Re: (off topic) How to enjoy "free" Audiobooks from the Web

"orang37" <orang37@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:QhR_e.7075$Wl6.662@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> With floodwaters coming down the street now and heavy rain falling I
> can't think of anything better that I can do than interrupt my
> listening to the 9th. hour of Winston Churchill's history of the
> second world war than to share how you can acquire "freely" a nice
> libaray of audiobooks from the internet. Your choice of
> science-fiction, fiction, humor, best-sellers, biography, non-fiction,
> books on finance, lecture series on art and history from some of the
> world's leading professors, etc.
>
> I have found as my eyes are older and weaker that I have to budget the
> amount of time I spend reading every day because I am doing technical
> work as well as research. I find listening to audiobooks a wonderful
> way to pursue my lifelong habit of voracious reading, and I find
> there's nothing better than to lie back in a comfortable position with
> my cat on my lap in kind of a relaxed state listening to a lecture
> series on the history of ancient Greece, or listening to a
> supernatural thriller like "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova.
>
> I have been using EasyNews subscription news service for three years
> (it's US $9.95 per month), and highly recommend it. They now allow up
> to 30 gigabytes of downloads per month (if you can download that much
> a month hats off to you) ! The link to EasyNews is below as well as a
> brief description of how it works.
>
> I am going to do this in the form of a FAQ type outline :
>
> Summary : Audiobooks are usually collections of .mp3 format files
> found usenet newsgroups whose titles begin with "alt.binaries. To
> access them you need reliable access to the usenet binary groups which
> your ISP may or may not provide. Advantages of using a commercial News
> Reader service described. Issues in file formats briefly mentioned.
>
> 1. What is an audiobook : a file or collection of files typically in
> .mp3 format of a person(s) reading the text of a published work, or of
> a lecture series as might be delivered in a college classroom. Rarely
> these have musical effects or soundtracks added. Most often they are
> one reader reading the complete work.
>
> 2. Are these copyrighted, commercially sold materials : yes, they
> generally are.
>
> 3. By downloading copies of them am I stealing : you decide.
>
> 4. How do I get them and play them : you get them from Usenet news
> groups that begin with the title "alt.binaries" You play them the same
> way you play .mp3 files now.
>
> 5. What is the Usenet : part of the world web wide, but not in html
> format, it is host to thousands of newsgroups ranging from serious
> discussion forums for photography and jewelry making to porn and
> utterly bizarre groups, to discussion forums like soc.culture.thai
>
> 6. What are "binary" groups : these are groups where files are
> posted; these files may include music, video, audiobooks, software,
> porn, etc. The main newsgroups for audiobooks are :
>
> As of 19:05PM 29 September Thai Time : Current usenet
> groups
> containing audiobook files on EasyNews :
>
> Note : the number in parentheses is the number of files
> currently
> retained on each group right now EasyNews' servers :
>
> (37241) alt.binaries.mp3.audiobooks
> (31814) alt.binaries.sounds.audiobooks
> (24998) alt.binaries.mp3.audiobooks.highspeed
> (9120) alt.binaries.sounds.audiobooks.repost
> (8302) alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.audiobooks
> (316) alt.binaries.mp3.audiobooks.repost
> (103) alt.binaries.audiobooks
You can also find "stuff" in alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.spoken-word
e.g http://store.yahoo.com/soundstruestore/af00052.html
is posted there now as is History of WW2 Vol 1: The Gathering Storm
Author: Winston S. Churchill Read By: Richard Greene
and in alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.books
For thai content there's alt.binaries.multimedia.thai
lots of thai language programs have been posted there lately plus movies
and tv series.

>
> 7. How do I get access to the Usenet news groups : if you are reading
> this you are already accessing the Usenet ! Yes, you can "see" them
> using the same reader you use to access soc.culture.thai, but what you
> see will depend on what your ISP decides to store on its servers : see
> #8 below.
>
> 8. Then how do I get access to the binary groups : here is a
> "challenge" your ISP may or may not support the binary newsgroups. If
> they do support them, they may not do a good job of "catching" all the
> files that belong together which means you might download 99
> components of a file only to find the 100th. component is not stored
> on your ISP's server and so you can't put all 100 components together
> to create the final file.
>
> 9. Do you mean a single file is divided into sub-files : yes, because
> large files can get corrupted easily and do not propagate as well as
> collections of smaller files, the "master" file is usually divided up
> into pieces : these may be in different formats, but most often are
> zip files. These are, today, most commonly encoded using yEnc
> encoding. Note that .mp3 music files, typically 5-12 megabytes in
> size, lend themselves nicely to being put up as is. Many audiobooks
> are put on the usenet groups as groups of .mp3 files that do not
> require assembly into a larger file.
>
> 10. Okay I found the files and I downloaded them, but how do I "piece
> them together" : here you are going to have to know how to use your
> particular browser to do this. Look into your browser's help file and
> look up topics like "binary," "download."
Here's a free newsreader:
http://xnews.newsguy.com/#download
>
> 11. Okay, my ISP doesn't have the binary files, or they do a poor job
> of catching the complete files : well, you can use a News Reading
> service.
>
> 12. What is a News Reading service : a company like EasyNews,
> SuperNews, that offers a subscription service : you access their
> servers, which they promise do a very good job of catching all the
> files available, through an internet front end.
>
> 13. What is an "internet front end" to a News Reading service : okay
> : you go to an html page, a regular web page like :
>
> http://www.EasyNews.com
>
> you log in with username and password. you select which
> usenet groups
> you want to monitor. they present you with a list of the newsgroups
> you've chosen to monitor, and you select one. a listing of the files
> is shown, you check the files you want to download and they package
> them up into a zipped file for you. then you go to their download
> manager page and click the zipped file to download. once you have the
> file downloaded you unzip and then either re-assemble the master file
> from its components ... or, as is typically the case with audiobooks,
> just load the .mp3 files into your media player and play them.
>
> 14. How do you actually re-assemble the component files into the
> master file : well, component files are often in .rar format, and you
> need a program like WinRAR on Windows to do the right thing to
> resurrect the master file. See :
>
> http://www.win-rar.com/index.php?id=24&kb=1&kb_article_id=1
> 62
>
> 15. What if I am missing a file or two : there is a new way of
> encoding that has become very popular where certain files called "PAR"
> files are put up along with the component files. Using a program you
> can use the (smaller) PAR files to "resurrect" missing files. This
> gets esoteric : see :
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Par_file
>
> for more information on PAR files.
>
>
>
If you want to post binary files yourself have a look here:
http://www.yenc32.com/

Good luck with all the water flooding, hope you stay safe.

Nick
.

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    ... I find listening to audiobooks a wonderful way to pursue my lifelong ... habit of voracious reading, and I find there's nothing better than to lie back ... Audiobooks are usually collections of .mp3 format files found usenet ... means you might download 99 components of a file only to find the 100th. ...
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