sounds like . . .

For this week's GiR (Heh. GIR! Yeah!) I'm looking at some Linux audio players, like Rhythmbox, AmaroK, Banshee, and XMMS.

For most of today, I've been bashing my face against the wall trying to get iTunes 7 to mount as a DAAP share in any of them, but apparently Apple broke something in the standards with 7, so the standards-compliant players can't mount the share, though iTunes seems to mount the Rhythmbox-based share without any trouble at all, which is really nifty and fun. (incidentally, if anyone reading this has been able to mount iTunes 7 shares without a whole bunch of manual-editing of config files, let me know and I'll thank you in my article; I know there are lots of complicated samba and ftp workarounds, but I'm trying to show how easy and cool these audio players are, not how much fun it is to edit things in vim.)

So I'm sitting here playing with lots of musical tools, including last.fm, which is like a more social version of Pandora. I really like last.fm, which is remarkably good at finding playlists of music you're going to like, based upon the stuff you've told it you like to listen to. It works seamlessly with Airfoil, too, so you can turn it up, man.

While goofing off with last.fm, I saw that I can make a constantly-updated playlist of what I'm listening to, because, apparently, people care about this sort of thing:

It's remarkable to me the sort of information we can share with complete strangers in this Brave New World of life on the Intarweebs, including stuff like this. It's equal parts cool and kind of creepy, don't you think?

Anyway, if you're wondering what I'm listening to at the moment, now you know. Now get off my lawn.

Comments

[Wes]

amarok rocks. I thought it was way overblown at first, but then I started using it.

Now... If I can just get the cash to buy a mythtv box I can run it in my living room.

[d. burr]

Mel Torme...The Velvet Fog...A singer i've been fond of for a long time...He was just sooooo smooth.

[davebreal]

i'm on last.fm also...

http://last.fm/user/davebreal

[girlpoet]

i had many issues with the new'ish version of itunes. so much so it virtually destroyed my poor nano. i had to reformat the nano and reinstall an earlier version of itunes...

[Dizziness]

If I understand you correctly, I find this gadget to do exactly what you want:

http://www.fireflymediaserver.org/

Best part is that it reads the iTunes library file and behaves as if its iTunes, playlists and all.

[wavion]

Hey, Wil - I put you in as a cameo in my newest animation over at Fark; I hope that's okay with you?

http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=2634228

[niobedancing]

Well, last.fm sounded pretty cool so I went over, registered, and am now stalking you by listening to your "recommended" songs. So far so good.

First-time commenter, long-time reader of your blog via RSS at livejournal. hi. :)

[d. burr]

wavion's animation is hilarious and very well done...Wil's part in it was too real!

[Mike Cohen]

I'm able to connect to my iTunes share in Banshee, but I'm not able to play any tracks since I lack the codecs to play MP3 or AAC formats.

I've installed mt-daapd (now called firefly media server) on my Buffalo TeraStation using hacked firmware and I'm using it as an additional library for stuff that I don't want to keep on my MacBookPro or iPod. I can connect to it from iTunes or Banshee (although I still can't play MP3s or AACs in Banshee).

BTW, I'm also on last.fm: http://www.last.fm/user/mike3k

[shewhobeatsass]

Definite points for the playlist! Unfortunately, I lack the technology to do that myself. Besides, you don't wanna know what I'm listening to.

Wavion, I saw the animation and almost fell out of my chair and resprained my ankles! Extremely hilarious!

[Craig Steffen]

A word on editing config files manually...from someone who likes that sort of thing.

Editing config files to give an application just the right tweak that it needs is kind of a neat skill to have. However, being forced to edit config files to make the thing work in the first place really sucks ass. So when you HAVE to, you'll want to minimize the pain and pick the best editor for the job.

I don't really think that vi (or vim) is the right tool for that. I'm an emacs user, and I find vi PAINFUL to use. Nothing in it makes sense to me. Having said that, emacs isn't the right tool either. Until you've spent a few months with it and learned the basics, emacs is very obtuse to use as well, and you don't want to be using it to edit files if that's not something you do much.

