ot, wrn.org

ot, wrn.org

[Gregory Nowak]

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Hello folks,

apologies for the off topic post, but in my defense, it does concern
accessibility, and there have been posts here in the past, dealing
with playing/downloading media from sites.

As the subject hints, wrn.org launched their new web site this Sunday,
and I've spent quite a bit of time on it trying to figure out how to
download content, but haven't been able to download a thing. I haven't
tried streaming anything, because I'm interested in being able to
download programs only. I've tried with ie8, and firefox3 under the
other popular os, since I haven't had time to get into gnome yet, but
I suspect that if the site wasn't useable with the first 2 options, it
probably wouldn't be any different with firefox under gnome. My
conclusion is that I'm either missing something obvious, or that more likely, they need to
fix their site's accessibility. My specific questions here are:

1. Can others confirm that it isn't possible to download programs
from their site?

2. If the above is true, I'm planning on giving them feedback on their
new site, and letting them know that unfortunately their new site
isn't fully accessible, and that I'm not able to download content, and
that I'm not alone, depending on what kind of answers will come back
to my question above. I'd like to be able to tell them specifically
what the problem is, but without knowing how this is supposed to work
for sightlings, I can't do that. I did notice that while
validator.w3.org validates their html fine, their css is full of
problems, and I plan to tell them, providing them with both URIS to
the validation results. I also want to point them to how to create
accessible pages, but wasn't sure if

http://www.w3.org/WAI/

was the best link to provide, or if there are better/more resources.

They also do have the ability to get podcasts via an rss feed, but to
do so, they require you to register, and I'm not going to register
with a site that's not fully accessible, in the hope that one section
of it will be accessible, (something I plan to tell them as well).

Any comments on what else I can tell them, or feedback on how to
download their content, (assuming that's possible), would be much
appreciated. If you feel this isn't appropriate for the list, feel
free to reply privately. Thanks in advance.

Greg


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Re: ot, wrn.org

[Chris Brannon]

Gregory Nowak wrote:
> apologies for the off topic post, but in my defense, it does concern
> accessibility

Hi Greg,
You bet it does!

> 1. Can others confirm that it isn't possible to download programs
> from their site?

Yes.  Apparently, they use way too much javascript.  I didn't bother to look
at their page source, so I don't know whether there is an easy workaround.
For what it's worth, I use edbrowse.

If you are interested in streams, rather than downloads, there is a very
easy way to listen to them.  Have a look at a tool called shoutcast-search.
It's homepage is here: http://www.k2h.se/code/shoutcast-search.html
If it isn't packaged for your distro, you should have little difficulty
installing it from source.
Here is one of the listings that I see when I execute the command
"shoutcast-search -v WRN":

WRN English North America - wrn.org - [SHOUTcast.com] [64kbps audio/mpeg]
	http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=964853
	my own, 0 listeners
	Now playing: 

The "yp.shoutcast.org" link points to a playlist.  You can use it with
mplayer like so:
mplayer -playlist http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=964853

Hope this helps,
-- Chris

PS.  Didn't these guys used to provide downloadable programs on an FTP
site?  Maybe I imagined it.  They don't do so now, as far as I can tell.

Re: ot, wrn.org

[Gregory Nowak]

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On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 09:50:49PM -0500, Chris Brannon wrote:
> The "yp.shoutcast.org" link points to a playlist.  You can use it with
> mplayer like so:
> mplayer -playlist http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=964853

Hmmm, that might be a crude, but workable way to download, by piping
the output to an ogg/flac/whatever file. I'll have to investigate that
as a temporary solution. Thanks for mentioning it.

> PS.  Didn't these guys used to provide downloadable programs on an FTP
> site?  Maybe I imagined it.  They don't do so now, as far as I can tell.

Yes, sort of. You had to use the link to download from their web site,
and the download came from their ftp server, which seemed to be a list
of rotating ip addresses, no host names. However, I once tried to ftp
to one of those ip addresses, without using the download link from
their site first, and I couldn't connect. So, my guess is that
clicking the download link caused a firewall to allow 1 connection per
link from your ip address to one of their ip addresses, but that's
just a guess.

