It is not often that you come upon an application that provides everything you need to access restricted services. Saver 2 Bundle is a free software collection for Windows that is an all-on one solution providing access to services such as Pandora, Rhapsody Radio, Last.fm, Songza or Meemix.

The program installs several programs on your computer that work well together. You can start the core application directly and use the integrated Opera USB browser to load the web services. It is alternatively possible to use other web browsers which may need to be configured properly before they can be used, or the optional Pandora Radio player that can be installed with the main program.

Saver2 uses the Tor Network to establish proxy connections. This basically tunnels the connection so that it appears as if it is coming from one of the allowed locations in the world. For Pandora Radio, this would be an endpoint in the United States.

The connection to one of the supported services should work right away and without the dreaded “country unsupported” message that users would see otherwise. Quality of playback during tests was good; Music streams from Pandora Radio and several other services were playing without buffering issues and errors.

Saver2 can be configured to download music from supported services automatically or on demand. The program is configured to download everything automatically. The preferences offer options to save only on approval.

The program furthermore tries to replace lower quality songs with higher quality versions, looks up album art on Amazon and may query the MusicDNS service for additional information.

Files can be re-encoded, for instance to a lower quality setting or file extension. Other options include configuring a blacklist or whitelist.

New users may feel overwhelmed at first by the applications that get installed and displayed on the screen when the main program is started. The majority of windows can be minimized though. All it takes to get started is to run the main application, wait until a proxy connection has been established to finally load the website that you want to access.

Windows users can download the Saver2 Bundle from the developer website.

It is still possible to listen to Pandora if you are not in the US, but you need a web proxy or virtual private network for this.

One of the things that I never liked that much was that Pandora was only accessible on the official website. This meant that you had to keep the browser window open all the time if you wanted to listen to music from the service (mobile clients are now available).

Elpis is an Open Source Pandora client for Windows that changes this. It basically moves all important options that the Pandora web player offers to the client. A free or subscription based Pandora account is however required to start playing music with Elpis. New users can create Pandora accounts right from within the program interface.

Once you have linked your account you can start searching for music to play it in the client. Results are then displayed in a list that you can click on to tune into that radio station.

Music is from that moment on played automatically. You can now minimize the Pandora player to just listen to music, or use the player controls to vote for songs or pause and skip songs.

Global Media hotkeys can be enabled in the program interface. That’s useful if you want to minimize the program window, as it allows you to control the player when it is minimized.

Elpis will log in to Pandora automatically when the program is started. You can configure the program to start playing the last played station automatically.

Individual songs can be bookmarked and favorited with a click on the > icon in the program window.

Elpis is an easy to use yet feature rich Pandora client for Windows. The program and its source code are both available at Adam Haile’s website. Elpis requires the Microsoft .Net Framework 4.0 to be installed on the system. It is compatible with both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

The two guides published in 2006 are obsolete now. They are both about software programs that are no longer available. This guide takes a look at a new and at the time of writing working method of downloading Pandora Radio to the PC. Even better, it uses a freeware application for that.

Head over to the Nirsoft website and download Video Cache View. Don’t let the name irritate you, it supports audio as well. The program basically scans web browser caches for media files and displays all files it finds in its interface.

The portable software scans for all media file formats in all browser caches. That may be a bit much and the first thing that we need to do after starting Video Cache View is to restrict the listing to audio. Click on Options in the menu and remove the checkmark next to show video files.

Now head over to the Pandora website and tune into a radio station there. I suggest you pick one of the top streams that are listed on the start page while testing. Make sure the radio streams music to your computer. When it does, switch back to Video Cache View and either wait until the program refreshes the listing automatically, or click on the refresh button manually to see the song that is now playing in the listing.

Chance is, you see multiple audio files in the listing. Use the following indicators to locate the correct one that Pandora sent to your computer. You can first sort by browser to limit the display. The file size should be more than 1 Megabyte and less than 5 Megabytes. The Pandora Radio music files usually show up as .tmp files without content type and download url. A right-click on a file and the selection of Play opens the file in the default media player on the system.

