Finally, I found a relatively simple and painless way to record Taiwan's Hit FM radio stream to an MP3 file that I can listen on my way to work. I tried one iPhone app to stream it live but I wasn't able to get it to work. Listening to a live stream on my iPhone would be the best solution, but I can live with listening to a recorded version.
SOLUTION #1: Web Browser, Soundflower, Audacity
Results: OK and free, but can't listen to stream while recording; Soundflower only works on a Mac.
I'm using a MacBook pro and I came across an article about recording internet radio by using three programs: your web browser, Soundflower, and Audacity. Can't beat the price... all three are free. Basically, your browser is responsible for loading/playing the internet radio stream. Sunflower's job is to take your computer's sound and direct it somewhere else. That somewhere else is where Audacity comes into play. You configure Audacity to get it's input from Soundflower. Audacity is then used to record the audio.
My first drawback (maybe network related) was that my web browser only played 10 minutes or so of the stream and then went back to the beginning of the buffer and repeated it. After recording an hour, it turned out I have six segments of the same 10-minute stream. Very disappointed. The other drawback is that ALL of your computer's sound is directed through Soundflower and will be recorded. So, if you are recording a stream and you get an email alert that plays a tone, that tone sound will be recorded along with your radio stream. The biggest drawback, however, is that you cannot hear what you are recording. While soundflower is pulling in your computers audio output, you cannot hear anything.
SOLUTION #2: VLC (works on PC, Linux, Mac)
Results: Great and free
After getting a little frustrated with the first solution, I decided to search Google again and came across VLC, an open-source project. I used VLC a little bit before, but mainly as just a media player. The YouTube video I found has a good step-by-step tutorial for configuring VLC to play the stream and record it as a MP3 file. So far, I haven't found any issues with this solution. (Ok, I just started playing with it 15 minutes ago, but my first recording test was a big success.) You can even tell VLC whether or not you want to listen to the stream or not. Also, since it records the stream, I'm assuming that if there are network delays, the final MP3 recording will still be ok. In Solution #1, Audacity was just recording whatever came over the speaker. Solution #1 is a lower-tech solution.
VLC web site:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Here's the YouTube video for Solution #2:
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