2006 November, Gadgetspeak, extracts and
quotations from the article:
"Fancy a special Genre of music then RadioTracker 2 can help
you to find your choice and automatically record tracks in MP3 mode onto your
hard disc.
The installation from the CD-ROM took close to ten minutes
and I was 260MB of hard disc space down. There is a single sheet of instructions
that form the getting started guide, once the program is loaded there is online
help available. Should you need more assistance it is available on a premium
rate (60p minute) line.
The requirements are not high a 500MHz processor, 128MB of RAM
and a Broadband connection.
Once you open the program you select a Genre from a huge list
of styles, the press release says over 70, you can optionally select a range of
other items. However for those inpatient souls - like me - you can press the
start button once a Genre has been selected. It then goes off and finds Radio
Stations with your type of music and starts downloading. During my tests it had
up to five stations listed at any one time but it was never ripping from more
than three.
First word of caution if you do not set it any limits it will
continue working until your hard disc is full. The getting started sheet warns
that in two days it can record upwards of 3000 tracks. In my case in the first
hour it had downloaded and ripped twenty tracks.
So after your initial 'play' it's probably best to press the
'stop' button and play some of the tracks just to see if it's what you like. In
my case most was quite acceptable to me.
Now to study those other six options that allow you to be more
selective and limit the download content. Firstly Favourites, this refers to a
radio station or station and not to an artist. Second Wishlist, this could be
song but more likely to be artist. The other four options are under the sub
heading of Limit. First Stations where you set a number. Second Bandwidth where
you decide what - if any - limit of Mbit/s to set. Next Data where you set a
limit of xxxMB to download. Lastly and perhaps the easiest is to set a time
limit for downloads of say 1 or 2 hours as an example.
During installation - like many programs - you are asked if you
want to register if you say yes you are shown a registration form, should you
select the only other option you are shown the same form so it seems
registration is not optional. With a lot of programs that do not need an
Internet connection should you choose online connection if you do not connect
then the details are never sent but as RadioTracker 2 spends all it's times
online your details will of course be sent. As I used my correct details I have
no way of knowing if it would stop working should you give incorrect
details.
It is possible to listen to stream as it is downloaded and
perhaps more likely to be in demand is the ability to make Ringtones, this
facility allows you to fully edit a downloaded track in three steps into a
Ringtone. RadioTracker 2 supports over 300 mobile phones..."
