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One word that you might come across is Bandwidth. Basically, this refers
to the speed of your connection to the Internet. Think of the "width"
of a pipe. The wider it is, the more water can come through, in less time. There
are many different ways to connect to the 'Net: most people connect over a phone
line, but some use faster connections such as Cable or DSL lines.
The phrase Broadband (as mentioned earlier) refers to users who have
these faster Cable and DSL connections, or fast network connections at work.
They're generally able to listen to higher quality streams (which means better
sound), because of the speed of their connection.
Modem users connect to the Internet at different speeds also. If you
don't already know how fast your connection is, you might be able to guess by
how old your system is. If it's newer than 3 years, you should be able to connect
to any stream that says "56k," "56kbs," or lower. If your
computer is older than three years old, however, you might have to choose a
slower connection, which is not always available.
If you aren't at all sure how fast your connection is, there is a website
that might help you. If you click here, you'll be taken to a page that can test
your connection speed. Just enter your zip code (which is simply used to increase
the accuracy of the test).
As an example, above you can see your stream choices from Flaresound.com.
They've mixed up the selections a bit. The highest (96k) and lowest (24k) quality
streams are available in either the RealAudio format, or another called "streaming
MP3" (don't worry, we'll get to that one later). They also provide a middle
quality -- 32k -- in Windows Media format. If you have a slow connection, or
you have a modem and aren't using the Windows Media player, you'd want to select
either of the 24k streams. If you are using Windows and you have a newer modem,
you'd probably want to go with Windows Media. And if you're lucky enough to
have a broadband connection, you'd want to click on either of the 96k streams.
If the players have been installed properly, they should open automatically
when you click on one of the links to the streams. Generally speaking, it will
take a few seconds -- up to 30 seconds sometimes -- for a stream to start playing.
Next page -- Some
sites to get you started, and troubleshooting
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