Radio.blog.club

Radio.Blog is a web-based flash application which dynamically creates a playlist of audio files to be heard by a website's visitors. It is a standalone application, requiring the visitor only to have flash installed on their computer.

And I didn't know about this amazing thing until Yeng told me about it. Apparently, Radio.blog is very popular among bloggers and Myspace users but so far, I never really stumbled upon a sample Radio.blog playlist in any of the blogs I read. Maybe I just missed them due to my blurry eyes ...

For those ignorant, I added a Radio.blog player in both my blogs. Yeah, 2 Radio.blog players but sharing the same playlist for the sake of my convenience when it comes to uploading songs. The Radio.blog players are situated in the Welcome box of my Multiply and the side bar on the right of my Blogger. For the player in my Multiply, you definitely can't miss it if you visit the Main Page. The blogger version though might be missed if you scroll too fast. Just scroll down a little when you visit my Blogger. Its in the Extras section of the side bar.

Radio.blog at my Blogger

Radio.blog at my Multiply

About the song choices. I generally pick songs I like and put them into the playlist. And I guess its currently 100% Jpop. Maybe I will upload more English songs in the near future, if I ever stumble upon one that grabs my attention. If I recommend a song in my posts, I will definitely feature it on my Radio.blog playlist. So, check out the player every now and then. Music recommended in my previous posts are featured on the list now, as well as a few personal favourites.

Most songs are compressed to 64kbps in RBS (Special Radio.blog audio file). So, loading times should be fast for broadband users. 56k users can attempt to load the songs, but each song is about 1mb - 2mb, so expect to wait about 10 minutes for it to load finish. If somehow, you click on the song and it gets stuck on preloading, just keep trying. Some times I get this error too. Click on another song then return to the song you wanted to listen. Do tell me if there are broken links and I will try to see what I can do about it.

(rant)

Radio.blog.club seems good and all but its not perfect. Well, it took me 1 whole day to actually figure out how to optimize it on my sites. Radio.blog.club works like this, you create an account on their site, and then you add songs into your playlists. Whose songs? Those are songs uploaded by other Radio.blog.club users. I bet you will be asking, "I want to upload my own songs! Make my own personal playlist!" Yeah, its possible, and it took a while to figure out the best way to do so. You see, uploading is not really simple. Not many hosts accept the RBS file format. I tried out at least 4 web hosts before realizing I should read their Terms of Agreement about unaccepted file types. And when you found a host that accepts RBS files, you noticed that the storage space and monthly bandwidth for a free account is so damn small.

Another thing to note when finding web hosts is the support for PHP. The playlist for Radio.blog is in PHP form, so the host needs to support PHP for your playlist to load properly. For those interested in using Radio.blog and uploading your own music, do visit their dedicated forum. If you aren't bothered to find a new host for your media files, and want to settle with some simple copy and pasting of Javascript instead, just search Radio.Blog.Club's fantastic library for songs. Their library is vast and many genres can be found. But personally, I like to do things myself. So, I opted to host my own music instead of relying on other people.

Note that the songs found at Radio.Blog.Club are songs uploaded by other people like me. If they happen to delete or change the link to some of the songs, then your playlist won't be able to play the song.

(/rant)

Anyways, just some Christmas pictures to share about first. Yeah, I know Christmas is over but then I just find these pictures too good to miss out. First up, a Lucky☆Star Christmas greeting!

Konata, Kagami, Miyuki, Tsukasa
wishes you Merry Christmas!

Hmm... Unknown anime to me

Ugh, I can't seem to identify the above picture. The character drawing style looks familiar but I just can't recall what Anime it is. Hopefully some random otaku will enlighten me on this. The picture captures the spirit of Christmas as well.

About the Lucky☆Star opening I mentioned in a previous post, its on my Radio.Blog! Go listen to Motteke! Sailor Fuku now!

Someone mentioned I write long posts like Harry as well. And the only difference is I put pictures. Well, isn't that marketing strategy? Pictures grab attention and keeps the post interesting! I still acknowledge Harry as the King of Long Posts. Lol!