Squeezebox: It just works - and more!

For a long time, I wanted to write something about Logitech Squeezebox line of products. From my experience, they are different from most other home electronics: Not only they really do everything they should do. They also do much more than advertised. In fact, their capabilities are so vast, most people don't even understand what this system is capable of.

Squeezebox is a line of networked audio and control components. Most of them play streaming audio from your favorite source. Most of them are able to display graphical output of various quality. Some of them are designed to control the audio players. All the communication between all components is through WiFi or standard LAN cable. All the components are connected to your home LAN as if they were standard computers (i.e. they have they normal IP addresses and hostnames, you can log into them and hack them, etc.). Any of your home computers can function as both "player" and "controller" of any other component (yes, including command line scripting).



First of all, these components "just work" out of the box. For example, you just connect the player to any WiFi network with access to the Internet, it automatically updates its firmware and is immediately able to play any streaming audio from the Internet. That's all. You don't have to install anything anywhere. In fact, you can just connect it to some public WiFi network and don't even have to own any computer.

However, it gets much more interesting when you have your own MP3 collection and a home computer which is running all the time. You install Squeezebox Server on this computer (it supports Windows, Mac and Linux) and then you can play anything from your music collection on any of your Squeezebox players or on any computer connected to your home network. Of course you can play different albums on different devices and everything can be controlled either via Squeezebox remote or via browser interface from any of your home computers:



Squeezebox doesn't force you into any proprietary solutions and does not lock you in. Your music collections is simply a collection of folders and subfolders containing audio files and cover art images. Everything is indexed according to standard ID3 tags and Squeezebox's private database and indexes don't clutter your music folders - they are kept completely separate.

I now have Squeezebox Player (just a miniature box connected to external speakers), Squeezebox Remote (WiFi remote control with full color display) and Squeezebox Boom (audio system with built-in speakers and large monochromatic display).

Audio quality obviously depends on what kind of Squeezebox device you are using (the most expensive system costs 10x more than the cheapest one) but my mid-range Boom has perfectly clear sound and is totally quiet when not playing.



I know there are many similar soultions but I have never experienced anything that simply works as effortlessly as the Squeezebox. There are lots of thoughtful touches, for example the way the alarms and display dimming work and can be configured so that the device does not disturb you when you sleep and you can be awakened by your favorite song or your favorite radio station.

On the other hand, Squeezebox is a godsend for all control freaks because the configuration possibilities are staggering and all the software (including the server and firmware in all devices) can be fully customized - the server itself is written in Perl and the devices are running Linux. However, I didn't have to do that - I am perfectly happy with the standard configuration options and I don't even use all of them: For example, your Squeezebox device can display your Flickr photos, your RSS feeds, you can play games on it etc...

I really love tech gadgets and I must stress again that there are not many gadgets that I found as useful and as capable as the Squeezebox family of products.

Accessing Google Buzz from Google Apps Domain accounts!

When Google Buzz was recently launched, I was rather sad because I wasn't able to use it. It's currently only available from GMail (not from Google Mail on my fuxoft.cz domain, hosted by Google). I also have standard Google account for the same e-mail (fuka@fuxoft.cz) so that I can log into Google Reader or Google Maps, but this was also no help because you cannot have GMail for an account that doesn't end with "@gmail.com" (obviously).

However, I was able to access Buzz using my Android phone's browser (NOT using the Buzz mobile app), by simply visiting m.google.com/app/buzz anc clicking "Continue on an usupported browser". I was then able to see the Buzz posts of my Friends and post my own. Even the geolocation and mini-maps were working (although there are probably many other features I cannot access at all, e.g. linking Buzz to different services).

This method also works with standard PC browser, providing you the way (although not very elegant) to access Google Buzz if your Google account is not @gmail.com - just visit m.google.com/app/buzz from your standard desktop browser!



Disclaimer: I am not sure if I somehow discovered "a shape of things to come" or if this is a bug. I am also a little nervous because I am not sure what information is taken from which of my two "fuka@fuxoft.cz" accounts...

Vote for Jitushka!

