Remote MP3 Library Access
For some reason the guys at Muse have closed up shop (taking with them the same service at DivX). I was adrift in a sea of quiet... no music at work. 3500 songs on a PC that I didn't have access to.
About a billion Google searches later I found MP3Mystic. It's not the prettiest program in the world, but it sets up a self-contained server on your music PC and allows you remote access to the tunes from anywhere. The single user version is free (what a price) or you can buy a multi-user license for either $9.99 or $29.99. So far it's working really well, I'll just have to come up with a nice template so I don't have to look at the unpurty HTML layouts :)
6 Comments
Daniel Short wrote on 02/11/04 12:52 PM
I haven't dug heavily into the security yet, mainly because it's served over a non-standard port, and is it's own web server with access to only that one directory at the moment :). I've thought about trying to put together something myself, and actually might if I can get together some free time :). My only concern is maintaining session through whatever media player I use (be it Winap or Media Player) and what server language to use if I ever wanted to turn it into something marketable :). Actually could be a good use for BlueDragon's free CF server.
Danilo wrote on 02/11/04 2:50 PM
Well if you played everythign through a flash interface, then it would be your browser at your location that would be worried about right? Or am I missing something?
Daniel Short wrote on 02/11/04 2:50 PM
True, but that requires me to have my browser open all day, and there's the risk of an app opening another page in that window, causing me to lose my tunes. I can play a file remotely through Winamp, I just have to do some testing and see if streaming through winamp maintains server session, so that I can ensure that I don't get logged out when my session times out for authentication purposes.
Danilo wrote on 02/11/04 3:29 PM
Makes sense. I guess a little workaround could be that you coudl use a non-default browser, like IE to listen with. Anyway, thats all just trying to work around the issue. Let me know how things work out. Regarding the session timeout, can't you set that on a page by page basis? so say 20 min everywhere else, but 60 hours (or whatever you can max out at) for the page serving the stream?
Daniel Short wrote on 02/11/04 3:29 PM
Yeah, but I hate workarounds :). So far MP3Mystic is working well (with one notable exception, I had to reinstall last night since I couldn't login). I can log in once and listen all day. Just have to make sure that I can trick a CF server into letting me do that, basically moving a session variable from one browser (FireFox) to another (the Winamp player). I do something similar with the Shared SSL support in Cartweaver, so I know it *can* be done, just have to dot all the i's and cross all the t's.
Danilo wrote on 02/11/04 12:52 PM
So hows it working so far for you? Concerned about any security issues that may be involved? Wondering if a flash movie served from your system's IIS could pull together play lists and searching annd more. Hmmmm.