First a little perspective – I LIKE to listen to music, especially when I’m at work or riding the bus on the way back home. But, I don’t really like any of the radio stations that play in my area and then there are those times when I just want to listen to a particular song and waiting for my favorite online radio station to play it, just doesn’t cut it.

Times like these are when I miss my desktop at home the most because that is where I store all my music collection. I’m sure you all will agree with me on this and if you’re a music lover, I’m also pretty sure you must have faced this problem yourself.

Today, I found a solution for this problem. AudioBox.fm !

AudioBox is an online cloud based audio streaming service for your own music. What that means is that they provide you with space on their servers to upload your music and then listen to it using an awesome full featured web application.

The best part about AudioBox is that you don’t even need to install any application on your computer/mobile to stream songs from their site. It all works using an HTML 5 based web application.

Uploading Music and Getting Started

AudioBox offers up to 1 GB of space FREE for you to store your music. Just Sign Up, pick the free plan, choose a username and password you’re good to go. One short email confirmation and you’re all set to upload 1 GB worth of music to AudioBox’s cloud.

Once you’re inside AudioBox, launch the music player by clicking the Cloud Web Player link on the top of the page.

This will take you to an iTunes like HTML 5 application that lets you upload music to AudioBox’s servers and play it at your convenience.

Click the Upload Media button in the top left corner of the page to upload your music files. Once all your music has been uploaded, you can start playing by simply clicking the play button, or double clicking the particular song that you want to listen to. AudioBox works almost like a real desktop based music application.

The free version of AudioBox lets you stream music to a desktop only using your web browser but if you upgrade your plan, you also get the ability to stream music to a mobile device like the iPhone.

Have you ever felt the need to listen to a song your desktop when you’re away from it ? Does AudioBox sound like the application that’ll solve your problem ? Let us know in the comments.

Image Credit: RossinaBossioB

Download the Software

When you go to the site, you will see a Download Now button that you will need to press. After you download the software, double-click the pulpTunes icon. A startup message will appear with some basic instructions on how to quickly launch the app. If you decide you no longer want to see that message, check the Don’t show this again at startup check box. I would leave this to come up when the app launches because it provides useful information that you might forget. For instance, what to do if you are unable to launch pulpTunes with your browser.

Check the Settings

The next thing you want to do is check the app’s settings. Regardless of what system (i.e. Windows, Mac, or LInux) you are on, you will see the pulpTunes’ icon on the system tray.

If you click on the icon, you will see a box with options. If you check out the Settings link, it defaults on the General tab. You can set up the automatic playing, the iTunes library file location, and your preferred language.

If you click on the Advanced tab, then you can change the server port, timeout time, and turning on/off logs. It’s a very simple process to customize pulpTunes to your liking.

Manage User Accounts

If you want to add more security to your music collection, or restrict who has access, then you would want to enable user accounts that is under User Management. When you first come in, you will need to create an Administrator account. This will be the way to control all access on pulpTunes.

When you open the pulpTunes’ site again, you will see a login link where you can set up the user groups and customize their access. You can restrict the ability to rate songs, view your playlists, and/or have access to pulpTunes.

After creating the user groups, you can go to the Accounts tab, and create your user accounts. Note: You have to place users into user groups, so always start with the Groups tab.

Time to Check it Out

After customizing pulpTunes to your liking, it’s time to check it out. You are able to test it by clicking the Test Locally link before launching it. I recommend that you do that. One thing about pulpTunes that is interesting is that you don’t need to have iTunes open in order to run the app. You are able to run searches, check out your playlists, and even select a certain genre.

Overall, pulpTunes is a quick and easy app that will give you access to your music without needing to download iTunes or buy a MP3 player. You might have to do some tweaking to your firewall settings in order to allow the app to run seamlessly. However, after doing that, you will be pumping to your music in no time.

GNUMP3d – The GNU Streaming MP3 / Media Server

Platform: *nix, Windows, OSX
Browser/Client Player: Client
Supported formats: MP3, Ogg Vorbis
Configuration: Text File

So far, I think GNUMP3d is my favorite simple music streaming application. According to the website it runs on Windows as well as the UNIX type systems you’d expect from GNU. I’ve only tested it on Linux and it’s been a breeze.

To install GNUMP3d, you just download and extract the tarball from the GNUMP3d website, and run

make install

Configuration is done through a plain text file, instructions are provided on the website.

Once it’s up and running, you point a web browser to the address you’ve set up (like http://localhost:8888) and you should see a screen similar to the screenshot above. From here you can click directories or individual tracks. Each click will result in the server generating a playlist file (.m3u) which your host computer will open in whatever media player you have set up for M3U files. I tested it through VLC but the website notes that others like WinAmp and XMMS work as well.

Another handy feature found in GNUMP3d which seems to be rare with this type of software is that it allows not only streaming but plain downloads of the music files. You can download the MP3 as easily as you can stream it.

One thing I felt was missing from GNUMP3d was user access control. I’d like to be able to set permissions so that only those with the correct username and password can access my music collection. The README stated that similar functionality had been there for a previous release, but had been removed as it didn’t really do anything to improve security.It did, however, let me restrict connections based on IP address. This worked well for me as I intend to stream my home music collection from work, so I set it to only accept connections from my employer’s IP range.

Vibe Streamer

Platform: Windows (also reported to work through Wine)
Browser/Client Player: Browser
Supported formats: MP3
Configuration: Graphical

Vibe is the music streamer I’ve tested most in Windows.  Like GNUMP3d, it runs a mini webserver which gives you a browsable list of available music files. Unlike GNUMP3d, it is set up through a normal Windows graphical program. Another difference is that Vibe uses an in-browser player to play the music, instead of relying on a client-side program such as Winamp or VLC.

The one feature I really liked about Vibe was that it was very easy to set the server to only accept connections from someone with a proper username and password. It didn’t seem to use HTTPS so I can’t make any claims on how much that really improves security, but it’s a nice feature. It would at least stop someone from casually strolling on to my server and using up my bandwidth.

Icecast

Platform: Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris
Browser/Client Player: Client
Supported formats: MP3, Ogg Vorbis
Configuration: XML file

Of the software I reviewed for this article, Icecast was by far the most difficult to set up. Configuration is done through a XML file using a lot of unfamiliar terminology. I read over the docs on the website which clarified a few of the options, but there was a lot I had to figure out on my own.

Icecast streams music like a regular radio station, with a certain selection of music being beamed out to the world. You don’t have the control over music selection you have with the other options I’ve covered here. This is good from the server side, as you only need to send out a single stream which all listeners will hear. For my purposes, I just want the stream for myself while at work, and I’d like to choose my music selection as I go, so Icecast doesn’t meet my personal needs very well. If you intend to stream music to many listeners, the Icecast style might be the best way to go.

Apache

Platform: Just about everything
Browser/Client Player: Either
Supported formats: Anything
Configuration: Apache config is a BIG topic better handled elsewhere

That’s right, the plain old Apache webserver is all you really need to stream/download your music. It’s probably not the BEST option in most circumstances, but it’ll do the trick. You simply install Apache according to the instructions for your operating system, and drop your music files in the web folder. That’s it. You won’t have any nice graphics, no playlist support, nothing fancy just a list of files that can be clicked to download or stream, depending on client/server configuration.

IMPORTANT – As with any internet-connected server, be very careful about what you place for public access. Any of the software listed here could potentially have some kind of security flaw. On top of that, it’s probably a bad idea to host copyrighted music to the whole internet. Stream at your own risk.

What other software do you use to stream music over the Web? Share with us in the comments.