Controlling Apple AirTunes with SlimServer, or how I was turned to the Darkseid

I've been around long enough to know how pernicious and nasty these DRM (digital rights management) schemes are. I knew sooner or later they'd turn me to the Darkseid where one skirts the edges of the foul abyss of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. (DMCA badness befouls both Republicans and Dems alike.)

So my 3,500 iTunes tunes are 99.99% from our large CD library. Only a few are AppleStore FairPlay DRMd. Still, they are largely AAC, which is theoretically an open (mp4) standard. All the same, I've been cautious.

Good. Because Apple has broken their implied contract. The contract worked like this:

1. We will grudgingly accept Apple's four DRM scheme as the best of a bad bunch.
2. Apple will provide us solutions that work.

With their failure to provide a half-decent remote control solution for iTunes/AirTunes Apple has left us with no good way to stream music from a server based iTunes library to an AirTunes speaker. Even the Keyspan remote is a weak solution. We needed an Apple solution at least as good as the SoundBridge and SlimDevice solutions; Apple has persistently failed to provide.

So it's with a clear conscience that I now skirt the twilight zone of SlimServer, the iTunes LAME plug-in, and even (dare I mention the word?) JHymm (though the last is least important). Solutions that are legal today, but certainly unpleasing to Apple.

Thus far the results are remarkably better than my attempts with AirTunes (I walk upstairs to adjust the volume?!), TuneConnect (no playlists, still this is very promising) and NetConnect (disappointing). At the moment SlimServer and iTunes are running on my iMac upstairs in a background user session. SlimServer is reading in AAC files, transcoding them using the iTunes LAME plug-in, and streaming them as high quality .mp3 files to iTunes. iTunes is then transcoding them to FLAC (I think) files and streaming them to my remote AirPort Express, the music then plays on my speakers. I can control play from a web browser on my iBook, or I could use the Java softsqueeze app for remote control. This cost nothing, though it all works better if one buys the Squeezebox hardware remote.

Weird. Kludgy. Hard setup with a few odd bugs I had to work around. Limited documentation. Had to download and install several pieces. It will all work better, of course, the further I move from Apple's DRM vision.

I hope they're listening. Apple has the capability to provide a great solution, but they're choosing to really irritate their customers.

Spotlight can now index OpenDocument files (OpenOffice, NeoOffice/J)

NeoLight (NeoOffice Spotlight Importer) - Spotlight Plugins: "A plug-in that allows Spotlight to index metadata and content within the files created by NeoOffice/J and OpenOffice.org. It is compatible with documents generated by NeoOffice/J 0.8.4, NeoOffice/J 1.1, OpenOffice.org 1.x, and OpenOffice.org 2.0 (OpenDocument)."

Kensington Stereo Dock for iPod

The alternative to using Apple's new integrated cradle: Amazon.com: Electronics: Kensington 33164 iPod StereoDock Charger and Transmitter for iPod, iPod Mini, iPod Nano or iPod Photo.

I wonder if it really charges the G3 (rest can charge via USB).

Aperture -- not for the iMac?

I'm getting bad vibes about Apple's Aperture.

The video card in the iMac I bought a few months ago is not supported. In fact, neither is the video card in the iMac they're selling now.

Here's the supported list:

One of the following graphics cards: ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition; ATI Radeon X850 XT; ATI Radeon 9800 XT or 9800 Pro; ATI Radeon 9700 Pro; ATI Radeon 9600 XT, 9600 Pro, or 9650; ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 or 9600; NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL or 6800 GT DDL; NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT; NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500

My 3 month old iMac has an ATI Radeon 9600. The new iMac has an

ATI Radeon X600 Pro (17-inch model) or X600 XT (20-inch model) graphics processor with 128MB of DDR memory.

And yet the G4 PowerBook's card (ATI Mobility) is on the list.

Did Apple explicitly decide to shut out the iMac customer base? If they did, they will lose me as a customer.

Update: My buddy Andrew dug deeper in the tech specs and found a different list. Looks like this was a marketing error. The iMacs qualify. Phew. I want this software!

• ATI Radeon x600 Pro or x600 XT
• ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition
• ATI Radeon X850 XT
• ATI Radeon 9800 XT or 9800 Pro
• ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
• ATI Radeon 9600, 9600 XT, 9600 Pro, or 9650
• ATI Mobility Radeon 9700 or 9600
• NVIDIA GeForce 6600 LE or 6600
• NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL or 6800 GT DDL
• NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT
• NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500

Keyspan AirTunes remote (Airport Express)

Amazon.com: Electronics: Keyspan URM-17A Express Remote Control

This is the only hardware device I know of for controlling AirTunes play. The only software option that works for me thus far is TuneConnect running on an iBook.

5G iPod (vPod) is really a very impressive audio iPod

Top Ten Things Techies Wanted to Know About the 5G iPod is a great summary, just the kind of things I'm interested in. Bottom line is, video aside, the 5G iPod is a very impressive audio device. They may have dumped firewire to free up some interal real estate.

Part of the article was a discussion of 'dots per inch' on a range of displays. I thought that was a fascinating reference all by itself. I have a vague memory that the original Mac SE was 80 dpi (I think printer was roughly the same resolution!). We really haven't come very far in terms of screen resolution.

Apple Cinema Display 20”: 99.05dpi (20” screen)
Apple Cinema Display 30”: 101.6dpi (29.7” screen)
Original Black and White iPods (1G-4G): 102.4 dpi (2” screen)
Apple iPod mini: 105.7 (1.67” screen)
Sony PlayStation Portable: 128dpi (4.3” screen)
iPod photo/color/4G: 141 dpi (2” screen)
iPod nano: 147 dpi (1.5” screen)
iPod 5G: 160 dpi (2.5” screen)
Creative Zen Vision: 216dpi (3.7” screen)

If this is right then you can actually get more on a Nano screen than a Mini screen or the original iPods (1.5*147 vs. 2.0*102). Seems unlikely ...

eHow.com - Clear Instructions on How To Do (just about) Everything

I was researching speaker connections when Google took me to this site: eHow.com - Clear Instructions on How To Do (just about) Everything.

There's an RSS feed for the 'how to' of the day. I liked 'how to buy an island'.