iPod and iTunes Hacks

Stream Music Around Your House

With a little third party software and hardware, you can stream your music around your house.

The great thing about your iTunes digital music collection is that it lets you store your music all in one place and access it quickly and easily. This is all hunky-dory, until you realize you sometimes want to listen to music while you’re away from your computer—say, in your bedroom or den. Instead of going out and buying a bunch more computers, you can pick up a network music player and, with a little network hackery, you can enjoy your music in different rooms all over your house.

Hardware

There are a number of manufacturers out there who have jumped on this bandwagon, and they all approach the problem a little differently. The Slim Devices Squeezebox (http://www.slimdevices.com; $199) is a self-contained unit that you plug into your stereo receiver. The device has built-in 802.11b wireless, a built-in fluorescent display, and digital and analog RCA outputs. The SlimServer software required by this player (http://www.slimp3.com/su_downloads.html; free) runs on various flavors of Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. You can even download the Perl source code if you want!

Elgato takes a different approach with their EyeHome digital media player (http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyehome; $249). Unlike the Squeezbox, the EyeHome has no display. Instead, you ...