Slashdot Mirror
Review: SliMP3
So what is it? Its a small MP3 player with no internal storage of its own. It has an ethernet port, RCA audio outputs (you'll need an external amp!), and a power plug. It has a really bright little screen for displaying song information and a remote. It's about the size of a car stereo faceplate, but a little thicker.
It doesn't have a fancy plastic box. The backside is simply an exposed circuit board. But thats sorta the idea: this is a toy that can work for users, but is also hugely designed to be a hacker toy.
Configuring the device is easy. The latest version has DHCP, but I tested it on a network that lacked the protocol. I put the IP in of my 'Server' and gave the unit its own IP and I was off and running. The server is a perl program you download from the Slim Devices web site. It supposedly will run on on Linux, Windows, MacOS, FreeBSD, BeOS, and MacOSX. It worked great on my linux box. Trivially easy. This unit was the easiest to set up of any MP3 player I have ever used. Of course, I was already running Linux and had Perl ;)
You can control the SliMP3 with a remote control, but the server optionally can just serve up HTML on a high port number and set your playlists up via an acceptable web interface. And since its perl, its all ready for you to hack yourself. The code itself is fairly legible... there's a mailing list, and it is actively being developed.
The closest competitor to the SliMP3 is the Audiotron. The audiotron is almost the same price, has an optical output, a more developed HTML interface, and is physically a nice stereo component. It is a far more mature product. But the audiotron uses SMB file sharing and controls everything within itself. The SliMP3 uses an open source server program to stream the audio to the player. So the smarts are mostly on the PC. Which of course lends itself to easy hacking.
The interface currently is pretty sparse. Some places display filenames where ID3 tags would be preferred. I was unable to get it to load a 20,000 track playlist. But the server software is under active development, and these things should both be resolved in a not-so-distant release.
There are a variety of cool projects that could conceivably be hacked into this thing. A GTK-Perl interface would be super smooth. Cross-fade functions. Intelligent playlist creation. Tivo style thumbs up-thumbs down track rating for music playback. And this is the first MP3 player I've seen that things like this are possible because the code is right there and ready to rip apart. It's even legible!
If you need a pretty box, or demand optical connections to your reciever, go with the audiotron. If you want something tiny, or just want to hack at your MP3 player stereo component, this is a great way to go.
Does this really mean anything, considering the source? I've never looked at Slashcode, but I've heard rumors...
Since when is anybody's Perl code legible? And besides, CT is *certainly* not the best judge of legibility... hell, he thinks Duckpins is funny...
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
These are beer-guided MP3 players, evidinced by the second photograph down.
Not sure I want my MPEG decoder chips soldered by some beer-swilling hacker... :)
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
It is a well known fact that Jesus, AKA the Lord, OUR LORD AND SAVIOUR, Son of God, Chuy, etc... Was in fact a troll. This whole turn the other cheek thing, for example is a fairly obvious troll. If only they had a moderation system in the first few years of the common era, this could have been mod'd out of our view.
There are other examples of Jesus trolling his disciples. Stopping the flow of blood for that old lady, for example. He invented the tampax, and trolled it as a miracle. The list could surely continue.
In conclussion, let us all make WWJD our mantra. Let us troll for Jesus.
Proof of the gay-linux conspiracy!
hhhrm...
:)I know it's already running Linux and Perl, but I don't think reuse is a good idea in this case.
bash# nmap slashdot.org
Starting nmap V. 2.54BETA29 (www.insecure.org/nmap/ )
Interesting ports on slashdot.org (64.28.67.150):
(The 1542 ports scanned but not shown below are in state: closed)
Port State Service
21/tcp open ftp
22/tcp open ssh
80/tcp open httpd
21345/tcp open SliMP3d
Remote operating system guess: Linux 2.2.13
Maybe you might want to put it on another box.
--I hate people when they're not polite -"Psycho Killer", Talking Heads
'cause as you well know, boys and girls, a NYC street is like four times harder than a street in just about any other city.
hoping your rules and wisdom choke you, since 1976
DId anyone else see the 5000 capacitors that they installed by hand. Suprised someone didn't go postal.
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII