1. Is Groovera accepting artist or record label submissions?
2. Where can I find on the website the mailing address to send a CD to Groovera?

1. What is or what happened to OverXposure.FM?
2. What is or what happened to FrostByte Groove Lounge?
3. Does Groovera have any job openings?
4. Does Groovera release compilations or mix CD's?
5. Will you give or sell to me some of the songs Groovera plays?
6. Have you considered broadcasting on satellite radio? I would love to hear Groovera in my car.
7. Would you please send me a free bumper sticker, t-shirt, or other merchandise available in your Zazzle gift shop?
8. Does Groovera advertise?
9. You run Groovera station ID's all the time, why not run audio advertisements?
10. Where does Groovera's funding come from? How does Groovera earn money?

1. Does Groovera have an iPhone app? How do I get Groovera streams on an iPhone?
2. How come I can no longer use Windows Media Player to get Groovera streams?
3. How come Groovera streams do not automatically launch in my favorite media player on Windows?
4. I have had trouble connecting since November 2009. What happened?
5. I just tried to tune in and got a "Forbidden 403" error. Why?
6. I just tried to tune in and got an "[ICY 401 SERVICE UNAVAILABLE]" message. What happened?
7. I just tried to tune in and got an "[ICY 400 SERVER FULL]" message. Why?
8. Why is the sound breaking up and/or crackling?
9. Why can I get Groovera music streams at home but not at work?
10. I am configuring a firewall. What system ports do I need to open for Groovera music streams?
11. Can I convince Groovera to remove the stream intros or announcement text from your music stream titles?

1. Where does the money donated to Groovera go?
2. Does anyone at Groovera get paid?
3. Without listener donations, where does Groovera's budget come from?
4. Is Groovera a non-profit company?
5. Are donations to Groovera tax deductable?
6. How large does a donation need to be?
7. Can I cancel my recurring Groovera Membership and stop monthly PayPal donations?
8. Is Groovera behind on its bills? Why do you ask for help more some times than other times?
9. Why doesn't Groovera run ads?
10. What are Groovera's costs?
11. Why doesn't Groovera cut costs?
12. Why doesn't Groovera charge for subscriptions?
13. Will I receive a t-shirt, bumpersticker or mug from your Zazzle store if I donate?
14. How many listeners contribute?
15. Is there another way that I can contribute to Groovera?

1. Is Groovera accepting artist or record label submissions?Groovera is always looking for fresh material whether the artists are new, veteran, signed, or otherwise. To get started, please send us a message with links to online music samples via our contact page. Be sure to suggest which songs we should listen to and which Groovera channels you believe the songs would fit. Once we have reviewed your online materials, we will get back to you immediately with an address to send a CD. We review ALL SUBMISSIONS in the order received and we have limited staff resources, so please bear with us if we take awhile to get back to you.

2. Where can I find on the website the mailing address to send a CD to Groovera?Please see the previous FAQ entry "Is Groovera accepting artist or record label submissions?".

1. What is or what happened to OverXposure.FM?OverXposure(.FM) was the original name of the overall web radio service and the website we now call Groovera. Changed to Groovera on September 14, 2006, this brand transition was the toughest decision we had made up to that point, having already won awards as OverXposure.FM and with accolades ranging from blog entries to Time Magazine. But the challenges encountered with the OverXposure name were insurmountable and we had considered the transition for well over a year. With numerous names examined and many very good ".com" domain names purchased (as opposed to ".FM" or any other top-level domain), Groovera became the final choice for its ease upon the ear, its memorability, its portability between languages. Being a fanciful marriage of "groove" and the Latin word "vera" (adjective 'pure', 'true'), Groovera turned out to be a word already in use in several other languages meaning what we want to imply closely enough. Nice, huh?