Once you have identified the song that is playing right now right-click it again and select the Copy selected files to option from the context menu.

Please note that cached music files are removed from the cache automatically when the song stops. This means that you need to save the Pandora song while it is playing. You will always download the full song though no matter when you start the downloading.

Is there an easier way to download Pandora Radio music to the computer? Probably. It would for instance be nice if the identification and download could be automated, or if the cached files would not be deleted right away after the music stops playing.

Know of a different way to rip Pandora streams? Let me know in the comments.

The online music streaming company stock opened at an impressive $20 per share, shooting up as high as $25 soon after trading began before quickly settling back down below open at $17.42. Pandora’s respectable $20 initial offering was much higher than expected in the months following the company’s announcement that it would begin trading on the stock exchange in February. Prices were initially set a paltry $9 per share, but increased last week to $10 to $12 each. The company priced its initial public offering at $16 per share the day before trading began.

As has been the case with other tech stocks, impressive early gains made by Pandora were quickly followed by decline to levels not far from opening prices. By the time of print, only one day after release, Pandora’s stocks were trading well below opening value at around $14.50 per share.

The release of Pandora stock into the market closely follows professional social marketing website LinkedIn’s initial public offering in May. Like Pandora, LinkedIn enjoyed considerable gains in early trading. Their stocks began with at an initial price of $45 per share before opening at a sky-high $86, closing the first day up 80% and wowing investors. Since then, however, prices have cooled considerably, falling to their current levels around $70 each.

Understanding what these numbers mean for the tech industry as a whole is a little more difficult. Rumblings have been growing pretty loud from technology news agencies and financial reporters alike about the possibility of a new tech bubble. The rapid incline of LinkedIn followed by gradual decline might be pointed to as evidence of such a bubble. Of course, others will simply brush such worries aside, labeling them as usual market fluctuations. Yet inflated valuations from Groupon and Twitter, both of which may be in the tens of billions, suggest that things may already be getting out of control.

What is clear, however, is that stock offerings are not a sure way for online companies to raise their valuation quickly. While larger, more powerful web-based companies have done extremely well in past years through such offerings, these latest releases show that such constant growth can no longer be taken for granted.

These events all ultimately build up to a hotly anticipated public release of Facebook stock… eventually. While the company has been expected to begin selling to the public sometime around April of 2012, when they will be forced to release financial information that makes an IPO more appealing, confusing showings from tech companies like Pandora may cause them to rethink any such plans. Additionally, new legislation may push back Facebook’s deadline to release those financial numbers, easing any pressure to preemptively offer public stock.

As more web companies enter the ring the viability of many tech companies may become more clear. If a bubble has indeed begun to grow, the attitudes of other companies will likely reflect the confidence of Pandora and Groupon in their public trading habits.

Google Music Beta is exciting with a great user interface which is simple but multi-functional. The service at the same time is limited to users from the United States only. It has other quirks, like no music shop integration, no downloading and the fact that it will turn into a paid service after the beta.

There appear to be a few music service providers already available on the web that can give Google Music Beta a run for its money.

Spotify

This application is launched in the UK, France, Finland, Norway, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden, and not available in US, but it will soon make its appearance in the US. Spotify a new desktop application which streams music files from the web instantly for listening. This application also makes music available offline. It provides higher quality of bitrates than most of the streaming applications, up to 320kbps. Spotify has integrated sharing features to share music on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

YouTube

To every one’s amazement YouTube also provides music video streaming services. Almost all the official music players use Youtube to access their videos from any part of the world using any portable device. These videos can be added to a personal playlist, which can be accessed while listening to the music.

Amazon Cloud Drive:

Amazon Cloud Drive is one of the strongest competitors to Google Music Beta. Amazon not only offers to stream music but allows uploading of all types of documents to its Cloud Drive. The Cloud Drive later provides a music player called the Cloud player through which all the uploaded music can be played-back on the cloud from anywhere while on the run using different portable devices. The main drawback to Amazon Cloud Drive is that it provides limited storage space of only 5GB which can be used to store any type of data. This storage space permits only 1000 music files compared to Google’s 20,000. Extra storage space can be purchased at a rate of $1 per GB if required. Amazon also provides offline streaming of the videos, music and all the uploaded files.