Greg


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Re: ot, wrn.org

[Jayson Smith]

Did you look at the actual FTP URLs? It's possible they had FTP running on a 
nonstandard port.
Jayson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@romuald.net.eu.org>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 12:24 AM
Subject: Re: ot, wrn.org


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>
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 09:50:49PM -0500, Chris Brannon wrote:
>> The "yp.shoutcast.org" link points to a playlist.  You can use it with
>> mplayer like so:
>> mplayer -playlist 
>> http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=964853
>
> Hmmm, that might be a crude, but workable way to download, by piping
> the output to an ogg/flac/whatever file. I'll have to investigate that
> as a temporary solution. Thanks for mentioning it.
>
>> PS.  Didn't these guys used to provide downloadable programs on an FTP
>> site?  Maybe I imagined it.  They don't do so now, as far as I can tell.
>
> Yes, sort of. You had to use the link to download from their web site,
> and the download came from their ftp server, which seemed to be a list
> of rotating ip addresses, no host names. However, I once tried to ftp
> to one of those ip addresses, without using the download link from
> their site first, and I couldn't connect. So, my guess is that
> clicking the download link caused a firewall to allow 1 connection per
> link from your ip address to one of their ip addresses, but that's
> just a guess.
>
> Greg
>
>
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Re: ot, wrn.org

[Gregory Nowak]

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On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 12:54:47AM -0400, Jayson Smith wrote:
> Did you look at the actual FTP URLs? It's possible they had FTP running 
> on a nonstandard port.

Yes, they were ftp://xxx.yyy.zzz/ ... as far as I can remember,
(I.E. no port specification).

Greg


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Re: ot, wrn.org

[Chris Brannon]

Gregory Nowak wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 09:50:49PM -0500, Chris Brannon wrote:
> > The "yp.shoutcast.org" link points to a playlist.  You can use it with
> > mplayer like so:
> > mplayer -playlist http://yp.shoutcast.com/sbin/tunein-station.pls?id=964853
> 
> Hmmm, that might be a crude, but workable way to download, by piping
> the output to an ogg/flac/whatever file. I'll have to investigate that
> as a temporary solution. Thanks for mentioning it.

There's a non-crude, or should I say "refined", solution to this problem.
It's called streamripper.
Unfortunately, Streamripper doesn't seem to understand playlist files.
You need to download the playlist beforehand.
Next, extract the URL for the actual MP3 stream from that playlist by hand.
Streamripper can also act as a relay server while it is ripping.  Tell
it to relay on a certain port, and point some audio player there.
As far as I can tell, the relay server only accepts one client at a time.

-- Chris

Re: ot, wrn.org

[Tony Baechler]

Hi,

Actually, it's very odd that you happen to mention this because I just 
looked at their site and came to the same conclusions as you. I got 
nowhere at all with Firefox 3.5, but I found the radio buttons with IE6. 
Surprisingly, I got the best overall results with Lynx, but neither Lynx 
nor IE6 would actually let me download anything. If you find a trick, I 
would be very interested. I really wish they still offered plain old 
ftp, it made things much easier. They do offer a rebroadcast service, so 
I suspect that the content is still easily downloadable, but I don't 
know where.

Re: ot, wrn.org

[Gregory Nowak]

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On Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 06:39:46AM -0800, Tony Baechler wrote:
> Actually, it's very odd that you happen to mention this because I just  
> looked at their site and came to the same conclusions as you. I got  
> nowhere at all with Firefox 3.5, but I found the radio buttons with IE6.  
> Surprisingly, I got the best overall results with Lynx, but neither Lynx  
> nor IE6 would actually let me download anything. If you find a trick, I  
> would be very interested. I really wish they still offered plain old  
> ftp, it made things much easier. They do offer a rebroadcast service, so  
> I suspect that the content is still easily downloadable, but I don't  
> know where.

Yeah, I was surprised to find the site was browseable with lynx the
cat, but as you said, downloading is still a no-go. Chris has written
to me privately saying that there is a ftp site, but it doesn't accept
anonymous logins. Chris suspects that you could log into it if you
registered for an account, but to do that, he says you have to answer
a captcha. Chris, it sounds like more people besides just me are
interested, so you might want to post the ftp info to the list,
instead of just sending it to me privately, but do what you think
best.

Hart has also written to me privately, expressing disappointment with
their site. That makes 3 of us who aren't happy campers. I'm still
going to give them feedback, once I've put together a list of urls for
them to browse through, but I don't know how much of a difference an
e-mail from 1 blind guy will make. So, if you're unhappy with wrn.org
at the moment, I'd suggest that you voice your displeasure to them as
well. If more people write in with complaints of inaccessibility,
they're more likely to sit up, and take note.

