Listening Solutions for MOJA RADIO!

Russ Davis here and I’m writing to follow up with you, a member of MOJA Nation, to give you all the info I have concerning the many ways to access the features related to listening to MOJA Radio…the main reason you joined in the first place. Please keep this document handy so you can refer to it in the future should need to remind yourself of how to listen to MOJA Radio.

Now, as we all know, nothing (and I mean NOTHING) seems to be easy in cyber-world and the simplest ideas related to online radio never end up being that easy to implement and the reasons are many. There is the incompatibility issue between PC and MAC and the many programs related to each system. Then your personal set up has much to do with whether or not you can access the full spectrum of features related to MOJA Radio listening. One little thing in the chain can totally shut you down and we’ve all experienced that. In this document I’ll try to point out the exact order of things in simple terms. Some of you hot shots have already gone beyond the basics and found ways to listen that even my technical advisers never thought of, so this should all work, does work, and if you still have problems you can always write me at russ@mojaradio.com and you know I’ll do what I can to make it happen for you. I feel like we’re all here for the same reason…we love the music and most of all I want you to enjoy it to the fullest.

Now, let’s get to it…read on and you’ll all the latest, up-to-date info on how to hear THE WORLD’S MODERN JAZZ RADIO CHANNEL!

Firstly, as of Tuesday, 19 July 2011, we installed a New MOJA Radio Player. If you’re a subscriber you’ll get that player by logging in and clicking on LISTEN TO MOJA. The new player with the artist, song and, when available, album art displayed should pop up and run automatically on both PC’s for MAC’s as this is a Flash Player. As things have developed among all the entities controlling things in cyber-world, Flash is now compatible with most everything. Though this may change soon MAC users still need to download Silverlight and/or use Firefox as your browser. The player opens in Safari just fine and there’s no buffer time or waiting for the artist/song/album art to display with the second song with this new player either. MOJA sounds, and looks, better than ever now! Plus it has some cool SONG INFO, ARTIST WEBSITE and BUY options you should check out too. You can click on those options and still listen. Life if just getting better and better!

The second option for listening is a POP-OUT PLAYER that you can access with the drop down tab below the LISTEN TO MOJA button. With this player you can listen while you visit other pages within the MOJA Radio site or while you surf the web in general. All you have to do is choose “Pop-Out Player” and you’re in business. The original player shuts off when you go to any other page within the MOJA Radio site or to another website.

As I’ve mentioned you will now have no problem hearing MOJA Radio through a MAC using Safari as your browser. You may still need to download Silverlight to listen on a MAC but that is free and easy to download. You’ll be prompted on how to do that the first time you click to listen on your MAC. But one thing stays the same and that is if you go through Safari and click on MOJA on Mobile Devices under Listen To MOJA our Shoutcast page emerges. You click on Listen at the top of the page and the stream begins to play in your iTunes library after it downloads an Internet Audio Playlist named listen.pls. You’ll get the artist and song info on the top of the iTunes player though not the full-effect player. Hey, if listening through your iTunes still works best for you then so be it. As they say…”by any means necessary!” The link to MOJA Radio listening is then permanently listed in your iTunes library and any time you want to listen you can just click on that even without going to the website. It’s a pop-out player that will play on while you work on the web. It’s an odd, surprise advantage we just discovered with the new stream we established that was originally only for Mobile listening. Go figure…

For now continue to listen with Mobile devices as you have before, utilizing the third drop down menu option MOJA on Mobile Devices. We will be making some adjustments for better sound and ease of use on that front soon so stay tuned. Here’s what my tech adviser wrote as soon as we installed the new player…”For mobile devices – here’s the deal: Most smart phones and tablets are now shipping Flash enabled. – no problem there. iPhone and iPad are still not Flash ready yet. The user can listen through iTunes or Pocket Tunes.”

One of the most important features of MOJA Radio IS MOBILITY! We offer that with the third option in the drop down menu under Listen To MOJA that reads MOJA on Mobile Devices! We first offered this with Pocket Tunes, which is a subscription service that we first utilized to give those with Apple products (iPhone, iPad & iTouch devices) mobility. On the Apple front, one of our fellow MOJANS wrote the following…

For the iPhone,
The Moja listing is in Pocket tunes and plays.
Depending on the app that’s being used, they might have to manually put in the stream URL. http://sc10.spacialnet.com:30074

RE: iPad
It is a no brainier…Once logged in, If you go to your site at:

http://russdavismoja.com/player/pocket-tunes/

And click ‘play on mobile devices’ it starts up right away.

It appears that things are developing quickly on the mobile front and we’ve had some folks listening to MOJA Radio on their Droids as well and with this new dedicated stream for mobile devices you should be able to listen with Blackberry devices too.

Here are 4 recent success stories for citizens of MOJA Nation, we’re known as MOJANS you know, who found the programs STREAMFURIOUS and XIIA LIVE to play MOJA on their DROIDS!

MOJAN Richard Moschitto wrote…

“I have an HTC Droid Eris, running the standard Android 2.1 operating system. I downloaded the Winamp app to see if I could get it to work with MOJA. Although the app seems functional, I could not get it to start up automatically when I tried connecting to the MOJA Mobile stream. I also tried logging in directly from Winamp but that didn’t work either.