Pandora:

Pandora is a music streaming application which has been available on internet for the past few years. It is more like a digital radio available on the internet. Users cannot build a playlist or upload the music that they have with them. Instead it uses musical preferences and creates its own channels from which the user can select the favorite music. Two versions are available, one free and a second paid option. The free version allows only 40 hours of monthly usage while paid version for $36/year gives access to unlimited hours of high quality music at speeds of 192 kbps.

Pithos is a native Pandora client for the GNOME desktop. It is easy to install, has a user-friendly GUI, and won’t drag your machine into the murky waters. Let’s take a look at how to install and use this client so you can start your new year out rockin’.

Before you begin, you will need to have a Pandora account. Once you have a Pandora account you will be able to manage your stations from within Pithos (so need to bother adding/removing stations from within the Pandora site.)  In fact, it’s actually easier to manager your stations from within Pithos than it is from within the site.

Installation

Pithos is not found in the standard repositories, so you have to add the Pithos repository. Adding the repository is simple. Open up a terminal window and issue the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kevin-mehall/pithos-daily
sudo apt-get update

Once you have the repository in place, you can then install the application. This is done with the following command:

sudo apt-get install pithos

Once the application is installed you will find it located in Applications > Sound and Video.

Usage

Figure 1

When you first start up Pithos you will be required to authenticate to your Pandora account. Once you do this Pithos will download your current list (or the default list) of stations associated with your account and open up the main window (see Figure 1). You can change the channel you want to listen to simply by clicking the channel drop-down and selecting the desired channel.

Figure 2

To create new channels to enjoy click on the Preferences button (the gear with the drop-down arrow) and select Manage Stations. In this new window (see Figure 2) click the Add Station button and then enter the name of an artist. You will then be presented by a number of choices to select from. Choose the correct artist and click OK. That artist will be added to your station list.

You can also include each station in your QuickMix list. The QuickMix list is like a shuffle for Pandora. Select which stations you want to include in your QuickMix and then, from the Station drop-down (in the main window), select QuickMix to get a mix of music from all of your stations.

Other features

One of the nicer features of Pithos is the inclusion of a notification icon. From this icon you can left-click and quickly “Love”, skip, play, pause, “Ban”, or “Tired” a currently playing song and you can quickly quit Pithos.

Pithos also includes:

• Cover Art.
• Notification popup with song info.
• Launching pandora.com song info/station page.
• Reconnecting when pandora session times out
• Media Key support
• Proxy support
• Last.fm scrobbling

Final thoughts

At last Linux has a worthy client for the enormously popular Pandora Music service. Make this your go-to application for Music listening in Linux and you won’t be sorry.

So in this article I am going to show you how to install the Pandora Screenlet so you can stream pandora radio to your Linux desktop. I will warn you, however, that the Pandora Screenlet is very much in beta (currently in release 0.1.01), so you use it at your own risk. But don’t worry, using a beta version of Pandora Screenlet will not steal your soul or your data. It might act a bit buggy at times though. You’ve been warned.

Prior to installation

You don’t have to take this step, but I find the whole Pandora experience much better if you sign up for an account. This way your stations can be saved so you don’t always have to search for your favorite type of music.  You will also have to have the Screenlets tool installed (covered in the article mentioned above). With that installed you will find the ~/.screenlets directory. This is where your downloaded Screenlets are stored.

Installation

The first step is to download the Pandora Screenlet archive file. Do this from the Download link on the product main page. Once you have downloaded this there are two ways to install the Screenlet:

• Unpack the archive into the ~./screenlets directory.
• Use the Screenlets installer.

