Postcard FTP Server ReadMe

Maximum Number of FTP Users:	10
Currently Connected:

Postcard From Hell FTP Server README
(ftp.postcardfromhell.com). BEFORE YOU DOWNLOAD, UPLOAD OR POST ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS SERVER TO POSTCARD, PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE DOCUMENT. THEN READ IT AGAIN. Questions about this page should be addressed to Eric Anderson. PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU MUST BE A CURRENT SUBSCRIBER TO POSTCARD TO BE ALLOWED ACCESS TO THE FTP SERVER. ALL REQUESTS FOR ACCESS FROM NON-MEMBERS WILL BE IGNORED. SUBSCRIBE TO POSTCARD HERE! If you have any questions about the Postcard FTP server, or are a current Postcard member and would like an account so that you can upload shows, please contact Tony Wagahoff, FTP Administrator. PURPOSE This is a semi-public, password protected server for sharing live shows, demos, etc. of Postcard-related bands. Please be sure that the shows you post are from taper/trader friendly. DO NOT post commercially available material. Dave Dewey is providing this as a friendly service and doesn't need to get his ass sued off. If you see files on this server that you think are commercially available or from non-taper-friendly artists, please contact Tony Wagahoff, FTP Administrator. USERNAMES AND PASSWORDS Your username and password for the FTP server are the same as for the Postcard mailing list itself. This means that you must be a current Postcard subscriber. If you can't remember your password, please go to http://www.postcardfromhell.com and click on "Subscription Options" at the top. Enter your email address in the first box, then scroll down a bit and click the 'Remind' button. This will send your password to you via email. Your username is your full email address. FILE TYPES In general, there are 3 types of files to be found on this server: MP3 files (which will play in just about any music player software and about which no more will be said here), SHN files and FLAC files. In order to play SHN and FLAC files, you will need additional software besides your regular music software. See below for plenty of information. PLEASE DO NOT POST .mkw or .wav FILES TO THIS SERVER. FILE STRUCTURE CONVENTIONS There are two main directories (folders), one for SHN/FLAC and one for MP3s. Under each of these main directories will be folder by artist; under that, directories for individual shows. For example: SHN/ --> Wilco/ --> wilco2003-04-21.shnf/ MP3/ --> Granddaddy/ --> 2003-07-14HultsfredSweden/ In the show directory should go the tracks themselves along with any checksum files your software creates. Tracklists are strongly encouraged, along with any artwork you may have. SOFTWARE YOU NEED Most of this information was taken from http://wiki.etree.org/index.php?page=SoftwareYouNeed which is an excellent guide and probably more up-to-date than this page. FTP SOFTWARE: There are about a million different FTP programs available. Some are freeware, some shareware/donationware and some are commercial programs. Windows FTP Clients SmartFTP Free Trial Filezilla Free! LeapFTP Free Trial CuteFTP Free Trial FlashFXP Shareware BulletProof FTP Free Trial WS_FTP Free Trial Your Web browser's built-in FTP client. Click ftp://ftp.postcardfromhell.com into the "Address" window and hit Enter or the Go button. (First make sure that "Enable folder view for FTP sites" is checked under the Advanced tab under Tools --> Internet Options.) The FTP site will look and behave pretty much like a local folder on your hard drive as far as copying and pasting goes. You can also bookmark the FTP window just like a regular Web site. IE will also remember FTP passwords and logins. This is the worst solution however as you will be limited to downloading files individually as opposed to entire folders at a time. This solution will also work on Mac, Unix, Linux, BSD, YouNameIt or on shared/administered computers that you cannot install new software onto. Mac OS X users shouldn't use this method...see below. UNIX FTP Clients LFTP NcFTP (But seriously...be a real UNIX geek and just do it from the command line) Mac OS X FTP Clients (Since Mac OS X is UNIX under the hood, the UNIX Clients mentioned above should all work. There are also some native OS X clients as well) Cyberduck Interarchy Transmit RBRowser Lite CuteFTP Captain FTP Fetch But Wait...There's more. If you're using Mac OS X, ignore all of these programs and do the following: If you're running Mac OS X.2 or later (Jaguar or Panther...this may work with X.1 but I haven't tested it and don't care), you can mount the Postcard FTP server as a local volume and just drag and drop stuff onto your hard drive or even listen to them directly in iTunes without downloading them if you open MP3 files (you'll get a warning about speed problems though...I had no problem just now but YMMV) or just copy stuff directly to the server as if it was a local hard drive. Anyway, to do it, go the Finder and choose Go-->Connect To Server (or just hit Cmd-K). In the window that pops up, enter: ftp://ftp.postcardfromhell.com and then enter the userid and password (generic postcard for downloading or whatever Tony gave you to upload with) and you're in...a new icon called "ftp.postcardfromhell.com" will pop up on your desktop. Just drag any files you're interested in to your hard drive and go nuts. Classic Mac OS FTP Clients (The 20th Century called...it wants its OS back) Transmit Fetch SHN SOFTWARE SHN is the Shorten audio format. SHN is a lossless audio compression scheme that is one of two main standards in online audio trading. WINDOWS There are a number of programs available for converting SHN files to WAV/AIFF files but they fall into two main categories. There are programs for straight conversion of SHN-->WAV and there are plugins that allow your current audio player software (assuming your current audio player software is WinAmp 2 or 3) to convert and play them on the fly. The most popular stand-alone conversion program is mkwACT which can be found at: http://www.etree.org/mkw.html. This program supports decoding SHN files to WAV. It requires a bit of extra installations and tinkering to work correctly. A detailed guide to installing and using mkwACT can be found here: http://www.etree.org/mkw.html. Audio Player Plug-ins: Shorten plugin for WinAmp (Different versions for WinAmp3 and WinAmp2/5) Mac OS X There is a plug-in available for the abandonware program MacAmp available here xACT There are other programs you could use but I can't imagine why you'd bother. This program does SHN<-->WAV<-->FLAC conversions as well as creates and verifies checksums and a bunch of other stuff that if you don't already know about, you don't need to know. xACT is a GUI front-end to a series of scary looking UNIX command-line utilities. It's free, powerful and easy to use. Just download it and get to work. UNIX xmms-shn foo_shn FLAC SOFTWARE FLAC is the Free Lossless Audio Codec and is the other main compression scheme for audio file trading. Most of the programs listed above can also handle FLAC files including mkwACT (Windows) and xACT (Mac OS X). Windows Software: FLAC FLAC Win Installer FLAC WinAmp3 Plugin Mac OS X Software: MacFLAC For more information on any of these programs or FTP, SHN or FLAC in general, see this page.

