Author: Blancer

Radio is a technology that has evolved a great deal, and it doesn’t seem to show any sign of disappearing. It’s very convenient to just turn on the radio and get a continuous stream of music for hours, without having to choose anything yourself. It’s very practical, and a brilliant wat to find new music!

However, local radio stations aren’t usually very good. Sometimes you want to listen to a station that plays a certain genre, or a specific talk show that isn’t aired on your local radio stations. That’s where online radio comes in.

There’s an amazing number of online radio stations out there, and plenty of variety to choose from. But of course, you’ll need something to listen to those stations. Today, we present you some of our favorite software picks for radio listening and recording.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are plenty of options out there for listening to the radoi on your Mac. Most of them cost a few dollars, but it’s a small price to pay if you’re a big radio fan. While you may find some good free alternatives, like iTunes, they tend to lack a few features that you might want to use.

If you think you’ll use a radio app a lot and would like to take advantage of features like recording, you might want to go for an app like Radium or Snowtape. Otherwise, you could probably live with iTunes’ radio features.

Would you like to recommend any other software? Are there any that you use that we didn’t include in this roundup? We’d love to hear about them in the comment section below!

Thanks to the hundreds of one-click file sharing websites online, the use of FTP for casually sharing files has drastically reduced. The protocol is all but relegated to just uploading and downloading files to a server. But as simple as file sharing websites are, using them means giving up a lot of control over the data you have uploaded.

If you want to retain this level of security and control, FTP is still the way to go. Now you might say, Mac OS X comes with a built in FTP Server, so why would anyone want to pay for a third party solution? Read on after the break to find out how and why Rumpus is a better solution for creating your own server.

Overview

Rumpus makes it easy for anyone with an Internet connection to run their own FTP and web file transfer server. Clients who have access to your network can effortlessly upload and download files directly to your server, using dedicated FTP clients or a modern web browser.

Yes, Rumpus does indeed have a web interface, which supports all major web browsers on both Mac and PC, and is fully customizable to match your existing website. Rumpus is also capable of ensuring secure connections, with encrypted transfers and full user access controls.

Installation & Set Up

You get 30 days to test drive all the features of Rumpus. The Rumpus installation wizard is a bit different from the ones I have seen in the past. Links to resources that help you get started with the app are displayed in two rows. What makes them notable is that all resources are available for reference locally – even before you install the app!

Unlike some other apps which link to their help and FAQ section of their homepage, you do not have to switch back and forth between the browser. Tiny arrows to turn the pages of the document right from the installation wizard is a nice touch.

The journey towards setting up a FTP server unwinds in three simple steps. In the first step, you will have to select the folder from where the transfers happen. Users will be restricted to this Home Folder and after setting up, you can assign or restrict users to their own dedicated folders.

Creating a secure user account is the second step. This account is the admin account, yet it can still be used by other users to connect to the server (though not recommended). It is also possible to make this account anonymous – meaning no username & password is necessary to connect, however, such an account is just read only. Multiple user accounts with varied levels of access permission can be created later.

Enabling the Web File Manager (WFM) is the final step. WFM enables you to connect and manage the server over the web and might come in handy if you are accessing a machine that does not have Rumpus desktop app installed.

After a splash screen that summarizes the connection settings, we are off to test the app!

Starting the Server

Rumpus impresses you with a neatly designed control panel at first glance. All the icons have a clear description of their functionality to make your life easier. A successful installation does not start the server by itself so once you are ready, hit the Start Server icon on the top right corner to bring the server online.

FTP Settings

To ensure that bandwidth is used efficiently and securely, connection rules can be defined from the FTP Settings screen. Standard sets of rules like timeouts, number of simultaneous connection and the default FTP port can be managed from here. This is the place you will have to come to if you plan to turn the FTP server off.

From the logs tab, comprehensive logs to keep track all connections, errors, transfer details etc. can be created. Custom messages on successful connection and disconnection, along with extensive encoding options, are all available under their respective tabs.

Activity Monitor

The activity monitor lists all users connected to the FTP server including complete details of the file being transferred, the speed at which it transferred, the progress of the file transfer and more. By selecting a user, detailed information including the IP address and bytes transferred can be obtained.

Web FTP

The Web FTP feature is one of the USPs of Rumpus. Web browsers capable of understanding the file transfer protocol and can be used in lieu of a fully blown FTP app. However, they are often a major pain to use and rarely support file uploading.

