ipod, iphone, apple

Here's the scenario: all of our music is stored as mp3s. We want to be able to control music from a laptop as we sit in our kitchen or back room and have that music broadcast to speakers all over the house and back yard patio. Ideally we'd rather not have to run speaker wires from a central amplifier to the rest of the house. There seem to be 3 or four solutions to this problem.

Apple Airport Express and iTunes

Now that we're a family of Mac users, this seems like a decent solution. We buy a handful of Airport Express units ($100 new or as low as $60 used/refurbished) and install them in a power outlet near the speakers. The speakers have to have their own amplifier and accept a headphone mini-jack input for this to work. I'm also not 100% sure that the airports would all be synchronized in terms of what they play at the same time, though there are multiple articles which claim that it is possible. So, it probably works ;)

Bonus: Each of the airport express units expands the coverage of the WiFi network as well which will make our house super strong...and perhaps we could sell access to that to neighbors...

Drawbacks: iTunes only.

A Dedicated Device like Roku or Squeezebox

Roku and Squeezebox are two alternatives focused specifically on music. Roku is more focused on using the Roku to control the music, costs $200, and doesn't act as a WiFi repeater. The Squeezebox Receiver or Transporter could also do this but, like Roku, are way more expensive at $150 or $2,000 respectively and don't act as WiFi repeaters.

Drawbacks: Still requires some client software on the laptops that is Windows/Mac only :(

Remote Wireless Speakers - Audio Unlimited

So, yeah, I got a mac. It's nice. But it's missing some fun. So, I added fun.

Open Files in my Editor (TextWrangler) from the Command Line

When writing code I use Eclipse, but there are times when I just want a decent text editor that's also fast. My coworker Steve recommended I try out TextWrangler and it seems to be pretty good so far. I was really used to being on the command line and doing: xemacs somefileinthisdirectory.info and having it open my editor for that file. No longer the case...there's path issues and even after solving those TextWrangler doesn't want to open multiple files.

After a bit of digging I learned of the command open -a TextWrangler filename but it won't accept wildcards (filename.*) and that's a lot of stuff to type.

So, I whipped up a little shell script to help me out - here are the steps.

First, Set your PATH

The first step is to set the "PATH" so that your command line knows where to find executable scripts. I have a folder in my home directory called "bin" where I still all sorts of fun little helpers so I added that to the ".profile" file in my home directory:

export PATH=/Users/greg/bin:$PATH

You can do this easily on the command line:

echo "export PATH=/Users/greg/bin:\$PATH" >> .profile

If you don't have a .profile file, thatcommand will create it. If you have one, it just adds that last bit to the end of it. Note that this command will only work if your name is "greg." Otherwise change "greg" to whatever your username is.

Second, Create the Shell Script to Call TextWrangler

At this point, you need to create a little shell script that will use that long syntax to open up the files that I pass to it:

We're just a few days away from DrupalCamp Colorado 2008 and things are becoming more and more tangible by the minute. Just now I got a package in the mail at the new offices.

The stickers just happen to be 2"x4" which is exactly the right size to emblazon them on the back of your iPhone. Ever since lijit gave it to me my phone has rocked a lijit sticker:

but now...at least for the next week...it's a DrupalCamp phone:

About quarter of the calls I get are organizing the camp so it seems only fitting.

If you're not convinced by these stickers that this will be a rocking weekend, here are the sessions.

Also, my best to the sticker's designer Don Hajicek and to the other logo designer amytremper.

lijit is a pretty awesome company. I've written about them and potential implications and other uses of lijit in the past, but I just have to write more about them today :)

So, when I saw the iPhone I got all excited and wanted to have one. Then I learned it would be locked down to Cingular's network. That won't work. I'm going to Argentina/Chile/Uruguay for about a year leaving in September of this year. So, if I get a new phone it had better work in Argentina.

Then, a few days later I read about the OpenMoko on Doug Turners site which I get as a result of having Planet Mozilla in my feed reader.

Now, I read the OpenMoko timeline. They're going to start selling the thing March 11th. Yeah, March 11th of 2007. I know, crazy! Before the iPhone! Before Cisco and Apple even have to figure out what they're going to do with their stupid trademark problems, OpenMoko will already be out there!

The thing has MicroSD Flash memory (up to 2GB currently) so I imagine that it will work as an MP3 player for those who want a 2GB mp3 player.

Man oh man, I can't wait for this thing!