More on Sqeezebox
I bought myself a squeezebox digital music server for my Christmas present to myself. I absolutely love this thing. I have finally ripped about 400 of my CD's onto my computer in my office at home, using a FLAC loss-less compression. I chose FLAC because it was supported in firmware by the squeezebox (which thereby reduces the load on the network and the server) and because it was loss-less. Hard disk space is just too cheap nowadays - for home use, there is no reason to use anything but loss-less ripping of your CD's.
The really cool part, though, is that the music menu and server controls can be accessed over the network. That means that you can choose music, change the volume, etc from any PC on the network. OR, even better, from any handheld. I have a Dell Axim with wifi capability now sitting on my coffee table. To pick any of my 400 CD's, I just scroll through the menu on my Axim, or search via the search function, and hit play, and the music starts. Love it!
My wife, who has about 400 CD's of her own, has resisted the whole digital thing, in large part because of the process of selecting music. Up until now, she could find a CD on the shelf (which she keeps much more organized than I do) and pop it in a CD faster than she could find it using some front-panel menu on a server. But she loves this setup now and browsing on the handheld, and I may soon be getting to enjoy the fun of ripping another 400 CDs.
Right now, we are going to buy 2 more of these things to put in other rooms. The server software will control any number of the Squeezebox devices in different rooms, and all the rooms can have different music playing or the same thing playing. Highly recommended for those looking for a music-only server (you will have to look elsewhere if you are also looking to serve pictures and streaming video).
PS- By the way, I described previously the little blogger vanity function that comes with this device.
