhone/iTouch remote app

Play the music you want, where you want it:

Enjoy a world of music in your living room, bedroom, home office, kitchen—anywhere in your home. Add more Squeezebox Wi-Fi music players and listen to a different song in any room in your home, or synchronize them all together to hear the same music everywhere. You can also use the Squeezebox Controller to control the entire family of Squeezebox players throughout your home.

Perfect in any room:

The auto-dimming display adjusts for any lighting condition and is readable from across a room. The aqua-blue display features an integrated light sensor that complements ambient lighting—so it’s never too bright, or too dim.

Works on the follow Internet Radio Services:

Overview/Review: The workmanship, design and easy of use earns the Grace Wi-Fi Internet Radio a 5 Star review from Celtic Radio. This system is a real genius of innovation. An impressive compilation of technology, internet and music to give you many hours of enjoyment. Best of all this system works with Live365.com, so you will be able to listen to all of the Celtic Radio channels! Now Go Wireless!

PHP SAM Cookie Rating Script

WebCelt — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 18:39:07 +0000

SAM Broadcaster is a fully featured internet broadcasting program that includes everything you need to start your own Internet Radio station. From automation, playlist management, encoders, statistics and web intergration. It is made by the folks at Spacial Audio Solutions and it is one of the center pieces of software that drives Celtic Radio.

The SAM Broadcasting package comes with a few different ways to publish your radio website. One is through a HTML template system and the other is through a PHP template system. Our article will focus on the latter (PHP) as that is what we have used at Celtic Radio and is the focus of our Cookie Rating Script!

Spacial Audio has done a great job creating the SAM broadcasting Internet Radio system. The included PHP template system using our favorite scripting language was a big selling feature for us! However, this system is just a default template and is not meant to be the theme of your broadcasting website. One feature we identified rather quickly was the ability for our listeners to rate the currently playing song.

Thus was born the idea for the PHP SAM Cookie Rating Script. The purpose of this script is to allow for a cookie based rating system that works in conjunction with the default PHP template. Listeners can rate a song once every 24 hours and only when that song is playing on your broadcast. Some broadcasters have chosen to only allow one rating per song, but we believe that giving our listeners the ability to rate a song multiple times over time will create a better broadcast by playing the songs listeners want to hear. Not only does this script provide a rating system, but it also adds weight to a song based on the following formula:

Rating & Weight System
Rating of 5; add 5 to the weight. 
Rating of 4; add 3 to the weight.  
Rating of 2.5; add 0 to the weight.  
Rating of 1; add -3 to the weight. 
Rating of 0; add -5 to the weight.

Additionally, listeners will be able to see the current rating and weight of the song upon a successful rating via a pop-up web page.

Because of buffering issues with web radio, sometimes the song playing will not match what shows on your website – it could be off by 5 seconds or 20 seconds. Therefore, we have built in a check that prevents rating a song that does not match what is currently playing on your broadcast.

Ok, enough with explanations, lets actually get into the working script. Open up your favorite PHP editor or development tool, our favorite is TextPad by Helios Software Solutions, and create a file named “ratesong.php”. Download the complete PHP Cookie Rating Script and follow the detailed instructions to install all necessary scripts, html and graphics.

To see a working example of the PHP Cookie Rating Script, visit Celtic Radio.

* Included with this script are the stars.gif graphic set to display rating stars on your website. Example:

* Please note that on CelticRadio.net we use a thumbnail version(100×100) to display a smaller version of the album cover in the rating script. You may need to adjust the pop-up size of the webpage to adjust to the standard size you use for displaying album covers.

* We have reports of this script not working for some people. The problem appears to be with the javascript code in the rating form. Make sure that the $songid variable is picking up the songid properly, otherwise the script will break. We use $song['songID'] to grab the song’s ID, but it is possible that the default SAM script uses a different variable array.

Any questions at all on installing this script, ways to make it better or just to say “Hello”, give me a shout at Celtic Radio.

Download: PHP Cookie Rating Script