netnomad’s blog & grill

Everything I Need To Know I Learned From My Cat

Quote Of The Moment

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

Well, some stations anyway.

Winamp has claimed to have XM Radio for some time, but I could never get it to work. In the interest of journalistic integrity, I installed it again and gave it another try. Interestingly, I can get the XM stations in Winamp, but I can’t get the AOL Radio stations. Go figure. Anyway. That’s another option for you if you don’t wanna open a web browser.

AOL Radio was what I was originally going to “plug” here and I still am going to. (You can also access the service through the new AOL “Triton” instant messenger. And maybe the old one too?) If you go to radio.aol.com with your browser it will load an applet that will let you listen to 21 of the XM Radio stations, and all the AOL Radio content as well. I’ve heard better internet radio sound quality before, but the XM content is pretty good, and the AOL Radio stuff isn’t bad either. The only complaint I’ve had is that the XM stations tend to be a lot quieter than the AOL stations. If you switch back and forth, be prepared for potential audio blasts. There’s gotta be a volume control somewhere in that signal path. You’d think they could push it up so everything was at the same level. Oh well.

I’ve always been a fan of internet radio. Mostly because Canadian broadcast radio SUCKS (thanks to the Canadian “government”) and because no matter how large your mp3 collection is, it always gets to a point when it gets dull.

P.S. The Shoutcast feed from smoothjazz.com also ROCKS.

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