I have always found using the Screenlets installer is a much more reliable method of installation. To use this method you need to right click on the Screenlets icon in the Notification area of your desktop and select Install Screenlet. This will open a window where you navigate to the downloaded Pandora Screenlet .gz file. Select that and then click Open. This will then install the screenlet.

Figure 1

Now you have to add the screenlet to your desktop. To do this right click the Screenlet icon again and select Screenlets Manager. From this new window, scroll down until you see the Pandora icon. Doublt click on that icon to launch the Pandora Screenlet (see Figure 1).

Of course you can sign into your Pandora account as well as do a bit of personalization. To configure the screenlet, right click the screenlet border and select Properties. In the Properties window you will find two tabs that have configurable options:

Themes: This is actually not usable yet because theme support is not working.

Options: Here you can configure the size, position, opacity, keep above/below, and much more.

Final thoughts

If you are a fan of Pandora Radio, and you are a Linux user, this Screenlet is one of the best options (outside of keeping a browser open at all times).

One of the best ways of accessing these services from outside the supported countries is to use a VPN, a virtual private network. This is helpful for citizens on holidays who want to access the services abroad but also – obviously – for users from other countries who want to access the services.

UltraVPN was discovered by Nakodari from Addictive Tips and we have to say that it is one of the easiest solutions right now. It works great currently and gives access to Hulu, Pandora and all the other US-only websites and services out there. The streaming quality is excellent unlike that of other free competitors (like Hotspot Shield). Our guess however is that it is only a matter of time – thanks to popularity – before the performance of UltraVPN will get a dent or two as well.

Installation is a breeze. All the user needs is to create an account at the UltraVPN website (only username and password required). The VPN setup is available for Windows and Mac OS. The username and password have to be supplied on startup. The vpn service will notify the user that the computer has been connected to it. What’s left is to access the websites and services to test the speed and quality of the service.

Head over to the Ultra VPN website to download the client, create an account and access additional information about the virtual private network. The vpn service has been successfully tested with Hulu, ABC and Pandora.

Yahoo Downloader is another Firefox extension that has been designed to download videos from portals like Youtube, Yahoo or CNN but also music from sites like Pandora, Last.fm or Imeem. Probably the most interesting feature for many users is the ability to automatically download videos from these websites.

The Firefox add-on places an icon in the Firefox address bar. Some users might not like the location of the icon as it is placed on the left side of the address bar. This can however be easily changed by right-clicking blank space on that toolbar and selecting the customize option. The Yahoo Downloader icon can then be dragged and dropped to another location, toolbar or even removed completely as it is not needed for most of the functionality.

A left-click on the icon will display the window of the download that will list all the videos that have been discovered in open tabs in the Firefox web browser.A click on the download it button will start the download. This can be automated if automatic downloads have been enabled in the options of the Firefox add-on. This setting makes it very comfortable to download youtube videos or videos and music from the other supported audio and video portals.

All videos will be downloaded to a location on the local computer system which can also be changed in the options of the add-on. Yahoo Downloader is a great add-on for users who download many videos or music and want to automate the process as much as possible.

There are several options when it comes to downloading music and videos from the Internet. Some websites use weak or no encryption at all which means it is possible to download the media directly from within the web browser. Other websites and services protect the media by encrypting it which makes it harder to actually download the files to the local computer system.

There are several software programs available that can download from most music and video portals and services. A very versatile one that is automating the process as much as possible is Tubemaster++. Tubemaster++ is a Java application that is using the packet capturing network monitor WinPcap.

The software program will automatically capture music and videos once the application is up and running. All the user needs to do is to visit a media site, service or software and start playing the media from there. Tubemaster recognizes the media and will display it in its interface. The software works with many services including Youtube, Last.fm, Pandora, Imeem and many more. The only restriction is that the service needs to stream the music to the computer system.

The music and videos can be saved in their original format or converted in the software program to common formats like avi or mp3. There are presets for some popular devices like Apple’s iPod, Blackberries, the Playstation 3 and dozens of other devices.

A video and mp3 search is provided in the program itself which makes it very comfortable to find specific music or videos. The search results are displayed in the program but open in the default web browser where they can be played.