A really good tool to use is an editor called "nano". It's very small, light-weight, and is usually the default editor in a bare-bones installation of a Linux system. The cursor works the way you'd expect (unlike vi) and the bottom of the screen has all the save-file key combinations spelled out for you so you don't have to remember them. Here's a screen shot of a running nano session from their web site:
http://nano-editor.org/nanodefault2.png

So, if you need to edit a quick file on your Linux/Unix system but you're not comfortable with the key-stroke-memorization editors, please try out nano. Hmm...I don't know if it's packaged with Mac OS X and mine is a non-Mac household. However, a quick google of "Mac OS nano editor" finds several relevant links, so I assume it's available for MOSX if not pre-packaged.

[A'arab Zaraq]

I'm a recent Amarok convert. I'm hard core into it.

Tried to add you as a last.fm friend. I don't think it worked though.

http://www.last.fm/user/popejeremy/

[Kari]

I went to last.fm to check out what music you were listening to, but you weren't listening to any music. So, I decided to listen to "Wil Wheaton's Radio Station." It just felt creepy and weird. It felt very much like I was on your lawn. So I quickly turned on my iTunes and listened to my own music.

[spinne1]

Hey, why should I get off your lawn? Are you afraid I might accidently run beyond one of your white barriers and trip and fall into some pretty flowers thus sentencing me to death?

[bassclar]

Mel Torme? He's great, but what does he have to do with this post, I thought.

Then I realized that the blue-and-grey image thingie is dynamic. cool. So let me say before it goes away that Mingus "Better Git Hit in your Soul" comes from a great album. There's not much better than Mingus Ah Um.

Btw, I just reviewed an obscure but good jazz track. It turns out an mp3 freely available on the intertubes, even though it's never been on CD. So if you like it you can add it to your collection.

[stephanie]

No matter what I tell last.fm I like, it recommends Pavement. No matter WHAT. And I don't really like much Pavement...

[Mr. Lizard]

"mount as a DAAP share, Rhythmbox-based share, complicated samba and ftp workarounds?" Man... you lost me, here. I guess I'm not geeky enough to understand all this. So... how are the kids?

[Lanen]

There is something kind of creepy feeling about tuning into someone else's music. I mean music can be so personal. Then again in this day and age we tune into blogs and journals, why not music. Still though, I felt strange tuning into your radio station. Now imagine, if we can do this, what can Big Brother do?

[Macharo]

Unrelatedly...did you see this:
http://www.influks.com/post897.html

[scoblitz]

Big fan of last.fm as well. You sir have remarkably odd musical taste (which is awesome)

SB

[Spartica]

Technological incompatibility woes gettin ya down. It would be nice if things changed insync. It can't be anymore annoying than protected AAC files though, hate them things, it's better to create a cd swapping community. On occasion, I find some interesting hacking programs on versiontracker. Outside of a manual work around though, I don't think your going to find a compatible solution for that one and yes, it is remarkable the things people can share on the internet. Businesses and intelligent people can share ideas and create cool little programs, stereotypes of culture can be bridged on an individual level. On the darkside of it, evil people can steal identities, hack peopes computers, trade terror plans in the coding of a picture, and yes, pedophiles can create a community. The internet is a beautiful thing, but like most good things, all it takes is a handful of FR's to turn it into something to be feared and loathed, and ruin it for everybody, it's what terrorism is all about, making the problems one can create bigger than ones self. ex. IRA 200 vs.4 million. ETA 10 fingers maybe. O.K. I'm beginning to haver time to stop.

[CrioKnight]

I think it's great that more people enjoy sharing their music and have found stuff like Pandora and Last.fm to share and find newer music to listen to. The advent of streaming music and video have created a vacuum on the internet that requires musice providers new ways to show us new sounds than the antiquated forms of radio. If you found Last.FM and Pandora useful you might also like http://pandorafm.real-ity.com/

What is it?
PandoraFM is simple. As you listen to music via the excellent Pandora music service each song gets submitted to your profile on Last.FM. You're listening to music, so why shouldn't you be able to account for it? This site solves that in one fell swoop. Not to mention that the music genome project that Pandora is based on is just uber cool.

[BonzoGal]

Weeeeeeee seeeee yoooooou...

Actually, this is less like stalking and more like sharsies. Now if we could listen in on what you're REALLY listening to at home, say on your living room stereo, and we found out that all the stuff you're sharing is the "cool Wil" but what you're dancing/singing to in your living room while the kids were at school and Annie was at work was actually, say, the soundtrack to "Annie"...

[BonzoGal]

Er, "sharesies"...

[Stephen]

Wil - I discovered Harvey Danger after something you wrote, so if you don't mind I'll keep an eye on what you're listening too and see if there are any other little gems like that.