2. What is or what happened to FrostByte Groove Lounge?FrostByte Groove Lounge was the original music stream of OverXposure(.FM), introduced August 23, 2003. In its course of evolution, FrostByte Groove Lounge underwent numerous transitions. In April 2004, the foundation of what was to become Audio Popsicle (formerly Ambient Popsicle) was extracted from the format. In July 2005, FrostByte began to cycle rotating "moods" through the course of the day. What was relegated to FrostByte's evening format eventually became Low Mercury. Eventually, FrostByte was no longer what it started out as, having undergone so many changes and dissections warranting a new name. Regardless of the changes, the FrostByte name shared many of the same difficulties as OverXposure, so planning a transition was long in the works. Temporarily renamed Groovera in Summer 2006, the name finally became Jet City Lounge when the Groovera.com website went live on September 14, 2006. Even if one does not know that "jet city" was an old Seattle nickname, it implied everything we wanted to describe in a new name for the format...and we owned the ".com" domain name for it already. So there you go - a FrostByte Groove Lounge by any name should sound just as sweet, if not sweeter, yes?

3. Does Groovera have any job openings?The Groovera staff is comprised entirely of volunteers, including its founder. We are seeking additional volunteers with experience in radio, record label A&R, marketing, design, music licensing, or music clearances. We are also looking for a talent manager and legal representation (with vested interest, of course) to aid with issues regarding trademarks, statutory licensing, mechanical licensing (with emphasis on music compilations), synch licensing, and investor relations. Volunteer contributing writers and link "surfers" are also strongly needed. Any participation in our endeavor is strictly volunteer at the moment as Groovera is currently financed by listener support and out-of-pocket funds.

4. Does Groovera release compilations or mix CD's? production once promised?Groovera has had in its business plan to release compilations and artist releases from the very beginning. The one thing holding us back is human resources, namely help with licensing. Groovera fans will be the first to know when we finally begin releasing compilations.☺

5. Will you give or sell to me some of the songs Groovera plays?We do not have at this time the licensing to sell any music via any medium, although we have had plans pre-dating Groovera to open an online music store. As for honoring requests to give away music files, we simply do not have the rights to give away anybody's music - nor would we ever - so please do not ask.

6. Have you considered broadcasting on satellite radio? I would love to hear Groovera in my car.Satellite radio is a venue we have been planning to pursue from the beginning, however we are forced to "take a number" for now.... But there are still ways to receive Groovera in your car with wireless Internet options on a Pocket PC, Palm, iPod or other handheld device with an FM transmitter or a mobile cassette adapter.

7. Would you please send me a free bumper sticker, t-shirt, or other merchandise available in your Zazzle gift shop?As much as we would like to, we cannot at this time offer free, promotional merchandise as we do not own any of the items available in the Zazzle gift shop. In fact, we must purchase our own branded merchandise from Zazzle just like everybody else does. The way Zazzle works is they apply our designs to the items on a per-order basis. The earnings from each transaction is applied directly to Groovera's monthly operating costs. If you would like to have some of this merchandise, simply start by clicking here to place an order. When you buy from our gift shop, you help keep Groovera online to serve you!

8. Does Groovera advertise?Not actively. Other than word-of-mouth, we are listed in a few streaming media directories, linked from numerous websites, discovered via popular search engines, and we distribute Groovera postcard flyers person-to-person.

9. You run Groovera station ID's all the time, why not run audio advertisements?Groovera is a commercial-free, listener-supported station. We vow not to ever run audio advertisements in the music streams, however we may eventually come to rely upon banner advertisement on the website to supplement our growth and operations costs, provided the products are are tasteful and meet the lifestyle needs of our audience market.

10. Where does Groovera's funding come from? How does Groovera earn money?Groovera is supported financially by the contributions of listeners like you. Groovera also earns small amounts when listeners shop at Amazon using our associates account or when purchasing merchandise from our gift shop, all of which are applied toward Groovera's operating expenses. When listener financial support and our gift shop/Amazon commissions combined do not cover expenses, Groovera founder/producer Tim Quigley funds Groovera out-of-pocket with money he earns providing web production services for reputable businesses. To shop at Amazon with Groovera's associates account, click here or on the Amazon graphic on the Groovera home page. CD purchasing links on the home page are associated with this Amazon account.

