RabbitRadio Dashboard Widget
An easy way to listen to your favorite NPR station
Reviewed by Harry {doc} Babad
Developer: Llew Mason http://www.lsmason.com/software/index.html Feedback or Support: to llewmason@yahoo.com Freeware Requirements: Mac OS X 10.4 or later, universal binary. Release Date: August 2, 2006 Download Size: 930 KB Audience: All NPR Listeners or those who’d like to hear advertisement free Jazz or folk or Classical music levels Strengths — One easier way to access my favorite music one the Internet. Weaknesses — A less than complete product but properly functioning product — See the section on discomforts. The software was tested on a 1 GHz dual processor PowerPC G4 Macintosh with 2 GB DDR SDRAM running under OS X 10.4.8. Product and company names and logos in this review may be registered trademarks of their respective companies. Disclaimer: When briefly reviewing share-freeware I will often use the developer’s product, functions and features descriptions. All other comments are strictly my own and based on testing. Why need I rewrite the developer’s narratives, if they are clearly written? |
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Publisher’s Summary
Sick of dealing with ugly audio plugins? Tired of leaving your web browser open to listen to online radio? RabbitRadio makes listening to (many of) your favorite National Public Radio [NPR] stations easy - and it features a minimal modern-looking interface. RabbitRadio currently supports real-time streaming audio from over 40 stations. See the end of the article for an almost current list.
Introduction
Okay, its confession time — I’m a devoted listener and supporter of national public radio. Where else can I find station totally, except for news, devoted to Jazz of folk music programming? Therefore although I am seldom attracted to widgets, I fell for this one.
Working With
Installing this application is simple. Download it, and install the widget. Using the simple controls on the back of the widget set your favorite NPR station. Then tune in.
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Better yet after downing and installing the widget, turn it into a WidgiApp with Amnesty Singles (reviewed in this issue). What you get is a small application that looks identical to the widget.
“The Interface is simple —
What do the buttons do? — The two left-hand-side buttons control the volume. The right-hand-side button plays and stops the streaming audio.
What do the different colored glowing circles mean? — A grey circle means 'connecting'. A blue circle means 'playing'. A red circle means 'failed'. The widget will automatically retry on failures. “
Discomforts
The developer has promised to consider adding other features to make using the program easier and more user friendly.
Adding a New Station Limitation — Llew Mason notes in his FAQ “If you send me email (llewmason@yahoo.com) with a request for a particular station, I'll do my best to add it in the next release of the widget. Currently I can only support stations that stream using a protocol that is supported by QuickTime. I'm looking at the possibility of supporting Real Player and Windows Media Player streaming in the future, but there are some technical issues that make this difficult.”
Features that Would Enhance RabbitRadio —
The developer also notes “I'm considering the following features. To Llew’s list I added a few of mine.
ü Allowing the user to increase the size of the RabbitRadio Window. The image in this review is much larger than the actual desktop RabbitRadio application window {doc}
ü Support for adding your own stations to the widget. - Good
ü Support for marking 'favorite' stations, and the ability to switch between favorite stations from the front-side of the widget. – Yes, absolutely needed!
ü Adding many more stations (including foreign and commercial stations).
ü Increased button sizes on the widget (especially Play/Stop). - Yes, my eyes are too old for the tiny buttons.
ü Improved status graphics for connecting, playing, and failed to make it easier to understand the current state of the widget.
ü Ability to get to this FAQ for help directly from the widget.”
ü Doc suggests cataloging the stations by genre (news, classical, jazz, folk…)
ü Being able to drag & drop some of the radio stations, many of which are NPR, from iTunes to RabbitRadio. I’d rather use Llew’s product than iTunes. {doc}
Anyway, both the widget and the WidgiApp work exactly as described by the developer, but there’s room for growth.
Conclusions
The product is easy to use, even of it is limited to being linked single station with no easy allowance to select from a favorites list. I like it well enough that I’ve added the product to my MacUpdate keep me posted list.
For now, I’m using it, as a WidgiApp. Now the Jazz on KPLU is instantly available to me, without having to go through iTunes. If I could only add one or three more stations, I might continue to ignore my Jazz CD collection in favor of the continuing diversity of a broadcast stream. Actually, I rip my Jazz CDs to allow me to load my favorites songs into iPod, so there’s much instant value and gratification left in these, alas soon to be obsolescent, CDs. It wouldn’t take much to make it a four-pint-five product, one I’d even pay $10 to use.
Stations Presently Available:
ABC Classical Australia, JJJ Australia, KAXE, KBAQ, KCRW, KDFC, KERA, KEXP, KFAI, KHMD, KJZZ, KLCC, KLRE, KOPB, KPCC, KPFK, KPLU, KQED, KRWG, KSKA, KUAR, KUOW, KUT, KUT2, VPR, VPR Classical, WAMU, WBUR, WCPE, WDET,
WDUQ, WFAE, WFAE2, WFUV, WGBH, WGBO, WHYY, WILL, WMUB, WNAN, WNCU, WNYC AM, WNYC FM, WNYC2, WUNC, WUOM, WUOT, and WYEP.
