iPod and iTunes Hacks

Stream Your Music Collection over the

Sure, an iPod can hold an awful lot of music, but can it hold your entire music collection? Probably not. Here’s how to access your full iTunes library from any computer.

For the briefest period of time, Apple allowed iTunes users to stream their music over the Internet. Due to the bad intentions of a few, who took this as a chance to also share their music via P2P, Apple promptly plugged the Internet-sharing hole. Now iTunes users are limited to streaming music via Rendezvous, which works only within a local area network (LAN). .Mac members can still stream MP3 files to friends over the Internet using iDisk [Hack #97] , but what about non–Mac users, or Mac users who don’t have .Mac accounts?

This hack frees your music, allowing you to stream your tunes over the Internet and control them from any web browser. It won’t let other people download your music (that would be illegal—tsk, tsk) but it will let others listen to your tunes. Of course, since this is all about you, the best use of this hack is to stream your music from home to work.

Turning Your Computer into a Music Server

Head on over to Slimp3.com and download the server software appropriate for your operating system (http://www.slimp3.com/su_downloads.html; free.) The SlimServer software is available for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows, and if you’re feeling hackerific, you can even download ...