Greg


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Re: ot, wrn.org

[Chris Brannon]

Gregory Nowak wrote:
> Chris has written
> to me privately saying that there is a ftp site, but it doesn't accept
> anonymous logins. Chris suspects that you could log into it if you
> registered for an account, but to do that, he says you have to answer
> a captcha. Chris, it sounds like more people besides just me are
> interested, so you might want to post the ftp info to the list,

Yes, there's an ftp server reachable at wrn.org.  If you telnet to port 21,
you'll see the "220" banner about 30 seconds after the connection is
established. The delay gives me cause to suspect that people 
are downloading from that ftp site.
Anonymous logins aren't allowed.  If I could handle captcha, I'd play
with it, but I can't.

-- Chris

Re: ot, wrn.org

[Jayson Smith]

You could try using Solona if they're operating. Also Webvisum. Solona is 
probably better, since an actual human solves the CAPTCHA for you, whereas 
Webvisum is automated. With Solona, the human doesn't know who you are, and 
you don't know who's solving your CAPTCHA.
Jayson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris Brannon" <cmbrannon79@gmail.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: ot, wrn.org


> Gregory Nowak wrote:
>> Chris has written
>> to me privately saying that there is a ftp site, but it doesn't accept
>> anonymous logins. Chris suspects that you could log into it if you
>> registered for an account, but to do that, he says you have to answer
>> a captcha. Chris, it sounds like more people besides just me are
>> interested, so you might want to post the ftp info to the list,
>
> Yes, there's an ftp server reachable at wrn.org.  If you telnet to port 
> 21,
> you'll see the "220" banner about 30 seconds after the connection is
> established. The delay gives me cause to suspect that people
> are downloading from that ftp site.
> Anonymous logins aren't allowed.  If I could handle captcha, I'd play
> with it, but I can't.
>
> -- Chris
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup 

Re: ot, wrn.org

[Tony Baechler]

Hi all,

Either solona.net or WebVisum should get around this problem.  I admit 
that I got nowhere with solona.net, but it is supposed to work on 
Linux.  I'm set up with WebVisum though, so I'll give that a try.  I'll 
register just to see what happens, but I doubt that ftp is allowed for 
"consumers."  I also tried ftp to wrn.org and had the same results.  I 
think that if you could somehow be a corporate customer, ftp would 
work.  The reason why I think it's no longer available for consumers is 
because anonymous ftp no longer works and they are offering podcasts.  
I'm fairly sure that most podcast clients don't support ftp except one 
for Linux, just as they don't support https.  I'll send invites for 
WebVisum if that will help.  I don't know if it works in Linux or not, 
but it should since it is a standard Firefox 3.5 .xpi extension.

On 10/28/2009 2:13 PM, Chris Brannon wrote:
> Yes, there's an ftp server reachable at wrn.org. If you telnet to port 21,
> you'll see the "220" banner about 30 seconds after the connection is
> established. The delay gives me cause to suspect that people
> are downloading from that ftp site.
> Anonymous logins aren't allowed.  If I could handle captcha, I'd play
> with it, but I can't.
>
> -- Chris
>    

Re: ot, wrn.org

[Gregory Nowak]

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Hash: SHA1

Tony and all,

if you do sign up for an account, I'd be really interested in knowing
if you can then access the ftp site or not. If you don't want to post
to the whole list, please do let me know what you find
privately. Thanks.

Greg


On Thu, Oct 29, 2009 at 12:58:57AM -0800, Tony Baechler wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Either solona.net or WebVisum should get around this problem.  I admit  
> that I got nowhere with solona.net, but it is supposed to work on Linux.  
> I'm set up with WebVisum though, so I'll give that a try.  I'll register 
> just to see what happens, but I doubt that ftp is allowed for  
> "consumers."  I also tried ftp to wrn.org and had the same results.  I  
> think that if you could somehow be a corporate customer, ftp would work.  
> The reason why I think it's no longer available for consumers is because 
> anonymous ftp no longer works and they are offering podcasts.  I'm fairly 
> sure that most podcast clients don't support ftp except one for Linux, 
> just as they don't support https.  I'll send invites for WebVisum if that 
> will help.  I don't know if it works in Linux or not, but it should since 
> it is a standard Firefox 3.5 .xpi extension.
>
> On 10/28/2009 2:13 PM, Chris Brannon wrote:
>> Yes, there's an ftp server reachable at wrn.org. If you telnet to port 21,
>> you'll see the "220" banner about 30 seconds after the connection is
>> established. The delay gives me cause to suspect that people
>> are downloading from that ftp site.
>> Anonymous logins aren't allowed.  If I could handle captcha, I'd play
>> with it, but I can't.
>>
>> -- Chris
>>    
>
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> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
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>

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