And then again maybe we’ll just stick with FAQ…

UPDATE NOTICE: WE'VE FIXED THE “MOZILLA PROBLEM”!!!
After a few long nights of testing, hammering, cursing, re-testing, and debugging, Darwin has at long last come up with a solution to the problem some of you users of newer Mozilla-based browsers (Netscape 7, Mozilla 1.5, Firefox, etc.) have been experiencing with the Shockwave player not connecting to the RealAudio server on the first try. This problem would occasionally cause an endless loop, forcing you to close the window and restart the player. Even though we're not really sure what is causing this to sporadically happen (and only in Mozilla-based browsers - another puzzler), a solution has been found! It may take a tiny bit longer for the app to start playing now (the “new” player just keeps hammering away at the RealAudio server until it forces a connection), but it will start playing without reloading the window.

It was a hard fight, Ma - but we won!

So how does this player thingy work?
It’s pretty technical, I’m afraid. You click on a button, you select your connection speed, the player loads up, pre-buffers some audio and then plays the show. Think of it as magic...

Then nothing can go wrong?
Gimme a break… This is the Internet, after all. As with all web-based services, there are any number of things that could go wrong - for no particular reason. That’s why God created FAQs. The following are a few of the more common problems one might encounter:

PROBLEM	SOLUTION
You could loose your Internet connection.	Don't panic. Pause the player and reestablish your Internet connection. Then pray the player will pick up where you left off. It probably won’t. At this point you’ll have to restart the player. In most cases, you’d be well advised to clear your browser’s cache before attempting a restart.
You could accidentally choose the wrong connection speed.	Choosing too fast a connect speed will cause the player to repeatedly buffer and rebuffer the audio stream. Your only real option is to close the player and start over again with a lower connect speed selection. If you choose a lower connect speed than intended, all you’ll loose will be a little audio quality. Of course, even our “LOW” bandwidth setting still sounds pretty good…
You could try to use the player without the Shockwave® 8.5 or RealPlayer® 8 (or more recent) plug-ins installed in your browser.	Install the appropriate Shockwave® and/or RealPlayer® plug-ins. It's nearly impossible to run this show without the proper plug-ins installed. Actually, it’s totally impossible...
You could have so many other applications active while running the player that all your system’s resources get tied up.	Like any other streaming audio system, there’s a lot of processor overhead involved in retrieving and decoding Shockwave® and RealAudio® files. Unless you have an extremely fast computer connected to a killer data connection, try to keep the “background operations” to a minimum after the audio begins playing - or get used to some rebuffering and hearing glitches in the sound.
You could attempt to run a second streaming Shockwave® application (such as the “I have been listening” promo on the dspltd.com entry page) in another browser window while the show is playing.	Kiss the currently playing audio segment goodbye. The second streaming application will take control of the Shockwave® plug-in and you will find yourself magically transported to a place we like to call “Hickup City”. DON’T DO THIS IF YOU WANT TO HEAR ALL OF THE SHOW! Pretty simple, huh?
You could keep clicking the “pause/play” button over and over and over again until you have the system so confused that it locks up.	Don't be a dipstick. And learn how to do the “three finger salute” (or whatever the equivalent is on the Mac). We have a definite feeling you’re gonna be needing it a lot...

I have an old 486 computer that my father gave me. Will your player run on it?
Probably not. In the PC world, the bare minimum configuration for running Shockwave^® effectively seems to be about a 200 - 233 MHz Pentium class machine. In our tests, computers of this general caliber were able to run the show with only minor audio interruptions (usually less than .2 seconds) - all of which were caused by video transitions stealing processor cycles from the audio decoder. Other Pentium class computers running at faster clock rates performed without a hitch.

But, hey… you know your machine better than we do. Does it handle multimedia applications well? Does it play other Shockwave^® content without problems? If so, we know of no reason why our player shouldn’t work with it.

I was listening to the show around midnight on a Sunday and something messed up. When I reloaded the page it showed a different episode than the one I was listening to. What gives?
We update the active show every Sunday around midnight CST. If you're listening to the show during the update, it isn’t at all surprising that you might “loose the signal”. Don’t do that, okay? Of course, if you really want to hear the show that “messed up”, just go to the “Last Week’s GWR” section in the GWR Archive.

I’ve noticed there are commercials in these shows. Are they really necessary?
Only if you want to continue hearing Guide Wire Radio. You’ve probably also noticed that there are no rotating banners or pop-up ads on our website. We find these methods of advertising ineffective and oftentimes downright annoying. And since all of the GWR episodes produced after DSP took control of the program were laid out to include three minutes of commercials or PSAs as part of their 30 minute total running time, we chose to use those spots to “pay the bills”.

Currently, all the commercials on the show are for items available from Groovy Bush, with which we have a partnership agreement. We also get a small “piece of the action” if you make a purchase from MyMusic, CD Universe, or Insound by clicking on the links in the player or by entering their respective websites through one of the links below our navigation bar (that stuff on the left side of the screen). All of these companies have an excellent selection of current (as well as vintage) releases at competitive prices and have proven to be reputable online merchants. THE BOTTOM LINE: As long as we can scrape together enough pennies using the above methods, this site will remain banner and pop-up free - kind of a nice change of pace, don’t you think?

Got a question or problem we haven't handled here? Send us an email and we'll do everything in our power to fix it - or at the very least teach you how to live without the particular feature…