The Attack of the RadioShark!
by Gary Woods

Griffin Technology's RadioShark ($70, http://www.griffintechnology.com) is a USB-based radio that not only feeds audio into your Mac or PC but also allows you to time-shift, pause and record live broadcasts. The RadioShark, shaped like a fin, is 7 inches tall and when you plug it into your USB port, three blue lights in the shape of gills are illuminated.

The main RadioShark application interface is a metallic window with a slider along the top that lets you change frequencies and a second slider that lets you adjust the volume. Buttons allow you to switch bands and find the next strong signal. Then, if you click on the Record button, the RadioShark starts recording what you're listening to. To schedule a recording you just click on the Schedule button. Once you've set a recording time, you can give your scheduled recording a name, choose which station RadioShark should record, and select what audio format you'd like to have your recording saved in, either AIFF or AAC.

Clicking on the TS button slides out a drawer below the main window, containing "time-shifting" playback features that let you pause and rewind the live broadcast in case you need to step away from your computer or want to listen to something a second time.

RadioShark is actually two different applications: the interface application and a background application. That means you can quit the RadioShark program and it will still grab our scheduled recordings.

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