Etree.org Macintosh User's How-To

This page was written by Mike Kelleher (mk2@cmu.edu)

This page is intended to give Mac users an easy-to-follow introduction to the basics of Etree usage on the Macintosh. I'm not going to do in-depth on hardware choices (most any USB or SCSI burner will work, but check the compatibility listings for the software you have or want to use).

I am actively seeking contributions to this page. If you can provide me with instructions on how to do something etree-related with different software than I have, or if you have any corrections to anything on this page, please email me with your information. Thank you and enjoy the info!

Topics:

• How to use FTP to download shorten files
  • Using Anarchie
  • Using Fetch
  • What to do if the server is on a different port number
• How to verify your Shorten files with MD5 Checksums
• How to decompress your shorten files for burning
• How to burn a good audio CD
  • using Roxio Jam
  • using Roxio Toast
  • using Discribe (need contribution! I don't have a copy of Discribe)
• How to check your DAE (Digital Audio Extraction) and why this must be perfect
• How to extract digital audio from CDs correctly (Not as easy as it sounds)
• How to compress extracted digital audio to Shorten files and create MD5 checksums

How to use FTP to download Shorten files

The best FTP client for the Mac seems to be Stairways Software's Anarchie It's fast and reliable. You must have the address and login information for an etree server beforehand. Sign up for the announce@etree.org mailing list and be patient. You will find out how to access Etree servers here.

To begin downloading, do the following:

1. Start up Anarchie
2. Go to the File menu and choose "Get Via FTP..."
3. In the dialog box that follows, type in the server name, login, and password.
4. Press Enter and Anarchie will attempt to connect.
5. If you are having difficulties, go to the Window menu and choose Transcript. This window shows all of Anarchie's communications with the FTP server. If you can't login the most usual cause is that the FTP site has reached its user limit. If this is th e case then it will tell you in the Transcript window. Try logging into a different site
6. Once you are in, Anarchie will display the default directory in a window that looks and acts a lot like a Finder window. If you want to look inside a folder (directory) on the FTP site, double-click on it. If you want to download a file or a whole fol der's contents, just drag it to wherever you want in Finder (i.e. a hard drive, a folder window, or the desktop)
7. Wait for a while (Anarchie will tell you the approximate time remaining) and when that window goes away you will have successfully downloaded.

Contributed by Daniel Gold (dgold@anhonesttune.com)

Here is the solution that works with Anarchie and Fetch on a Mac:
Where you type in the IP address of the server, in that same field, at the end of the IP address, type a blank space then the port number. Oddly, the program automatically converts this into the proper format, which is the IP address, then a colon (:), then the Port number. For example 214.243.112.24:2001 gets you to Port 2001 (randomly made up the IP, sorry if that's you :). The odd thing is, when I type the colon myself, it does not work. Only works if I type a BLANK SPACE, then the port number, and allow the program to change my blank space into a colon. For example I would type: "214.243.112.24 2001" --NOTE THE SINGLE SPACE BEFORE 2001. Quirky, but it works.

How to verify your Shorten files with MD5 Checksums

Once you've downloaded your shorten files, you need to make sure that they downloaded correctly and contain no errors induced by the transfer process. It doesn't happen often, but the point of digital trading is that we all get the same bitstream :)

Along with the .shn files you downloaded, you should also have one or more files with the extension ".md5". These are checksums which we will use to make sure the file on your hard drive is the exact same as it was when it was created. To do this, use Doug Hornig's Shorten for Macintosh. Drag the .md5 file to the Shorten application's icon and it will start checking the files. If it says "All Done" then the files are correct and you can start unshortening and burning. If errors are found then it will tell you which files did not check out OK. You should log back into the FTP site, re-download those tracks, and try again.

How to decompress your Shorten files for burning to CD

To decompress the shorten files you downloaded so that you can burn them onto CD, again use Doug Hornig's Shorten for Macintosh. Simply select all the .SHN files in a folder and drag them to the Shorten application icon. Shorten will ask you where you want to save them. I recommend creating an empty folder on a hard drive with at least 750MB of disk space for the purpose of holding the WAV files you extract. Choose where you want to save and Shorten will begin its decompression. When it says "All Done!" your .wav files are ready to burn.

