Reader JR from Boise, Idaho writes:

Hello,

I stumbled across your site. I like it and you seem very knowledgeable. I have two questions I have been seeking the answers to for years. perhaps you know the answer....

1) Is there a way to listen to real audio streams without installing Real Audio Player?

I share your disregard for Real Player and its intrusive tricks. Not only is it annoying-- it doesn’t work well and it isn’t very configurable. Therefore, I was glad when I stumbled upon a plugin for Winamp2 that enables you to watch to and listen to Real media.

"Tara's input plugin allows Winamp to play real audio, real video, real jukebox, mpegs, live rtsp/pnm streams like those from Spinner.com & Radio@AOL, and many other formats. Successfully tested with Real Player 6/7/8/G2 on Win9x/ME/NT/2K/XP. "

Download Tara’s Input Plugin here.

The catch is that you have to have both Winamp2 and Real Player installed. The nice part is that after you install Real Player and suffer through its registration process, you never have to see it again!

I’ve moved on to Winamp3 because I like all of the features that I’ve described here. However, I still have Winamp2 installed, and I have it configured to associate itself with all Real file-types: .ram, .rm, .rmm, .ra, .rmx, .rv, .rmj, .rpm, .smi, and .smil

2) Using the DOS xcopy command you can throw the /v switch to turn verify on. How can I do this using the GUI in XP? In other words I want to copy files, verify them and use the drag and drop method.

Great question. I suspect that the Windows GUI has become so flawlessly accurate that there is no need to verify files.

But seriously, you do know that the /v switch is still supported in XP’s Command Line? COPY and XCOPY still work with /v. Fire up the command line by holding the Windows key and pressing r, type "command" and press Enter.

When copying files, you will not be shown any status info to indicate that it has, indeed, verified the files. However, if you try copying a batch of files alternately with and without the /v switch, you will notice a subtle difference in the time it takes for the transfer.

As for dragging and dropping files with verification, I'm pretty sure that Windows does do this by default. I'm pretty sure that the o/s will perform a checksum equation on the copied files to make sure they jive with the source files. You should get an error message if something goes askew. However, not being 100% sure about that, I figured there must be some third-party software that would accomplish the same task, so I ran a search for “copy verify” at www.downloads.com and found the following:

WDiff 3.3
Verifying the integrity of files and directory structures when transferring.
OS: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000
File Size: 1.11MB
License: Free to try, $20 to buy

Of course, if this software works with NT and 2000 then it will also work with XP.

Unfortunately, you cannot use the copy/ paste functions without registering. I’m not sure how important this is to you.

As always, if anyone else has any ideas on these topics, please post your comments.

04 March 2003  |   permalink