Ok, the name may have pron aspirations and Vibe Streamer (Windows, freeware) is reminiscent of Orb with the pursuit to enable access to our music collections locally and/or over the internet via browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox and yes, Opera (!). The Vibe Streamer FAQ says it doesn’t work with any Mac browsers. I decided to test that out with Firefox on the Mac and the answer is a resounding yes, check out the screenshot below:

Installation and configuration
Installing the program was a snap with no snags. I like how it asked me when I first ran the program whether I wanted it to automatically call back to the mother ship looking for automatic program updates. Thank you, I didn’t and don’t.

After that, though you are just starting at the screen and need to start configuring. A wizard might be handy to walk first time users through the following steps:

STEP 1. Users & Groups -> add a user with password by right clicking and choosing “Add”

STEP 2. Sharing -> add one or more directories to share. You need to check the box next to the user(s) that you created in STEP #1
STEP 3. Stream Server -> click the “start” button
STEP 4. Connect from another computer.

Local connection
In my case I used the Mac on the local network. The IP address and port to connect locally will be shown in the dropdown menu in the “Settings” tab. For example, typed into the browser might be:

192.168.1.109:8081

Internet connection
If you need to connect from the internet, then you need to know the IP address of your network. Unfortunately, Vibestreamer doesn’t give you this information, but you can get this from your router. On Linksys routers for example just login and navigate to the status_router page:

192.168.1.1/Status_Router.asp

Your current network IP address will be shown under “IP Address.” An example of connecting through the internet to your vibestreamer with the IP address 22.19.226.65 would be:

22.19.226.65:8081

If this doesn’t allow you to connect and you are behind a firewall/router, you will also need to punch a hole in the router/firewall for the port. This is not exactly plug and play for most users, but should be fairly commonplace for gamers. In my case I had to go back into the router admin to authorize the port and machine to get Vibe Streamer to connect.

STEP 5. Type in the username and password created in STEP #1. You should now see a screen similar to the one at the top of this post. Now you can start queuing music and listening on the other computer. Enjoy.

Overall impression
The downside here is connecting through a router. It is a common problem that those with routers will be very familiar with and it’s too bad Vibe Streamer doesn’t try to do more to help — either through the website or in the software directly — to make it easier open the right doors. Or at least point users in the right direction. Orb doesn’t require digging into the router admin.

Conversely, once connected through the browser it works as advertised. The browser interface has the standard play controls: previous track, pause, play, next track, shuffle and repeat. It’s not fancy, but works. You can doll up the output by creating and defining skins. I can’t see myself using this very much but if we did want to tap into our music at home from the road this could be one solution. Grade: C.

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