If the Means Exist There Must Be A Way

Over this Christmas season my son got an iPod Touch with gathered Christmas gift cash. And me and my husband got an NAS file server that allows Media Center Server services that create this really cool way to open a media player that detects music library storage over a network and makes it look like your music library- like in Media Player. It will not be seen by iTunes. which brings me to my weekend escapades.



I wanted to be able to play music from our stored collection of like 10,000 songs. Yep 50 years (hubby and my years of music buying combined) accumulates in music years.



So… I am allowed to borrow my sons Pod as long as he is home and not using it himself. Since it will not multitask he does not use it as often as he likes. That will change when mom is done hacking it for him.



Yes, again, when a gizmo come into the home mom must hack it.



So I waited. First I give the manufacturer a chance to satisfy me. After all they have the technology. if it can make me run 20 mph then let’s do it…and don’t tell me that my feet may hurt…let’s do it I can worry about my own feet, I am an adult. We have the technology, let’s do this.



So wifi media center media file server installed and networked – check. iPod touch wifi connection to the home network – check. Headphones to connect to the Pod – check. Housework to get done – ah YES! Check. CHARGE!!!



The Pod did not see the media server



OK. No Problem. I must just need to get into the app store and get some app. I spent 3 days looking for this app.



What I found was something called Simplify Music that allows me to connect to the internet and then the internet connects back to my network with a password then allows me to stream my music through that internet connection. hmmm. Not quite what I wanted.



You know. I already had a secure internal network. I did not want to have to have an internet connection to play my music in my house over my home wifi… and this app is regular priced $7.99 (kind of more than I wanted to pay) but ok. bought it and ok takes a really long time to index ~ what my media server already keeps my music indexed for me. I waited over an hour indexing and finally it was done YIPPIE!!! Music. Let’s roll… uhhhh my laptop has to be on.



You see the software to connect to the website runs on a computer. not on the Pod itself. so to play music on the Pod I have to keep my laptop on to run the software to connect to the internet to connect to my homes wifi



hmmmm kind of redundant. Oh and did I mention I can give access over the internet to our music to 30 of my closest friends and family. ummmm I am friendly but not that friendly. I just wanted to play my own music in my own house and let my hubby and kid play it if they wanted to.



No problem with our computers we turn them on open Windows Media Player and voila there is our networked music collection. Happiness in a really long list.



But again iTunes is needed to add songs to the Pods. so I could not even add music with a wired connection to this gizmo if the song was not imported into my iTunes. It can’t even be a shared library of iTunes to add to the device it must be a drive on your machine or a file that you are not linked to but actually have direct physical access too.



Ok got a bit technical here but we are talking about a hack coming up so stay with me.



So I asked my kid if his friends know the hack for this iPod Touch. Yes but they don’t know much about it and it apparently is not very reliable. ‘That’s OK’ I said ”’my obsession to play my OWN music IN my own HOME without having to connect to the internet and pass through some server to do it when I have wifi”’ kicked in.



He said it is called jailbreak- well I don’t want to do anything illegal with it, just use it’s already present functionality to play music I already own. So. Ok I hack (jailbreak) the thing.  Browsing through the hackers apps that I can now add to this Pod I found something called whatever, and I say that because it was exactly the same thing as Simplify, and not liking redundancy there was no need for a hacked version of something that I already bought legally. Again I just did not want to share my music with 30 people or pass through the internet to play music over my homes wifi or keep my laptop on (this was actually the point of connecting my portable device to the wifi network, duh).



SO I digress. I am perplexed why Steve Jobs is content with not being able to play his music collection over his home wifi. This is not possible!::confusion::  He has to be aware that Windows Media Center has a better method of indexing files than iTunes. He must own a PC. Or run Windows on one of his Macs (you should always know your competition) so he has Media Player and knows that when you add new music to a folder that the WMP will add it to your library, no import file or folder needed.



When you import file/folder to iTunes it can create duplicates – annoying. So I don’t mind buying most of my music with iTunes but the organizer for my music collection has to be Media Center. It is just best.



And the Pod connects to wifi. So there is NO REASON why this can’t be done. And being that there are much smarter people out there than me, I assume that this has been done. I just have to find the app.



3 days of searching. Nothing.



Then when I had given up almost completely, out of desparation,  I searched for NAS (Network-attached storage) in the APPLE app store, not media player, not music, not network, not file server, not any of the dozens of things that I had spent three days looking for but just plain old NAS. And there it was.



But not to get my hopes up. What if it was one of those spoof proggies that are out there. You know the ones that look like they do what you dream of them doing because you know it is possible but it is just a video that plays on your screen.



OK 99 cents. here goes.



OMG!!!!!!!!!!! I just wasted 3days and $7.99 and got headache after headache trying to keep my internet connection running smoothly so I could listen to a freakin’ few hours of music and they had an interface for the Windows Media Server buried here all along. SHAME ON APPLE AND MICROSOFT!! For this petty bickering. I want progress and if we can do it stop putzing around and get it done.



I don’t like wasting time and money all in the name of mine is better or this is my toy I don’t want it in the toy box with your toy.



So here are the screenshots of how the app connects locally to your Windows Media Center Server just like you home computer running Windows Media Player.







The only thing is to have quick access to files you should create playlists on the server (And this feature does not seem to be working on my NAS as of yet. Perhaps I have to do something to get the file recognized?),  it pages through the lists about 25 items at a time, and had no search feature. but for the home wifi/media server functionality to work it is worth this little shortcoming. I figure there will be updates later to the app.



Now I still have the out to TV block Apple has inflicted on me (my eyesight is not so great for that small screen don’t block my TV out accessory from running on my Pod) Apple must realize that a lot of its customers are older.



And why make me attach your silly white wire to sync my Pod when it has Bluetooth??? Really are you that much of a selfish child Apple, block, block , block (unfriendly if you ask me)? We’ll see… After all the device has the technology.



Buy an NAS on Amazon

Image by coreygo via Flickr and app screenshot from iTunes App Store