I don't get sick of all the possible ways to play the music I have

Oooohhhh... this is so cool!
Some guy developed a little server-side media player - My NAS just yelled Gimme, gimme!!!.

I got it from here - http://musicbrowser.sourceforge.net/.
Unpacked it to my NAS' WWW home folder.
Edited index.php and had it point to the music files root folder.
Now, anyone accessing my network, just needs to browse to http://server/musicbrowser and voilà, directly play in the browser any available song.

I'm celebrating it with a dance to Vampire Weekend - A-Punk

keep on dancing and jumping

n.-

Keep it central I said

NAS
I should start consulting and selling (*) home media storage hardware. I am an evangelist of storing media (music/movies and any kind of doc) centrally at home.
With the amount or people I have at home, I can't just stop smiling at them when I tell them that my WHOLE media library (my personal docs stay personal, no way they can access that) is accessible to them if they bring their laptop. Just plug it to the network, and bang the share'o-rama can start.

MS had the Windows Home Server in the baking for a while, but the truly interesting side is that hardware vendors like HP are releasing hardware bundled with the software. The machine looks reeeeaaallly cool and considering its features, the price does not seem that high. Uk guys, tranquilpc, actually built a fanless device, meaning, a dead quiet one.
15mins (hardware) and 18mins (the features) of one's life to see and listen to some guys talk about it.
How I see it, the ability to backup (during the night) a whole laptop/computer's config to HS will be a life/time/nervous-breakdown/marriage saver.

I love my home network setup which still amazes me by the (so far) unreplacable XBOX1 + XBMC2 = media center.

I am not THAT a geek am I?

n.-

(*) I think I just found a personal job I'd love to do. Need to work on my marketing on that now:)

A day picking up daisies

I passed my CompTIA Security+ exam today.
It was so easy that I got scared and actually thought I would not pass! I wasn't really feeling like being challenged or anything. It took me 1hr to answer all 100 questions and do a brief review.

I am in a very happy mood and the success at the exam is a major contribution. After postponing it once, I was determined to take the exam today and not delay it any more. Every scheduled/obligatory element I have on my agenda is such a weigh on my mind. Gradually relieving myself from those weights puts me in a *very very* positive mood. It's like dropping a giant boulder from my back.

Speaking of boulders, I just reminded I need to find Boulder Dash for my PocketPC! It was THE coolest game on C64! (yes, it's my geek side talking)

Being in such a happy mood, I took a stroll on the internet and collected some nice daisies.

Dan's building a home server, so I recommended him to make a NAS out of it and proposed FreeNAS;

• According to the description, this 36MB large package does just what one needs and its FreeBSD distro can surely be completed with some more features;
• SMB, NFS, Live boot, RAID, web admin console => major coolness!
• bundle (if possible) mt-daapd to it and you got your music library streaming to iTunes;
• there are other free media streaming software solutions (GNU, linux), a couple of searches and you're there.

UPDATE: This guy built a NAS based on Ubuntu and a series of other server-related apps, nifty stuff!

Hak.5 is a mediatic (australian?) hacker/modder group that regularly make some nifty videos (podcasts) covering themes like :

• hacking iPods to install linux on it;
• setup a computer with FreeNAS;

sidenote: They like a little bit too much to whack MS Windows, but that's almost expected from a group of linux loving hackers/modders (more on that in another post).

There are a couple of very good radios out there and I've not been able to play their online streams on XBMC. Today I found out what I was doing wrong and I will try the solution as soon as I am at home:)

• Radar Lisboa - Probably the best alternative radio in lisbon (stream)
• FM4 - the best alternative radio around here, it's broadcast from austria (stream)
• Triple j - I was told it's the best (publicly funded) australian radio (stream)
• m94.5 - the alternative station in and from Munich (stream)

The same goes for online streaming videos. There's a script that (seemingly) allows XBMC to browse the very complete http://www.tv-links.co.uk/. There are other similar sites of joyful time wasting, although I do not know if there are XBMC scripts for them. Anyway, any web browser should be able to make anyone enjoy them:

• www.peekvid.com
• www.dailymotionepisodes.com
• www.allfg.org
• www.dailyepisodes.com

UPDATE: tv-links.co.uk on my XBox (XBMC) kicks MAJOR ass! From Japanorama to The Simpsons, passing by Afro Samurai, it's just plain fu**in' amazing to watch stuff on my TV without any computer or tv or satellite connection. (requirements: XBMC/XBox and a fast internet connection)

Today, I'll be welcoming a couple of australian CSers and will try to go out and have a nice steak or sausage chomp! Let's see where we land.

My geek side will definitely want to setup the different online streams this evening:)

Techy's in the house!

This is how I cooked myself a little music/movie player based on the following hardware pieces:

• Network Attached Storage (NAS), 1 of 2 slots with a 320GB hdd (for now);
• modded XBox 1 with XBox Media Center 2.0 (XBMC), free Open Source application
• Stereo
• small 7'' LCD (a TV is optional but recommended for movies:))

A NAS is basically a computer-in-a-box with a hard disk which allows to store and share files.
The XBox is an old one where I added a chip (without having to solder it) which then allowed me to add a smaller hard disk and use an alternative software, XBMC.
XBMC is the best multimedia player for the XBox, it plays music from all formats known to me, including online Shoutcast streams, all movie formats...
I use one XBox controller to handle the interface and the small LCD to display it. This allows me not to use a full-blown power-consuming TV.
XBox is connected to my Stereo on the AUX input.

1. My home network connects computers, NAS, Xbox to themselves and the internet;
2. I store my MP3s, AVIs, MOVs, etc... on the NAS;
3. I turn XBox, LCD and Stereo on;
4. XBMC is displayed on the LCD, I control it with a game controller and the sound comes out on the Stereo;

Extra notes:

1. If I want to watch movies on a bigger screen, I just turn off the LCD, and plug the video RCA cable to the TV and turn it on;
2. The best party music mode is to just select an adequate Shoutcast stream and let it play all night (either BIGUPRADIO for Dub or Boulevardurock.net for indie);
3. It's also possible to control XBMC from a computer through a web page with XBMCAJAX (only works decently with Firefox though);

I would love to get a device like the SlimDevice's Squeezebox, which would replace the XBox, but it's DAMN EXPENSIVE, 350EUR for the wireless version and 300EUR for the wired one. The major problem is that the online radio Pandora is not available outside of U.S.A. anymore and guess what online radio the Squeezebox connects to!

Pinnacle has the Soundbridge M1001 (also called Roku Soundbridge), which is cheaper and looks good enough (to please me), and recently the wireless module also supports WPA encryption:D Here's a review.

I am not terribly geeky, but with the amount of media one can store and listen to, why not make life easier and set such an environment. I just LOVE the feeling of arriving home, opening the door and having music playing! And for barely 170EUR, it looks more and more appetizing.

More about QNAP, iTunes server, Yamaha E810, XBMC, wireless music another time...

Cheers,

norbs