Postcard From Hell FTP Server README

(ftp.postcardfromhell.com).

BEFORE YOU DOWNLOAD, UPLOAD OR POST ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS SERVER TO POSTCARD, PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE DOCUMENT. THEN READ IT AGAIN.

Questions about this page should be addressed to Eric Anderson.

PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU MUST BE A CURRENT SUBSCRIBER TO POSTCARD TO BE ALLOWED ACCESS TO THE FTP SERVER. ALL REQUESTS FOR ACCESS FROM NON-MEMBERS WILL BE IGNORED. SUBSCRIBE TO POSTCARD HERE!

If you have any questions about the Postcard FTP server, or are a current Postcard member and would like an account so that you can upload shows, please contact Tony Wagahoff, FTP Administrator.

PURPOSE

This is a semi-public, password protected server for sharing live shows, demos, etc. of Postcard-related bands. Please be sure that the shows you post are from taper/trader friendly. DO NOT post commercially available material. Dave Dewey is providing this as a friendly service and doesn't need to get his ass sued off. If you see files on this server that you think are commercially available or from non-taper-friendly artists, please contact Tony Wagahoff, FTP Administrator.

USERNAMES AND PASSWORDS

Your username and password for the FTP server are the same as for the Postcard mailing list itself. This means that you must be a current Postcard subscriber. If you can't remember your password, please go to http://www.postcardfromhell.com and click on "Subscription Options" at the top. Enter your email address in the first box, then scroll down a bit and click the 'Remind' button. This will send your password to you via email. Your username is your full email address.

FILE TYPES

In general, there are 3 types of files to be found on this server: MP3 files (which will play in just about any music player software and about which no more will be said here), SHN files and FLAC files. In order to play SHN and FLAC files, you will need additional software besides your regular music software. See below for plenty of information.

PLEASE DO NOT POST .mkw or .wav FILES TO THIS SERVER.

FILE STRUCTURE CONVENTIONS

There are two main directories (folders), one for SHN/FLAC and one for MP3s. Under each of these main directories will be folder by artist; under that, directories for individual shows. For example:

SHN/ --> Wilco/ --> wilco2003-04-21.shnf/
MP3/ --> Granddaddy/ --> 2003-07-14HultsfredSweden/

In the show directory should go the tracks themselves along with any checksum files your software creates. Tracklists are strongly encouraged, along with any artwork you may have.