After seeing a post on the MOJA forum that someone had the same experience with Winamp, but was able to connect using Streamfurious, I downloaded that app. When I tried connecting to the MOJA Mobile stream, Streamfurious opened up automatically, and MojaRadio began playing.

Streamfurious saved my login information as a new station, so now when I want to connect, either via WiFi or the Verizon 3G network, all I have to do is open the Streamfurious app and select the MojaRadio station bookmark. Both the Wifi (at home) and 3G (in the car) connections seem to work well.”

AND…MOJAN James “Dub” Green wrote…
“Russ, I have a Droid X and my wife a Samsung Fascinate and winamp did not allow us to listen but upon downloading Streamfurious and then logging into MOJA and clicking the listen tab when the shoutcast adminstrative site opens, MOJA starts playing. Upon returning to the device you open Streamfurious and MOJA has been added to their list of stations and no need to log in again. Just click play. It was that simple. Hope this helps,
Dub Green”

Here’s another testimonial and another creative way of getting MOJA Radio to flow on a Droid, this one from MOJAN Jimmy Barron…” I have been using XIIA LIVE and found that it also works for Android phones and also allows me to tag the songs so I can remember later and it also has a volume control and sleep timer to use. It costs agreement bucks but I’m very happy with the product. Just another option for the MojaNation and Android listeners thanx…jimibjammin”

And yet another resourceful MOJAN, Bob Gamache, agrees with Jimmy Barron when it comes to XIIA LIVE…here’s his testimonal…” Russ:
After trying (unsuccessfully!) to play MOJA Radio via Winamp and
Streamfurious, I downloaded the Android app for XIIA LIVE without any
problems (after a slight buffering delay). If others are having trouble with the above devices, suggest downloading the XIIA Live Lite app and then logging into it via the mobile section of the MOJA radio site. I can now listen on my various PCs, my Blackberry Curve and now my ASUS Transformer tablet! World domination is just around the corner! Thanks again, Russ!”

Here’s the latest bit of info from another longtime MOJAN…Bob Stoodt…
“With the abandonment of Flash by Android (late August 2012), and a first time upgrade from my original Droid to the new Samsung Galaxy III, and the inability to get Streamfurious connected, the XIIA Live Lite app worked like a charm. Should’ve done that first instead of last and it wouldn’t have taken as much time away from MoJa enjoyment as it did. Please keep the MoJa flowing! Thanks from a very dedicated Mojan from before the internet radio days! Bob Stoodt in CT.”

As for listening on a BlackBerry…it should be pretty simple there too…
Just log on to the site, www.mojaradio.com, enter your username and password, click on MOJA on Moble Devices and it should simply start to play. You may see a page for SHOUTCAST pop up, that is the list of stations that the company I use as my streaming service (Spacial Audio) provides. If you are logged on to MOJA Radio, click on MOJA with Mobile Devices under the LISTEN TO MOJA dropdown the Shoutcast page comes up just click on LISTEN at the top and the stream will begin but you must be logged in with your Username/Password combo first of course.

MOJAN Family Chuck & Mary Phelan in Arizona wrote the following about listening on their Blackberries…”Just tried listening to MOJA on my Blackberry Curve…it works! At first I wasn’t able to see any artist/title info, but at least I got the music, but since my Mary downloaded the RadioBee application (http://www.radiobee.com/) she’s been able to see song title and artist info on her Blackberry.Thanks, Russ!”

Here’s what MOJAN Kevin Mitchell wrote…Recently tried to connect to MOJA using a Blackberry Storm and the resident media playing application plays the stream with no problems. Finally able to listen when away from my desk!
Success!

Here’s what my tech adviser told me after we beta-tested the Mobile Stream on the Android…” On the Android – you can use the Winamp application. (Winamp and pocket tunes are both made by the same company. The person that tested it for me said that all he had to do was login and click the Pocket tunes link. It launched Winamp right away and started playing. It’s my understanding that the WinAmp application on the Droid acts just like Pocket Tunes. You can listen to Internet Radio through the app by using their login feature – like Pocket Tunes.
Regarding the phone service providers: (Sprint, AT&T, Verizon, etc.) It’s up to the user to have an audio capability smart phone and a data package for the stream. From my understanding those service providers offer little difference between them. A data package is a data package.”

Here’s another testimonial to getting Mobile with MOJA from MOJAN Bob Nyulassy…” Hello Russ, I will be making a long overdue phone upgrade, but presently have a Samsung Saga on Verizon running Windows Mobile 6.1. What the heck? It is WiFi capable, so I switched off the cell connection and tried accessing the usual MOJA site using the resident Opera browser. I entered my credentials and following a brief delay, MOJA Radio! The sound quality connected to my Audioengine 2s was very good. WiFi off, back on cell, EVDO signal, amazingly (scary) MOJA started right up! The sound quality was much better than I expected so think I may be pulling a descent stream, possibly racking up some serious MB. I ran to my car like a kid on Christmas morning plugged into the aux input—man oh man! You guessed it! I really fear that I’m pulling a much faster stream than what Verizon would like, and will dig into this more. As a bonus, I found that when a phone call came in, MOJA was gradually muted and then the call ring came through. After the call, I was able hit the MOJA player button and back to the fun! MB aside, I can’t wait to take a drive!
All the best, Bob Nyulassy”

Here’s another suggestion…Roderick, the developer who created the cool, new MOJA Radio player, runs his own online radio channel and wrote the following…” I listen to my station through the TuneIn.com app on my android and blackberry phone.” Honestly, I’d never heard of this one but if a developer says it works…it works! Give it a go ya’ll.