1. Does Groovera have an iPhone app? How do I get Groovera streams on an iPhone?This is so simple it can be described in a short blurb and requires NO third-party apps at all! Nothing extra to buy and you can use other apps while Groovera plays, unlike the web radio guys who have special iPhone apps! Simply follow these steps:

1. Be sure your iPhone is updated to at least version 3.0 (3.1.3 at time of this writing)
2. Enable "plug-ins" in your iPhone Safari settings
3. Open Safari and navigate to groovera.com
4. Select your stream - in a few seconds it will launch in QuickTime. That's it!

For an even snazzier web experience, install an additional browser, such as Mercury, and you can browse the web while listening to Groovera on your iPhone. Go to our Twitter homepage (http://twitter.com/groovera) in that browser for song titles. Enjoy!

2. How come I can no longer use Windows Media Player to get Groovera streams?We regret to announce that we have ended all support for Windows Media Player. WMP has posed many kinds of problems for both Groovera and you, our listeners, over the years as MS only built it to begrudgingly support anything other than Windows Media streams and disregards well-established web standards that all other streaming and embedded media players agree upon. We have gotten exponentially more requests for help with WMP than all other media players combined, have thoroughly tested all scenarios, and there's never been any rhyme or reason to the issues we have encountered while troubleshooting WMP problems. These problems also still persist on WMP12, unfortunately (we guess these issues will never be fixed!), and we have been able to reproduce all issues reported without finding any viable solutions.

Additionally, third-party web radio sites have used Windows Media Player to "hotlink" our streams in violation of our terms of use - basically stealing our streams and bandwidth from us - and then feed advertisements to the people who access Groovera streams through their websites, even selling memberships on some of these sites. Hijacking our streams for profit is particularly unfair to us when considering that Groovera is a listener-supported web radio station that makes no money at all, covers all its overhead with donations (barely), and is built entirely upon unpaid volunteer efforts. And besides, any listener will get a far better experience coming straight to Groovera.com. While webmasters have many fine ways to prevent hotlinking, WMP neglected to include any of the features to allow us to use these methods although those features are common to every other client on the Internet.

The good news is we will eventually replace support for multiple media players on the Groovera website with an embedded Adobe Flash player. This creates a richer, easier experience for you and we don't have the headache of supporting the over 400 media players available around the world. In the meantime, if it is no trouble to you, please try a different media player such as Foobar2000. Foobar2000 is our favorite at Groovera and arguably the most advanced media player on PC, being very light on system resources, highly configurable, and is in our opinion what a media player is like if the engineers focus on what it sounds like much more than what it looks like. Other fine choices on the PC are iTunes 9 and Winamp. These media players also support AAC+ streaming - unlike WMP 11 and older - and will provide for you a slightly better listening experience than WMP can offer.

3. How come Groovera streams do not automatically launch in my favorite media player on Windows?The issue you encounter is due to file associations on your local Windows system. To associate them with your favorite media player, do this:

1. Click on a "Listen Now" link for your stream of choice on Groovera.com. Your system will download a playlist file (extension .PLS)
2. Save the PLS file someplace on either your desktop or your hard drive.
3. Right-mouse click on the PLS file you just saved to your hard drive.
4. Select "Open With" from the context menu that appears.
5. Click your favorite media player (such as iTunes, Foobar2000 or Winamp) from the next window that appears. If your favorite media player is not on the list of programs shown, click the "Browse" button at the bottom of this window, navigate to the location of your media player's executable (.exe) file, and select it.
6. There should be a "Do This Automatically From Now On" checkbox (or it may say "Set as Default") on the final window that appears - click it and you should be set for good.

4. I have had trouble connecting since November 2009. What happened?Remove "listen.pls" from the stream address when connecting. If that is not the case, update to the latest version of your media player. If these don't help, please continue reading the next FAQ entry.

5. I just tried to tune in and got a "Forbidden 403" error. Why?Media players that possess stream recording features will be unable to connect to Groovera streams altogether from now on. A link to our Terms of Service is posted at the footer of every page on Groovera.com and we express our policy again on the "Music Streams" menu.

If you have never successfully connected to a Groovera stream and you encountered a "Forbidden 403" error, try again with a media player that does not record streams. If you have successfully connected to a Groovera stream before and now you receive this, you were banned from Groovera streams.