SOFTWARE YOU NEED

Most of this information was taken from http://wiki.etree.org/index.php?page=SoftwareYouNeed which is an excellent guide and probably more up-to-date than this page.

FTP SOFTWARE:

There are about a million different FTP programs available. Some are freeware, some shareware/donationware and some are commercial programs.

Windows FTP Clients

SmartFTP Free Trial
Filezilla Free!
LeapFTP Free Trial
CuteFTP Free Trial
FlashFXP Shareware
BulletProof FTP Free Trial
WS_FTP Free Trial

Your Web browser's built-in FTP client.
Click ftp://ftp.postcardfromhell.com into the "Address" window and hit Enter or the Go button. (First make sure that "Enable folder view for FTP sites" is checked under the Advanced tab under Tools --> Internet Options.)

The FTP site will look and behave pretty much like a local folder on your hard drive as far as copying and pasting goes. You can also bookmark the FTP window just like a regular Web site. IE will also remember FTP passwords and logins. This is the worst solution however as you will be limited to downloading files individually as opposed to entire folders at a time. This solution will also work on Mac, Unix, Linux, BSD, YouNameIt or on shared/administered computers that you cannot install new software onto. Mac OS X users shouldn't use this method...see below.

UNIX FTP Clients
LFTP
NcFTP
(But seriously...be a real UNIX geek and just do it from the command line)
Mac OS X FTP Clients
(Since Mac OS X is UNIX under the hood, the UNIX Clients mentioned above should all work. There are also some native OS X clients as well)
Cyberduck
Interarchy
Transmit
RBRowser Lite
CuteFTP
Captain FTP
Fetch

But Wait...There's more. If you're using Mac OS X, ignore all of these programs and do the following:

If you're running Mac OS X.2 or later (Jaguar or Panther...this may work with X.1 but I haven't tested it and don't care), you can mount the Postcard FTP server as a local volume and just drag and drop stuff onto your hard drive or even listen to them directly in iTunes without downloading them if you open MP3 files (you'll get a warning about speed problems though...I had no problem just now but YMMV) or just copy stuff directly to the server as if it was a local hard drive.
Anyway, to do it, go the Finder and choose Go-->Connect To Server (or just hit Cmd-K). In the window that pops up, enter: ftp://ftp.postcardfromhell.com and then enter the userid and password (generic postcard for downloading or whatever Tony gave you to upload with) and you're in...a new icon called "ftp.postcardfromhell.com" will pop up on your desktop. Just drag any files you're interested in to your hard drive and go nuts.
Classic Mac OS FTP Clients
(The 20th Century called...it wants its OS back)
Transmit
Fetch

SHN SOFTWARE
SHN is the Shorten audio format. SHN is a lossless audio compression scheme that is one of two main standards in online audio trading.
WINDOWS
There are a number of programs available for converting SHN files to WAV/AIFF files but they fall into two main categories. There are programs for straight conversion of SHN-->WAV and there are plugins that allow your current audio player software (assuming your current audio player software is WinAmp 2 or 3) to convert and play them on the fly.
The most popular stand-alone conversion program is mkwACT which can be found at: http://www.etree.org/mkw.html. This program supports decoding SHN files to WAV. It requires a bit of extra installations and tinkering to work correctly. A detailed guide to installing and using mkwACT can be found here: http://www.etree.org/mkw.html.
Audio Player Plug-ins:
Shorten plugin for WinAmp
(Different versions for WinAmp3 and WinAmp2/5)
Mac OS X
There is a plug-in available for the abandonware program MacAmp available here
xACT
There are other programs you could use but I can't imagine why you'd bother. This program does SHN<-->WAV<-->FLAC conversions as well as creates and verifies checksums and a bunch of other stuff that if you don't already know about, you don't need to know. xACT is a GUI front-end to a series of scary looking UNIX command-line utilities. It's free, powerful and easy to use. Just download it and get to work.

UNIX

xmms-shn
foo_shn

FLAC SOFTWARE

FLAC is the Free Lossless Audio Codec and is the other main compression scheme for audio file trading.

Most of the programs listed above can also handle FLAC files including mkwACT (Windows) and xACT (Mac OS X).

Windows Software:
FLAC
FLAC Win Installer
FLAC WinAmp3 Plugin

Mac OS X Software:
MacFLAC

For more information on any of these programs or FTP, SHN or FLAC in general, see this page.