two cool toys
by John at 4/28/2005 09:06:00 PM
Recently, we got two cool new toys.
First is Phatbox - it's a built in 20Gb mp3 player that plugs into the CD changer cable in Wendy's Passat. The Phatbox is installed in the trunk area, and you control it through the dashboard stereo controls. It does everything an mp3 player is supposed to do. The best part is that, because the in-dash stereo only has a small display area, the Phatbox actually tells you the settings it is using and the artist, album, track name, etc. of the track you are listening to (if you want) using text-to-speech. Very cool!
Second is a free toy called JavaHMO. JavaHMO is a java-based server for TiVo Home Media and TiVoToGo. This doesn't sound that cool, but wait for it. So, we have TiVo Desktop (the TIVo brand server software) running on Wendy's WinXP laptop, but, since the laptop is off most of the time, we can't use it to serve music and photos to the TiVos in our house. If you want to listen to music instead of watching TV, you first have to boot up the laptop, and if you are going to do that you might as well get off your lazy ass and put on a CD, right? Anyway, we do have a computer in the house running all the time, and that is my Linux box, but because there isn't a TiVo Desktop version for Linux, we had no easy way of getting the music files and photos on the Linux computer to the TiVo. Long story short, JavaHMO fixes that if you have a Series 2 TiVo with OS 7.1 or better. Plus, it does even more than TiVo Desktop, in that it actually lets your TiVo access the internet. You can set it up to check your email accounts, blogs, weather, local movie showtimes, and web pages. It can also play Shoutcast streaming music, so you aren't limited to the music you have stored on your hard drive. Like TiVoToGo, you can also download saved TV shows to your computer, but you can't play them back because they are DRMed (and they will only play back on Windows computers). It's possible, but not trivial, to remove the DRM so you can play them anywhere - but it's just not worth it to me. Otherwise, very cool!
First is Phatbox - it's a built in 20Gb mp3 player that plugs into the CD changer cable in Wendy's Passat. The Phatbox is installed in the trunk area, and you control it through the dashboard stereo controls. It does everything an mp3 player is supposed to do. The best part is that, because the in-dash stereo only has a small display area, the Phatbox actually tells you the settings it is using and the artist, album, track name, etc. of the track you are listening to (if you want) using text-to-speech. Very cool!
Second is a free toy called JavaHMO. JavaHMO is a java-based server for TiVo Home Media and TiVoToGo. This doesn't sound that cool, but wait for it. So, we have TiVo Desktop (the TIVo brand server software) running on Wendy's WinXP laptop, but, since the laptop is off most of the time, we can't use it to serve music and photos to the TiVos in our house. If you want to listen to music instead of watching TV, you first have to boot up the laptop, and if you are going to do that you might as well get off your lazy ass and put on a CD, right? Anyway, we do have a computer in the house running all the time, and that is my Linux box, but because there isn't a TiVo Desktop version for Linux, we had no easy way of getting the music files and photos on the Linux computer to the TiVo. Long story short, JavaHMO fixes that if you have a Series 2 TiVo with OS 7.1 or better. Plus, it does even more than TiVo Desktop, in that it actually lets your TiVo access the internet. You can set it up to check your email accounts, blogs, weather, local movie showtimes, and web pages. It can also play Shoutcast streaming music, so you aren't limited to the music you have stored on your hard drive. Like TiVoToGo, you can also download saved TV shows to your computer, but you can't play them back because they are DRMed (and they will only play back on Windows computers). It's possible, but not trivial, to remove the DRM so you can play them anywhere - but it's just not worth it to me. Otherwise, very cool!
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