iPod and iTunes Hacks

Turn Your iPod into a Wireless Jukebox

Stream music from your iPod to your local area network using Rendezvous and a Pocket PC.

Taking your music to a party has always been a problem. You had to select a few CDs that you could carry, pack them, take them to the party, play them, and then make sure you recovered them and took them safely home. Portable music players partially solved the problem: you no longer had to select the CDs, because you could just take your entire music collection with you. But you still had the problem of connecting your player to the music system. It’s the same with bringing your music collection to your workplace: few allow you to connect an iPod to your computer.

One option is to turn your iPod into a portable boom box [Hack #7] . You can hook your iPod up to a stereo with a headphone jack to RCA audio cable, or you can pick up a set of Altec Lansing’s inMotion portable speakers (http://www.alteclansing.com/store.asp; $149.95). But wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do all this wirelessly, without even having to take your iPod out of your bag?

Pocketster (http://www.simeda.com/pocketster.html; free) is an application that allows your Pocket PC to be discovered by other Pocket PCs in the area or by any computer running a Rendezvous network. You can also discover other Pocketster users anywhere on your wireless LAN. Pocketster includes a web server (which you ...