Tubemaster++ (via Freeware Genius) is a very comfortable program to download videos and music from the Internet. The program is compatible with Windows 2000, XP, Vista and Windows 7. It requires Java and WinPcap to run (which are provided if they are not installed).

Spotify is a service which allows users to stream many songs online free and legally. The service is ad-supported and currently available in Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain. The adverts are only a minor annoyance; I find there is about 2 minutes of them per hour of music. A premium service is also available, where adverts can be removed for a cost.

The service requires a desktop client to play the music. Their client is currently only available on OS X and Windows. Using this software, users can search for music, compile playlists and listen to online radio. The music is streamed as an Ogg Vorbis at 160kbps, so it is very high quality! It also scrobbles the music to last.fm.

The advertising is tolerable. Generally, they last about 30-45 seconds and either advertise Spotify Premium or, currently, the Disasters Emergency Committee in the UK. Premium (ad-free) Spotify costs either 99p a day or £10 a month.

I am beginning to reconsider if I still have the need to download music. Most songs are available free on Spotify, with the exception of some of the newest releases on certain labels. My only problem with Spotify is that it isn’t portable, so I can’t use it on my iPod etc.

Spotify has a bigger collection of music than the ‘full tracks’ available on last.fm.

It is currently only invitation only, but I will give the first 4 people to ask an invite each. Just leave a comment asking for one.

Hotspot Shield was the Virtual Private Network software that everyone was talking about. Mainly because it offered free access to their network – with limited bandwidth usage. Always VPN could be a viable alternative to watch Hulu or listen to Pandora from outside the United States.

The Virtual Private Network is easy to setup and can be downloaded as a client for Windows XP, Windows Vista, Mac OS X or Linux. Once the software has been installed the connection to the VPN can be established from the Start Menu in Windows.

Users get the choice between compatible and faster editions, and can also change the configuration if they want to tweak it further. Tests with Hulu and Pandora were successful. A lot of buffering was going on though which could have been a temporary problem or caused by the increasing popularity of the service.

There is one more “thing” that has to be mentioned. The Virtual Private Network is displaying advertisement on top of each web page to finance the service.

Always VPN can be a viable alternative to Hotspot Shield, especially if the latter service is not working for you or if you already used up all of your bandwidth and want to continue watching or listening to those services.

Update: Always VPN is no longer a free service. The service provider is now charging users for bandwidth usage.

The most obvious difference is that everyone has access to the service called Deezer which does not only provide custom radio stations with music that you (could) like but also ways to search for bands or songs and play them right in the browser. All of that is possible without creating an account at Deezer.

You will need an account however if you want to create playlists, upload an unlimited amount of mp3 that you can listen to online or participate in community matters.

Information are easily accessible. While listening to the Smart Radio feature you can open a band’s discography page which does not interrupt the music. There you have access to information about albums, related artists and community members who share your taste. Only albums with tracks available will be shown.

I had troubles creating a playlist though. The system accepted my input but did not add the playlist to the menu. Deezer is nevertheless a brilliant better Pandora.

You are not the only one who thinks that something is not right here. Still, Global Pandora uploaded an announcement to their website that all US IPs of Global Pandora have been banned by Pandora so that access is currently not possible anymore. They ask users to use Jango, imeem, Spotify, Songza or SHOUTcast in the interim period.

It remains unknown if Global Pandora will make a comeback because new IPs will most likely get banned after a while as well. They are looking for U.S. servers and shells nevertheless to bring the service back to life.

User can rate songs from -6 (not) to +6 (hot) and change their mood using the mood control. You can select if you want to hear relaxing (1) to party (6) tunes on another slider and if you want to be surprised or not. Files can be downloaded using Orbit Downloader and Grab++. They are in mpx format which XMPlay can play without difficulties.

Meemix does have other features like a friends list, ways to find and listen to stations from other members of the website. It is also possible to block songs, buy songs and add other songs from the album to your favorites. Best of all, Meemix is available to everyone and not only US listeners.

