Home Theater

SqueezeCenter on Linkstation Pro

Back in 2007 I bought a Buffalo Linkstation Pro with the intent of installing SqueezeCenter (then called Slimserver) on it. Well, I never got around to actually installing the software but last night, thanks to this post in the Slimdevices forums, I got it installed and running in less than 30 minutes! I had already installed the referenced JTYMOD firmware so that cut the install time down by at least 30 minutes but, still, it was a piece of cake. And now my music library is available all the time! If the performance remains as good as it seemed to be last night, I may not bother installing another server and just stick with the Buffalo.

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Fancast from Comcast: watch

Fancast, a relatively new website courtesy of Comcast, gives you access to a lot of full episodes of current TV shows (e.g. Monk, House, The Simpsons, Nip Tuck) as well as movie trailers and even some movies (e.g. “The Jerk”, “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”). And, if you sign up and tell them what kind of service you have for your TV viewing (I have Comcast) and tell them what kinds of TV shows and movies you like, they’ll tell you what on your TV tonight as well as what’s On Demand (for Comcast subscribers). Eventually you’re supposed to be able to control your DVR.

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Streaming media from a NAS

What have I been up to? On a hunt for a good NAS that’s powerful enough to do some other things like run an mail server and run my favorite media server, Slimserver. I looked at quite a few including the Linksys NSLU2, the QNAP TS-101 but think I have finally settled on the Buffalo Linkstation Pro. Not sure which version I want … a 250G seems like it oughta be enough since I don’t intend to store videos out there, just some email and about 50G of music. Still, you never know what you’re gonna end up with, do you? And, since it’s not a Terastation, there’s no RAID so whatever I’m going to want to backup whatever I store out there.

Since SlimDevices was purchased by Logitech, I searched for and found this article which pointed me to this good set of instructions for how to install SlimsServer on the Linkstation (and, of course, this posting in the SlimDevices Forums). And, in further searching, I found LinkstationWiki which has a wealth of other information about the various software that you can download and install on it.

When do I start? Well, let’s see where I can get a good deal …

Update, 3/19/2007: it would make sense that if you run Linux on the Linkstation, that you could plug a printer into one of the USB ports and get a print server out of it too by running CUPS. HP printer drivers are available here at The Linux Foundation, their OpenPrinting working group.

And, while I’m updating this entry, the Linkstation Pro is supposed to be available without a disk as another incarnation of the Kurobox, as reported by Akihabaranews.

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Rhapsody’s coming to the Squeezebox

Real Networks announced yesterday that, as of January 15, Squeezebox and Transporter owners will be able to access the Rhapsody music service directly from their Squeezebox. Initially it will only be available through Squeezenetwork and will be available later from the SlimServer software that one may run on one’s own machine. Don’t know how much of the Rhapsody service will be available yet. I’m a Rhapsody user by virtue of the fact that I’ve got Comcast‘s High-Speed Internet service.

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How did I miss all of this?

Yahoo bought Meedio (the Meedio home page has the news item on it). How did I find out about it? A friend of mine, who’s building his own HTPC told me about it last night. Yeah, I know how I missed it, I’ve been preoccupied with my new phone and that whole community.

So, what does the purchase mean to Meedio owners? I’m not sure. Meedio has ceased providing any downloads, although their support forums are still online. And that (or, more precisely this forum post) is where I heard about Yahoo! Go. It looks like Go is a collection of technologies that hasn’t all been really brought together yet but it’s promising. No, I haven’t downloaded any of it yet, but their widgets look promising. I think it’s derived from (or maybe IS) Konfabulator and is all a take-off of the stuff you can do on Apple’s OS X.

With luck I’ll find the time to download and try this out. In the meantime, if any of you have a chance to try it, please let me know what you think. Comments should be open. And, of course, you can always drop me an email.

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Are you a music fan?

Bill Graham is a legend in the music industry. Last week, I heard an interview with the Bill Sagan, CEO of Wolfgang’s Vault on NPR. Apparently he bought the archives a while back and has been digitizing it all. And what a collection it is! Even the tickets for the concerts were archived — they were collected at the door, put in a box, sealed and sent to the archives. Their website streams the audio from Graham’s live concerts and you can buy posters, programs, t-shirts, tickets, ties, backstage passes and more. And apparently videos are on their way. Yaaaaaay!

(there’s also this article on News.com as well as this video.)

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