The bottom line is this…If your device has a program that is inherent in your device or if you have downloaded a program that allows you to play MP3 audio, you should then be able to hear MOJA Radio by clicking on the link under Listen To MOJA that says MOJA on Mobile Devices. Give it a try. You may be pleasantly surprised. You should not have to log in more than just the one time you initially log in to the site if you go directly to your device. Stay tuned for more on that front as things develop.

As I mentioned before, I have received some messages from a few super-tech-smart residents of MOJA Nation who have discovered clever ways to listen. Here’s one…from MOJAN Bob Gorz…” Thought you’d also like to know that I’ve been successful in playing the new mobile stream through the Logitech Squeezebox connected to my home stereo system. The Logitech Squeezebox is a wireless device on my home network that can be used to “tune in” a variety of Internet streaming content. I’m very happy that I now can listen to MoJa Radio with the full sound of my home stereo!”

Here are the instructions Bob forwarded to fellow MOJAN Bill Magruder to get him set up with his Squeezebox…”I’ve been successful in configuring the MOJA Radio mobile stream to play through my Logitech Squeezebox on my home network. The Squeezebox is attached to my home stereo rig so that now I can enjoy MOJA Radio with the full fidelity of that system! My Squeezebox is the classic 2/3 model. I currently use the 7.5.1 version of Squeezebox server software. My “server” is a Windows 7, Dell XPS430 computer using Internet Explorer 8 for Squeezebox configuration purposes. So here goes…

On the MOJA home page, click on the link under “Listen To MOJA” that says “MOJA on Mobile Devices”.
On the page that displays, click on the link that says “Click here to play MOJA on your Mobile device!”
You should have a SHOUTcast D.N.A.S. Status page appear. Near the top of that page there is a link that says “Listen”.
If you right click on that link, find “Properties” and then click on Properties. A box should appear that provides the web link to the mobile MOJA stream. It should look something like:

http://sc10.spacialnet.com:30074/listen.pls

This is the URL that you will want to enter into your Logitech Squeezebox configuration in either of these ways:
If you use the Mysqueezebox.com facility, the URL can be entered as a Favorite. Then you can tune into MOJA Radio using the Logitech menus on the device directly with the remote.
If you use Squeezebox server software on your computer, first make sure the Squeezebox device is powered up and connected to your Squeezebox server. Then, from the Home menu, under Internet Radio, click “Tune in URL” and add the URL as above and click the “Tune In” button to connect. Press Add to save the link in Squeezebox server Music Player.
And that’s all there is to it. Bill, let me know if you have questions – I’m happy to help out. Enjoy MOJA on your Squeezebox!”
And after following those instructions, your fellow MOJAN James Sawyer wrote…”Hey Russ, thanks for the help with configuring the squeezebox! I am now listening to MOJA Radio wirelessly through the stereo in my shop! Awesome!”

Another potential resident and former Beyond Jazz listener who is considering applying for MOJA Nation citizenship, Matt Kozink, wrote the following…”If I subscribe can I access MOJA so I can stream it to my SONOS zone players?” I consulted with my tech advisers and they answered with the following…” I believe SONOS zone players provide wireless speakers for home entertainment systems. If this is what he’s talking about – then he just needs a feed from his computer to his stereo system. It should work just fine.” So, as you can see, the MOJA on Mobile Devices that you can access through the drop down tab below the LISTEN TO MOJA button can be very valuable.

Here is another report on how things are working for another MOJAN, Mark McIlheran who wrote the following…” After extensive scientific testing (well, sort of) it is my professional opinion that the new MOJA player is about a jillion times more stable and reliable. Over the last few days I have tried all of the options available for listening to MOJA and they all work better than before. Yesterday’s email with the tip on using iTunes is the icing on the cake. I usually have iTunes open, so it’s a big plus for me to listen to MOJA without having a dedicated browser window open.
Successes:
1. Listening via the website using Firefox
2. Listening via the website using Google Chrome
3. Listening via iTunes
4. Listening on my iPhone via Pocket Tunes
Nothing has crashed, and in particular Pocket Tunes seems to be able to stream much more reliably. Before, it was very dodgy using Pocket Tunes.”

We’ll all discover more ways to make use of it and pass it along to everyone. If you yourself find a clever solution to something send it to me directly and I’ll post it for all to see. Hey, we’re a community here you know!

Well there you have it…a quick primer on Listening to MOJA Radio. Thanks for being part of the MOJA Nation and enjoy The World’s Modern Jazz Radio Channel…serving up Jazz In The Present Tense!

Russ Davis