Browsing other Radio stations is kinda cool. You can listen to the most popular stations, browse genres, stations with highest fan growth and newest stations. Great service that looks really promising.

The usual method to access Pandora is to use a proxy that is located in the United States so that Pandora believes that you are from there to. A far better solution was posted in the comments of this blog yesterday.

Global Pandora offers the Pandora interface on a independent website that requires no registration. Just enter a song or artist and a radio station will be build and you can listen to it. All without using a proxy, hiding your real IP or registration.

It even offers way to create an account and share music with your friends. All the choices that you have at the original Pandora website as well. I did no try those though and would be cautious to use them. This service is great but it would mean that you would enter your login data, like email, username and password on their site and this is a security risk.

Lob was pointing out in my article on accessing Hulu from outside the United States that there was another possibility to watch Hulu movies even if you would be living (currently or permanently) outside of the United States. His suggestion was to download and install a software called Hotspot Shield which is a free VPN solution located in the United States.

Download and installation worked fine and I did not have to configure anything by myself to get the VPN service up and running. A quick test at Hulustuff (I do not have an invite yet for Hulu, if anyone has one left feel free to pass it on to me, that would be really nice) revealed that most videos were working while some told me this: “Sorry, this video is currently unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

This did not seem to be a problem with the VPN but a internal problem., maybe the video was not available anymore at all or Hulu had difficulties streaming the content.

I first tried accessing directly which redirected me to a restricted website explaining why I was not allowed to listen to Pandora from my location outside the United States. So, the ban of everyone from outside the United States is still in place at Pandora.

My second try was with the excellent Secure Tunnel solution which I use for some time now that allowed me to watch Hulu and download from NBC Direct as well. I activated Secure Tunnel in Opera and Pandora would load and play fine as if I was a user from the United States.

As you can see the first screenshot is displaying the apology that they can’t serve me at Pandora while the second screen is showing a working Pandora interface with Secure Tunnel (aff, not free).

A user commented a while back in the Hulu article that I wrote that it was able to access Pandora with web proxies as well as long as they would be based in the United States. I tried that with several of them and I did not see the restricted website but when Pandora was starting to load it displayed that they were having technical difficulties at the moment which was not true because I was listening to Pandora just fine in Opera.

Please let me know if you have found a proxy that is working with Pandora so that I can confirm this method and search for some proxies to add to this article.

To download an element you simply check the box and click on the download button at the bottom of the screen. The download will then be send to the Orbit Downloader where the selected file(s) will be downloaded automatically. You do need the Orbit Download Manager and the Grab++ addition to download the elements.

The following websites and services are currently supported amongst others: Pandora, Yahoo, Myspace, IMEEM, Radioblogclub,Youtube, Dailymotion, Myspace and others. I tested it for instance with Gametrailers.com and it worked perfectly.

Grab++ is currently available as a beta but it worked without problems using the latest version of Firefox. The developers plan to integrate Grab++ into their download manager in the long run and support more sites such as Last.fm and the RTMP protocol.

A slighlty more complex alternative to grab++ would be the freeware URL Snooper.

I would not be able to explain otherwise why some bands are not found although their music videos are available at Youtube. After creating a channel you have the option to create another one or view the already created channels. If you choose the second option you see your channels on the left side and videos that have been found at Youtube on the right one.

You may now play each video, delete selected ones or add more videos to the channel. The most interesting option is of course the play video option. It lets you view the selected video, change the name, artist or album it is showing and rate the video and the artist separately. A new video is automatically loaded after the current one finished its playback. It is also possible to select one of the next upcoming videos which are shown on the left side with thumbnails, song name and artist name.

Aggrega is a nice service which is able to distinguish itself from Pandora by adding a visual component. The creators need to add more artists and songs to the database or improve the search script that searches Youtube and finds the music videos. It is no problem to find well known artists such as Madonna, Blur or Silversun Pickups but it becomes problematic if you search for lesser known artists.

found at mashable.