How to burn a good audio CD

The only audio CD burning software I recommend for the Mac is Roxio JAM. It is written specifically for creating audio CDs, burns DAO exclusively, and has a very nice interface.

For Power Macintosh computers running Mac OS 8.1 through Mac OS 9.0.4;

• Main Page
• Features
• FAQ
• Software Updates and Support

Steps for burning an audio CD with Roxio JAM (formerly Adaptec JAM):

1. Open Roxio JAM
2. If you haven't done it already, go to Jam's Preferences window and set the default pre-track pause to 00:00. This will simplify the process a bit.
3. Go to Finder, select all the .wav files that make up a CD
4. Drag the icons to the Adaptec Jam window and Jam will add them to the tracklist
5. In Jam, make sure that all the tracks are in the right order.
6. Turn off the copy protection flags for all the tracks. The easiest way to do this is to option-click on any one of the tracks' CP squares. This will turn it off for them all in one step.
7. Once you have completed this the CD should be ready. You are encouraged to "Preview" the CD by typing command-K. Jam will play all the track segues so you can make sure there are no pauses, clicks, or non-segues.
8. Once you are done, insert a CD-R disc into your CD-R drive and click "Write Disc". Jam will tell you there must be a 2-second pause before the first track - click "Yes" you do want to fix this. Then Jam will ask you what speed you want to burn at. Pick your speed (generally you will pick the highest available) and click "Write Disc". Be sure to use this rather than "Write Session" to create an official Red book audio CD.

• Main Page
• Features

• Features
• FAQ

• Main Page
• FAQ

Contributed by Daniel Gold (dgold@anhonesttune.com)

preface from Mike: Do not use any version of Toast lower than 4.0 Deluxe to burn audio CDs as that is the first version which can burn disc-at-once. Previous versions are fine for burning data discs though.
I found this on Adaptec's Toast web pages:

"What's the difference between Toast 4 Deluxe and Toast 4 Standard?
Standard is an OEM (bundled) version. It doesn't have many of the advanced features that Toast Deluxe has such as DAO (Disc-at-Once) support, MP3, Liquid Audio, and more advance formats, nor does it have the CD Spin Doctor or Photo Relay applications"

So you're on a Mac, you have downloaded a show of SHN files from an Etree site. You know you must use Doug Hornig's Shorten for Macintosh to convert the SHN's to audio files which you can burn onto CD's. You might have seen your Wintel friends, or heard on Etree discussions, that you are supposed to convert the SHN files to WAV files -- most people talk about burning WAV files to CD. If you use the defaults in Doug Hornig's Shorten for Macintosh, it will automatically convert your SHN's to WAV's. Then you open up Adaptec Toast 4.0.2 to burn your new WAV's to a CD -- and the bummer strikes. Toast claims the WAV files are "not audio files or not a supported format." (This might happen only with the OEM version of Toast that came free with a CD-R Drive; might not happen on Toast Deluxe; unknown to me).
Here is the solution: Toast wants to burn AIFF files as audio to CD. AIFF files are exactly the same as WAV files, except different headers -- AIFF is the audio standard on Mac, and is equal quality to WAV's -- the audio information in a WAV and AIFF is identical. On a Mac using Toast OEM 4.0.2 Standard, you must have AIFF's to burn as audio. So you need to convert your SHN's to AIFF, instead of to WAV. Go back to the program Doug Hornig's Shorten for Macintosh > Preferences > select "AIFF". Now reconvert your SHN's, and they will turn into .AIFF files. Now you can burn as audio using Toast.

Contributed by you!

How to check your DAE (Digital Audio Extraction) and why this must be perfect

DAE is the process of extracting the digital audio from a CD-ROM to your computer. Unfortunately, there is no DAE software as anal as Exact Audio Copy (for Windows) or cdparanoia (for linux/unix). So if you want to perfectly extract the contents of an audio CD for duplication or shortening, you MUST make sure that you can do perfect DAE. Fortunately, this is fairly easy to test.

