While I love my iPod, I hate the iTunes software that “must be” used to synchronize my playlists.
MediaMonkey to the rescue. With hundreds of iPod refugees abandoning iTunes, the MediaMonkey community has several synch guides to help people make the transition. I wasn’t concerned about retaining play counts and ratings, so it was even more simple for me.
I had a unique need that I didn’t think could be automated. There are a couple of local radio shows I like to hear, and the national podcast versions cost money and don’t have the local weather, commentary and yes, even local advertisements that I want to hear. I found that I could record the live streaming shows to disk using RadioTime’s Red Button software. But copying them to my iPod was a manual affair.
But MediaMonkey has a paid version with a feature I love: advanced autoplaylists. MediaMonkey’s advanced autoplaylist feature allowed me to specify the folder I save the radio shows in, and synchs the shows automatically to my iPod. It does a lot more, of course, but this feature was especially nice for my needs.
My music is now stored on my Windows Home Server and synchs well to my iPod using MediaMonkey. And the interface for MediaMonkey makes sense: you can highlight songs and press ENTER to get them playing in an ad-hoc playlist.
By
Frank, January 16, 2010
We have had an interesting Christmas season at the Hagan household. A refrigerator died just before Thanksgiving, then our old 36″ CRT TV died two weeks later. So our Christmas presents were replacement appliances.
We set out to get a 52″ Samsung LCD TV, but our local Fry’s Electronics had a great sale on their new 55″ “LED” model, the Samsung UN55B7000 (it actually is a LCD model with LED a backlight). What a great set, but it wouldn’t fit in the entertainment niche with the shelves I had constructed. So out they came, and new woodwork is being put in place.
From the department of “One Thing Leads to Another”, the TV has “connectivity”, so we are hoping to get the grandkid’s pictures and home videos streaming to the family room rather than crowding everyone into the office upstairs. So I ran Cat5e ethernet, coax and telephone lines down to the entertainment niche by dropping from the attic, under the bedroom floor, then down to the first floor family room. Quite a process, but the connection is now much faster than with wireless.
I found a factory recertified HP MediaSmart EX485 Windows Home Server for $329 (now it looks like it is $349). I had been looking at the Acer easyStore model, but it is rarely under $400 now. HP has done a great job with this machine; it is backing up our various computers, running as a print server (an undocumented feature), and is able to stream media to the Samsung TV. But the included utilities on the TV are not very robust. For instance, I’m not able to pause, rewind or fast forward on my copies of digital movies now stored on the server. While they stream beautifully, once you start its all or nothing!
Because of that I’m going to add a Western Digital WD TV Live Network-ready HD Media Player
to enable things like fast forward, rewind, pause, etc. The UI looks pretty slick on this, and I understand the box can be controlled by my Logitech Harmony 880 Remote
.
It has been fun getting techy again, but “real life” will be back soon enough.
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