Napster allows access to music, comedy, books on tape, and other sound files, through a file sharing arrangement. You are not required to share files, to use the Napster network, but when you do share the files you accumulate, it allows the whole napster community to grow. Your search for the music you love will have bumps in the road. Transfer errors, time outs, and struggling with your memories to find the songs you want will be a part of the process, but you will enjoy the fruits, and probably share them, as well, if you are anything like the millions of people who have gone before you

The key to the napster experience is patience, and persistance. If you are not using a version of Napster, or it's clones, that supports file resuming, you may be fighting a harder battle for files than required. Even with a high speed connection, you don't want to lose the time you have spent on a download to a transfer error, especially if you are dealing with a file that may be large, or hard to find, or with a donor computer that is not speedy, or is not providing a good connection.

In my experience, AudioGnome has been the best solution, so far. Wrapster users should not use beta 6 or beta 7 versions of napster, since neither of those versions support file resuming, and many wrapster files tend to be on the large side. Wrapster is a way of disguising non sound files, so they look like mp3's, which is the only type of file that Napster will transfer. Wrapped files can be pictures, movies, books, or software, like games and utilities, or even commercial software. Obviously, commercial software is not public domain, so you are taking your chances when looking for files of this type, or using them... If you download any type of software, you should be especially diligent in checking those files for the presence of virus, trojan, or other malicious files. Mp3 sound files will NOT contain virus, trojan or worm files by the nature of the mp3 format, and it's use.

AudioGnome ( www.audiognome.com ) not only allows for file resuming, but also has built in abilities to connect to specific napster servers, as well as allowing visits to other napster protocol servers, at the same time you are connected to "official" napster servers. Napster has over 100 servers, but outside of the Napster network, there are over twice that number. Many of those are smaller servers, and some may not be suitable for you, but they do allow the peer to peer community to grow. Even within the Napster network, it is handy to connect to specific servers, since each cluster of people will have varied musical interests, even if they have not chosen to be grouped together.

When you have been on napster for a while, you will meet people with whom you would like to be able to continue an association, even if you don't want to share email information, just yet. Each Napster server has it's own chat rooms, and if you want to meet the same people again, you will need to be able to connect, the next time, to the same sever, or at least be able to agree on a server to consider "home base", for you. If you do not use AudioGnome, you will need napigator to enable Napster to connect to specific servers. The best place to find napigator is cnet.com.

Napster's hotlist allows you to view the mp3 files a user has chosen to share from their hard drive. Napster has made various changes to the way they use the hotlist, among them a sort of buddy list, even throughout the Napster network. Given the growth, and the current volume of traffic on the Napster network, it may be too much to expect the hotlist to continue to serve as a universal buddy list, even for accessing file libraries, or maybe especially for accessing libraries, since that is the reason you came to Napster, in the beginning.

When searching for a song that is not common, you may need to "server hop" which makes connecting to specific servers even more important. Wouldn't it be much more effective to perform a methodical search, server by server, than to just accept the roll of the dice that Napster hands you, each time you log on? There are tools which allow you to search the entire Napster network in one process, but these tools may qualify as being "bots" to the napster network, which will get you booted from the system. Signing up again may not be difficult, but your new name might not help you, if you have accumulated a group of people you often interact with, in the chat rooms, or one on one.

When searching for a song, you will need to pay attention to the time lengths that are shown, and almost always you should download the longest songs. For most people, there is no need to look for songs recorded at more than 128 bitrate, since most people can not hear a difference in the sound quality above 128, and higher bitrate recordings take up more hard drive space. Unless a song is hard to find, you should also limit your searches to cable and above connections, to make completing your download an easier proposition. Generally, you should stay away from 56k and below connections, since dialup connections are more likely to be disconnected, in the course of your download.

Cable and above are "always on" connections, though that does not mean the person who is using that computer will want to leave their computer connected all of the time. Regardless, cable and above connections are more likely to stay connected, for longer periods of time, than 56k and below. When choosing a song to download, you also want to look for the lowest ping numbers you can find. While a low ping is not a guarantee of a good, or fast, connection, it is the best indicator, short of actually performing the download.

Once you have found a user that provides a good connection, with a fast transfer, add them to your hot list, since you have a good idea of what to expect, in terms of transfer, and to a lessor extent, musical taste.

In terms of time to download a song, you can expect a 5 minute song, at 128 bitrate, to take 20 minutes to an hour, on 56k modems, and for cable and above, you can expect most songs to arrive on your computer faster than you could listen to the song, generally between 1 minute, and up to 20 minutes or more, depending upon the route, and distance, between your computer, and the donor computer.

What are you waiting for? Get on over to Napster.com, download the software, and start listening to that music you thought you couldn't find anymore, those books you've always meant to read, and the songs you heard in the newest movies, all in the same place.



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