How to test your DAE:

1. Start up either Astarte CD-Copy or Toast Audio Extractor (comes free with Adaptec Toast or Jam)
2. Insert the audio CD of your choice
3. Extract a single track twice in a row
4. Put these two files (which should contain the exact same data) in the same folder with each other, and name them "try1" and "try2"
5. Create an MD5 checksum for try1 by option-dragging the file icon to the Shorten application icon. Save the checksum file in the same folder as try1 and try2.
6. Open th sulting .md5 file with SimpleText and where it says "try1" at end of the only line, change it to "try2"
7. Verify the checksum against try2 by dragging it to the Shorten application icon
8. Shorten will verify that try1 and try2 are the exact same file. If it says "All Done!" then your DAE is perfect. Congratulations :)
9. If Shorten reports that the check failed, your DAE is not per . You should refrain from copying CDs or seeding from CDs to the Etree until you resolve the problems. If the DAE check failed on your CD-ROM drive, try it on your CD burner. They often do a better job of DAE than many CD-ROM drives. If that fails, the easiest fix is to replace your CD-ROM drive. Plextor drives are the most recommended CD-ROM drive for DAE (and it fixed my DAE problem).

Alternatively, as suggested by Robert Kirkpatrick:

Toast has a built in utility for doing a binary compare. That is what I recommend using, pretty much all Mac users will have Toast. You can do it with Resorcerer as well, but I wouldn't expect your average user to have it.

How to extract digital audio from CDs correctly (not as easy as it sounds)

Actually, once you verify that you have perfect DAE (read the previous section very carefully), it's easy. I will provide instructions for both Toast Audio Extractor and Astarte CD-Copy.

Toast Audio Extractor:

1. Open Toast Audio Extractor by double-clicking on it.
2. Go to the File menu and choose Options. Make sure Size is "16 Bit", Rate is "44.1 KHz", Mode is "Stereo". If you will be simply duplicating the disc, choose "Jam Image File" under Format. If you will be Shortening or shortening and burning, choose "WAVE" under Format. The advantage of Jam Image File is that it creates a single file that contains all the CD's information, and makes burning a copy 4 mouse-clicks away. Then click OK. This step only applies if you need to change the format that you would like to save in. If you have already set it properly, there is no need to do this.
3. Insert an audio disc that you would like to extract.
4. Hit Command-A for "Select All" (alternatively, you may select it from the Edit menu).
5. Drag the selected list of tracks from the Title/Time list into somewhere suitable in the Finder (most likely a folder created for the purpose of storing CD audio data).
6. Toast Audio Extractor will begin its work, displaying its progress and speed. If "Overlap (Safer but slower)" is not checked, check it! This is the only way to guarantee accurate DAE (and only if your drive can do it)
7. You're done!

Astarte CD-Copy:

1. Open CD-Copy by double-clicking on it
2. Go to the File menu and choose "Preferences". Make sure "Secure Audio Read (slower)" is checked! This is the only way to guarantee accurate DAE, and only if your drive supports it. Under "Format" choose Wave. Under "Quality" choose "44 kHz," "16 bit," "Stereo." Note that this step, like step 2 for Toast Audio Extractor, only needs to be done once.
3. Insert an audio disc that you would like to extract.
4. Hit Command-A for "Select All" Alternatively, choose "Select All" from the Edit menu.
5. Drag the selected list of tracks from the track list into somewhere suitable in the Finder (most likely a folder created for the purpose of storing CD audio data).
6. CD-Copy will then start extracting the disc, and will indicate its progress, speed, and approximate time remaining.
7. You're done!

How to compess extracted digital audio to Shorten files and create MD5 checksums

Once you have WAVE files on your computer, extracted using the instructions above, you can use Doug Hornig's Shorten application to compress them into Shorten files and generate MD5 checksums. You will need to do this if you will be uploading ("seeding") a show to the Etree.

1. Make sure the Wave files have the extension ".wav" at the end of the filename. Now is also a good time to rename the files to match the Etree.org naming sheme (see their howto page for information on this)
2. Select all the Wave files you'd like to shorten, and drag them onto the Shorten application icon.
3. Shorten will ask you where you'd like to save the files, and begin its compression.
4. When Shortn says "All Done!" the shorten files have been created successfully. Now you must make an MD5 checksum to ensure the integrity of the shorten files is not corrupted later on. Select all the .shn files in Finder, and hold down the Option key while you drag them to the Shorten application icon.
5. Shorten will prompt you for a location to save the MD5 checksum file. A good place is in the same folder as the .shn files.
6. When Shorten says "All Done!" then you are ready to upload!

Astarte CD-Copy