My dear Jitushka decided she wants to be even more beautiful and enrolled herself into a competition where she will enter a sophisticated (and expensive) fitness program to get in shape. All of it will be documented by idnes.cz news server.

However, first she has to win the reader voteds because only one man and one woman will be picked.

All the nominees are here on this page. If you want to help Jitushka, just check the "dat hlas" button under her photo and then enter the CAPTCHA code at the bottom of the screen ("OPISTE KOD Z OBRAZKU") and finally submit by clicking "HLASOVAT".



If she wins, you'll see more of her!

The voting ends this wednesday at midnight.

Just like "District 9" without Prawns

Watch Vice Guide to Liberia documentary and be glad that you live where you live. Powerful stuff.

Chucky is The Silk Spectre!

This is a follow-up to Albert's previous appearance.

Must be some destructive mutation...?

Albert imitating Jim Carrey:



From today's frolicking in the snow...

I Pity The Foolish King Arthur

We spent the New Year's Eve in scary cottage near the Austrian border and we visited a bizarre complex called Excalibur City.

Excalibur City is located exactly at the border of Austria and Czech Republic, the reason probably being that you can pay smaller taxes here, no duties or whatever.



It looks like some demented hellish post-apocalyptic nighmarish version of Disneyland / U.S. mega mall. See my photos and more photos on their homepage.



It's evident that whoever built this monstrosity had lots of money but zero taste. There is an airplane restaurant (boasting that Niki Lauda once visited it), imitation of Planet Hollywood globe (without any Planet Hollywood type restaurant nearby), medieval restaurant, lots of super discount shops and an Asian marketplace with Asian-styled wall around it. 10% of the shops are Duty Free type shops (as seen on airports), the remaining 90% are selling unbelievable crap (mostly Vietnamese knockoffs of Chinese knockoffs). There are also some "entertainment options" for kids and adults alike, most of which look very scary or don't work at all.

Amazing.

Mini-Review: Fun Beat EM270 MP3 Player

I recently bought this MP3 player which boasts "70 hours of battery life" and other interesting features for rather nice price (I bought 8 GB version). The reason was that I needed some player for my father to listen to classical music in his bed and I figured I could give him my older Sansa Clip and I'll keep EM270 for myself (because it seemed to be slightly more advanced).

Pluses: The packaging actually contains not only the player itself but also earbuds, wall charger, USB cable, holding strap and rubber cover! Also, the device looks quite stylish, although not as stylish as this CG render suggests:

(Image stolen from Alza.cz)

I'm afraid it's strictly downhill from here on.

When I copied about 6 GB of music to the device, the start-up took about 50 seconds! I thought this was because the device indexed my music and cached the song data somewhere but no such luck. The delay is the same for each and every start-up! EM270 also supports microSDHC cards up to 32GB for potentially 40 GB of total storage which could mean several minutes of start-up time each and every time (in theory - I haven't tried it).

All of my music contains ID3 v2.3 tags with artist, track number, genre, album and track names. EM270 allows to me to select music using these tags (meaning the songs actually are indexed using these data). However, when I actually start playing the tracks, only their filenames are displayed. Nothing else. Not even the playing time. This means that when I randomly skip between 500 music tracks, there is no way to see the album and composer details for currently playing song! If your files are named "01.mp3", "02.mp3" etc. then tough luck, you have no way of knowing which song is currently playing.

Setting play method to "Shuffle" means that tracks are played in random order, with no regard to what was already played during this session. That means you can shuffle through 20 track album and hear track #13 four times before you hear track #7 for the first time, for example.

The manual is godawful. It's in Czech and English. The Czech version is briefer and totally omits some menu items while the English version is almost incomprehensible and all screenshots are in Chinese! I was able to discover most of the functionality by trial and error. However, there is an item called "JumpSetting" with different time values in the Settings and I have no idea what it is supposed to be doing. The manual actually contains the following gem:

"This user manual can give you some useful information. Hope it will help you to operate the player well when you are using it. If there is any mistake on this manual, you are welcome to figure it out."