If you have never connected to a Groovera stream with a stream recording media player and you encountered this - many apologies! Updating your media player should solve the problem. If you still encounter this issue after updating your media player, please contact us and tell us what media player you are using so we can fix the problem for you.

For more information regarding the ramifications of stream recording, please read this article.

6. I just tried to tune in and got an "[ICY 401 SERVICE UNAVAILABLE]" message. What happened?The music server you are connected to has gone offline, hopefully for no other reason than maintenance or an upgrade. Please try again in a little while - hopefully we will be back in just a few minutes.

7. I just tried to tune in and got an "[ICY 400 SERVER FULL]" message. Why?Please bear with us - this is VERY RARE! The Groovera music stream you are trying to connect to has reached its capacity. We currently have bandwidth resources limited to budget and current demand.

Please try one of our other streams and/or try again later - a listener slot should open up shortly.

8. Why is the sound breaking up and/or crackling?There can be several reasons. First, check to make sure that you do not have too many programs running on your computer, especially those demanding bandwidth, memory, and/or processor usage. Large downloading jobs can negatively affect the quality of the media stream. Sometimes a computer soundcard is the problem - if you suspect this is the case, test your soundcard by playing a CD or an MP3 on the same media player you are connecting to the Groovera music stream with. If the crackling/popping persists the problem is on your computer.

Some faint crackling or popping can sometimes be observed as a part of the recording as many of the artists showcased are DJ's and mix their songs using vinyl media (LP's, etc). Sometimes we even play tracks that originated from 12" singles if it is the only source available.

If none of the above applies, please bear with us! Sometimes compression artifacts can be observed as we are optimizing performance while minimizing bandwidth requirements in our audio stream. Problems can also sometimes occur within our hosting arrangement as we have the best scheme our budget will allow.

9. Why can I get Groovera music streams at home but not at work?All of our streams today are on Port 80 - the same port that websites are served. This is to enable you to receive our streams in any environment and designed to circumvent corporate firewalls. However, in some corporate environments, they may actively filter web radio. If you cannot receive Groovera streams at work, you will need to check your corporate policies and/or refer to your IT department.

10. I am configuring a firewall. What system ports do I need to open for Groovera music streams?Since all of our streams today are on Port 80, no special configuration should be necessary.

11. Can I convince Groovera to remove the stream intros or announcement text from your music stream titles?Uhhh...no.☺ There are many good reasons we have these in place.

If the intros play and the music stream does not begin, please try starting again.

If the announcement titles in the stream delay your ability to see what is playing, please use the "Playlist Dashboard" page for your stream of choice to follow what is currently playing.

1. Where does the money donated to Groovera go?When you contribute, 100% of your gift goes directly into the PayPal account from which all Groovera's operating costs are paid and it remains there for exactly that purpose - to pay for bandwidth and hosting costs. We take nothing out of it for ourselves.

2. Does anyone at Groovera get paid?All production efforts at Groovera are strictly volunteer and nobody earns any wage, including the founder himself (heh, it's been more like nearly seven whole years of "pay to play" for him!). In fact, the station itself currently operates at a substantial and continual loss.

3. Without listener donations, where does Groovera's budget come from?Whatever is not covered by listener donations is paid for out-of-pocket by the founder himself, a guy whose days are comprised entirely of operating Groovera and earning wages as a tech consultant. Right now, his opportunities for daytime consulting jobs are becoming less frequent with the downturn of the American economy. And no, he does not have any independent wealth, a family with deep pockets or any kind of financial backing. Groovera is 100% independently operated and funded with no subsidies.

4. Is Groovera a non-profit company?Although Groovera as a web radio station could possibly qualify to be a non-profit company in the United States, we do not have the resources to make it so and it is a very difficult process requiring a kind of legal representation that is unavailable to us at this time.

5. Are donations to Groovera tax deductable?Only donations to a non-profit company are tax deductable in America.

6. How large does a donation need to be?We do not require any given amount, however we need a lot of help at this time. Even a small $20 contribution (the price of five lattés, a short happy hour, or a decent dinner for one) helps to cover our ever-increasing monthly operation expenses and regular monthly donations can help even more. However, if you can help with larger donations, this is a time when we really need it.