Rumpus offers a unique solution to this problem through the Web File Manager, which puts an attractive HTML interface on your FTP server. Now you can control the FTP server from the comfort of a web browser and this feature is possible because of the built-in Web server that delivers most of the same features of FTP using a simple, customizable HTTP interface.

Final Thoughts

When it comes to serving files over the Internet from your servers, Rumpus does everything right. Except for controlling the packets being transmitted, Rumpus offers numerous features to keep all aspects of file transmission under control. To be very particular, the ability to control the user rights while connecting and transferring data is thorough and comprehensive.

Rumpus ensures you the much required peace mind that no one can download or upload data that you have not screened yourself. A great feature in this era of digital piracy. For those planning to run FTP servers from their own infrastructure, Rumpus is the ideal choice if they could not find a free, open source app with similar set of features.

Sponsoring the site again this week is an increasingly popular app from Realmac Software – Courier. This fantastic piece of software makes it easy to quickly share files, images, photos, movies, and more with all your favourite online services – including Flickr and Facebook.

It’s wrapped up in a functional and beautiful interface, and seven built-in plugins mean you’ll be able to start sharing in under 30 seconds. With Amazon S3, Ember, Flickr, Facebook, FTP / SFTP, Vimeo and YouTube support, Courier has the most-requested services in the bag!

Courier is now a completely Mac App Store exclusive application, and has seen a huge reduction in price to $9.99. This is a great deal, and well worth checking out if you’re looking for a piece of software to make sharing all your social content easier!

The popular deals site, AppSumo, has recently kicked off a month long series of Mac software discounts. The first one of these contains a series of apps designed to “Supercharge OS X”, and I’m pleased to let you know that we have five free bundles available to give away to a handful of lucky readers!

The software included in the bundle is:

• TotalFinder
• Cinch
• Breeze
• SpeedDownload

Entering is very straight-forward. All you need to do is leave a comment below, and we’ll select the five winners at random in three days, on Wednesday 19th January! Best of luck, and be sure to keep an eye open for other AppSumo deals over the course of January!

I often find that there is audio or video content online that I would like to download to my computer or iPod, but there appears no easy way to do so.  Media across the internet comes out in all kinds of formats and most don’t lend themselves too well to downloading, like Flash for instance.

Grappler is the latest wonderful application from The Little App Factory which says “If it plays, it probably saves,” and this seems to stand up pretty well.  This review will delve into how Grappler makes it surprisingly simple to get media content from just about anywhere.

Overview

Grappler’s soul purpose is to quickly download music and video from just about any site and convert into an iTunes friendly format ready for syncing.  The interface is simple yet effective and offers a few different methods to download content.

The large area at the top of the Grappler window displays search results or entire websites, under which is a search and navigation bar which sits above the clip tray.

The Grappler search bar has a couple of functions which I’ll explain below…

Searching

If you search a word or phrase in the search bar, Grappler will run up a huge list of videos complete with thumbnails in a second. And it’s not just showing what you’d find on YouTube. Grappler manages to discover related videos on all kinds of sites to ensure you get the best quality version or exactly what you’re looking for.

Clicking on a thumbnail plays the video inline without ever leaving the search results, and clicking ‘Download’ drops it into the Clip Tray and starts downloading.

There is also an ‘Auto/Audio-only’ switch which means that you can choose to download only the audio from a video.

Specific Sites

If there’s video or audio you found on a specific site, you can paste the URL into the Grappler search bar, and the website will load up within Grappler.  From here, all you have to do is navigate to the content in question, start it playing, and Grappler will automatically begin downloading.  Works like magic.

This method works on all kinds of flash videos and music sites, including Grooveshark and even on videos embedded in Mac.AppStorm.  Whilst it can’t download every video the internet has to offer (It was unable to download video from Apple’s site), it certainly comes close. Overall I’ve been incredibly impressed by its ability to pick up on media to download.

Preferences

The Grappler Preferences have a couple of features worth mentioning. You can pick where you’d like your videos and music saved to—be it in iTunes or a folder. Most importantly there’s the optimization option, which allows you to choose between downloading in the highest video quality, or that optimized for iOS devices or for Xbox 360/PS3.

Conclusion

Grappler makes downloading media of almost any format off the internet an absolute joy. It’s not super quick, and it can’t handle every single video, but that would be an impossible task for the developers and I’d say they’ve done a fine job at making an application that works flawlessly almost all of the time, not to mention a stunning interface.

Grappler is available for $19.95, and can be trialled with 10 free downloads. For anyone who regularly – or wishes they could – download media off the net, I’d highly recommend checking out Grappler. Let us know how you choose to download content or your thoughts on Grappler in the comments!