Obviously, I didn't try out all the functionality but from what I've seen it was quite clear to me I don't want to use EM270 for my music playing needs. Some UI choices were very bizarre, for example holding down the Play/Pause button started changing the dozen or so equalizer settings very quickly (i.e. 10 times a second), resulting in a game of roulette of sorts.

If I bought this player for myself, I'd be rather pissed off. However, it will be OK for my father and I'll keep my trusty Sansa Clip. Fun Beat actually seems to be Czech company but their firmware and documentation resembles the worst Chinese crap.

And remember: "Our company remained the final right how to explain for the manual, warranty and some related information."

P.S: This mini-review is based on latest available firmware.

Buzz! Quiz World - Czech Translation

I purchased Buzz! Quiz World game for PS3. This is a TV-Show style quiz game which has the distinction of being fully localized to Czech language. Not only translated, but there are also many questions about Czech TV shows, Czech sports etc! There are supposed to be over 5000 questions in total, some with audio and / or images.



I only played one game so far and it was excellent fun although I only found ONE online opponent (you are matched only with Czech players and the game is brand new over here) so we only played one-on-one instead of up to eight players which this game supports (online or locally).

I am rather sceptical about the quality of Czech game translations and I was nervous about this game because, in this case, bad translation could easily ruin the whole experience. Thankfully, the translation (and localization) is rather good, although not perfect.

For example, the announcer calls you by your name (provided you have some sort of "regular" Czech name). Unfortunately, instead of "Františku", the announcer called me "Františ..." the whole time, with abrupt fade-out on the last syllable. Perfect example of less-than-stellar localization quality control.

I won my first game because I was able to choose the category "Movie Quotes", where I trounced my opponent (he trounced me in "Current TV"). And out of the 10 questions in this category, two of them were not exactly right.

The first question was about the quote "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn". In Czech, this quote was written as "Vážený, to je mi jedno", which means "Dear SIR, I don't care", although this is said TO A WOMAN in "Gone with the Wind". Although the title of the movie was translated correctly as "Jih proti Severu" ("South vs. North") - yes, that's official Czech title. It's clear the translator didn't know the correct context for this scene and it's also quite clear most of the quotes were translated differently than in the the actual Czech versions of these movies.

The funniest "glitch" was the question about the quote "May the Force be with us" with "Armageddon" and "Star Wars" being offered as possible answers. Obviously, the correct answer is "Star Wars" but my opponent has chosen "Armageddon" and lost. The funny part is that in Czech versions of these movies, this phrase ("Ať nás provází Síla") actually appears in both "Armageddon" and "Star Wars"! And the funniest part is that it's because of me - I used "May the Force be with us" as a substitute for "Beam me up, Scotty" when I translated Armageddon many years ago (Star Trek - especially the original series - being virtually unknown in our country back then). This "error" is obviously almost impossible to discover and fix before the game's release but it certainly made my day.

As I already said, I had great fun playing the game and I cannot wait to try it with more people. And the Czech version does not suck. This is definitely perfect party game, even for non-geek people who usually wouldn't touch videogame controller.

P.S: Four "buzzers" (special controllers) are included with the game and I see no reason why I have to buy more buzzers for more players and why I cannot use standard PS3 controllers for players 5 and 6, for example...?

Panasonic Lumix GF1 Camera

This is Albert, the Zen master:



I bought myself Panasonic Lumix GF1 camera (with small pancake lens) which - at least to me - is a breakthrough piece of hardware. It shoots almost as well as DSLR, however it's very compact (slightly larger than Canon Powershot G series including the lens). That means I can carry it with me fairly easily in the belt pouch wherever I go and use it for guerrilla-style photography (i.e. "shoot lots of trash, pick 5% of interesting stuff from it"). I just have to find the right pouch, the current one is too big.

GF1 is fairly expensive but the quality of images is noticeably better than the best digital compacts (I had Canon Powershot G10 until now). For example the above photo is very small crop from large image, basically pixel-per-pixel resolution. And that's not even RAW, just plain old JPEG on full automatic. The level of detail is excellent and exposures are much shorter meaning there is less blur.