7. Can I cancel my recurring Groovera Membership and stop monthly PayPal donations?Yes you can and at any time. Simply follow these steps (copied directly from the Paypal Help Center:

1. Log into your PayPal account
2. Go to "My Account" and click the "History" tab.
3. Select "Subscriptions" from the "Show" menu and click "Submit".
4. Choose your Groovera subscription.
5. Click the "Details" link. You will then be transported to the "Transaction Details" page where you may cancel your subscription and all future scheduled donations to Groovera will cease.

If you need additional help cancelling, please contact PayPal support. Sorry, we have no control over this!

8. Is Groovera behind on its bills? Why do you ask for help more some times than other times?Groovera is not at all behind on its bills and never has been. The company that currently provides our bandwidth is simply adamant to terminate service if a bill is not paid by the morning of the 17th of every month. Unfortunately, despite their inflexibility they are the lowest cost but highest yielding and most reliable provider we have had to date. We have gone through six previous providers in our history of operation and have even sought alternatives within recent months.

9. Why doesn't Groovera run ads?Again, we like keeping our "chill" vibe going and many ads would change the mood, unless they were NPR-styled and produced by us. We will certainly need to run banner ads but we only want to work with companies that offer products that our audience would like to use.

10. What are Groovera's costs?

• Media server colocation (monthly)
• High grade bandwidth (monthly)
• Commercial-grade, high-traffic website hosting (monthly)
• High-output, commercial grade Internet service (monthly)
• New musical selections (ongoing...and these imports just ain't cheap ?)
• Attorney's fees (as needed)
• Software licenses (as needed, we currently need more in order to release new channels)
• Hardware and equipment (as needed, we currently need more in order to release new channels)
• Royalties (whenever it is imposed upon us; rates commensurate with serving upwards to 300,000 listeners a month.)

11. Why doesn't Groovera cut costs?We have. Bigtime. The most obvious to our audience is reverting our 128kbps MP3 streams to our original maximum bitrate 96kbps mp3PRO codec, which is a 25% bandwidth savings and is also CD-quality if your media player supports it. Unfortunately, we have also lost a considerable amount of audience by doing this although we can tell no difference in sound quality. In March 2008, we had introduced a ten-hour meter on our MP3 streams (which is not imposed on the AAC+ streams, by the way), which has yielded a bandwidth savings of approximately 30% since many connections are left unattended after awhile. Also, in January 2008 we began stricter enforcement of DMCA statutes to prohibit stream recording which has cut back superfluous usage tremendously as many stream-recording users double-up and triple-up on connections, sustaining their sessions for days on end.

Now that iTunes 9 has introduced support for AAC+ web radio streaming, we will begin encouraging our audience to migrate to the AAC+ streams. This will not actually cut any costs for us, however using the AAC+ streams will improve the quality of service for all users and free up that excess bandwidth to introduce newer channels more cheaply than ever before.

12. Why doesn't Groovera charge for subscriptions?We may eventually be forced to begin subscription services, but it was not what Groovera was really intended to do. If so, our donors will automatically be offered free subscriptions commensurate with their contributions no matter how long it's been since they helped us and will be eligible for other perks.

13. Will I receive a t-shirt, bumpersticker or mug from your Zazzle store if I donate?We have always wished to do this, just as NPR and PBS (public broadcasting in the USA) provide for their donors, however we do not yet have the resources. The offerings we have on our Zazzle store do not actually belong to us, they are not in inventory and are products Zazzle offers as a service that you are merely buying from Zazzle with our logos printed the item on a per-transaction basis on demand. We have not so far found a cost-effective means to offer "swag" with a donation although we intend to eventually.

14. How many listeners contribute?Roughly only one in 30,000 ever comes forward to help out, a tiny number when cosidering up to 900,000 listeners may tune in within any given month. These donations have still been very helpful to supplement our costs but our overhead still requires exponentially more contributions to begin to even begin to break even.

15. Is there another way that I can contribute to Groovera?Yes. We need licensing expertise, business development and more legal assistance, all of which focused upon the entertainment business and intellectual property law. If you are interested in other roles, please contact us and tell us how you might be interested in participating with Groovera!