apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

We use an Apple Airport Extreme wireless router. It has a USB port that will network pretty much anything... printers, hard drives and so on. It wasn't cheap ($150-ish), but it's reliable, easy to set up, very expandable and tiny too. Also, it will take over the print server job so you can use that for something else.

I agree on the Airport Extreme. It will work with Windows File Sharing as well as Samba (OS X, Linux) without issue. Also, keep in mind that if you are serving up hi-def, you will want to make sure all of your wireless components are 802.11N for maximum quality. The new Airport Extreme is indeed 802.11N, and if for some reason you have issues with signal in parts of the house, the Airport Express with boost the signal.

Good Luck!

OK, that is how to connect them. What about a server? What media/web/print server do you suggest? Do I go Mac, Linux, MS, Unix or Do I need to build separate machines and just connect them through a router?

Humbly,
Maria

I'm inexperienced with anything related to Windows Media Center, so I can't give you an honest comparison.

A Linux media center solution might do it, but requires a fair amount of computer knowhow to set up. Approach if you're experienced or willing to experiment.

All post-Apple Remote Macs have a feature called 'front row' which is a great 'just what you need' media center solution. Attach an external — like one of the snazzy form fitting ones out there — and you've got as much space as you need.

If you've got a tv with DVI, then you can just hook it all up thataway. Otherwise, you'll have to get some sort of adapter.

Sound is an issue. You'll only have the measly Audio Out jack on the mini, so anything other than stereo is a no.

Ripping DVDs to the hard drive is easily doable too with a little app called Handbrake.

I think all 'all in one' media center solutions are a little messy right now. Between the HD format wars, the difficulty of ripping movies easily, and the fact our types of media are rapidly changing all the time, I can't say that now is the best time to set one of these up. How capable do you think any system is going to be in 10 years? 5 years, even...?

I'm a little unclear about the question. It seems like you have a "testing web server (xp)" already, but the box you want to build will also be a web server? You also say that you have a print server now, so why do you need another one?

Linux systems will require a lot of care and feeding, but if you are up for it they are very cheap and flexible. I have no experience with Windows Media Center, but with Windows you'll never been wanting for free or commercial software to do everything under the sun. They also tend to be cheaper than Apple systems.

We use a Mac Mini to fill this need in my home, and we really like it. We have an all-Apple household, so I don't know how well Printer Sharing works between OSes. In addition, I personally find Front Row to be too simplistic, though it's okay for playing movies. If I'm playing music I stick to iTunes outside of Front Row.

Also, ericdfields is wrong about the sound out of the Mac Mini: it has a combined digital and analog Audio Out jack. The analog out is 2.0 stereo, but the digital out has the full audio data. If your DVD (for example) has 5.1 surround, all that audio data is in the digital out signal.

Also, DVI is the same as HDMI (except that some HDMI components can handle audio as well as video data, while DVI handles only video), and you can easily find cables that are DVI on one end and HDMI on the other.

There are so many ways to go, that without better understanding what you have now, and what your power user to simplicity ratio is, this is a hard question to answer.

What do I currently have?

* Macbook (1)
* Ubuntu Laptop (1)
* XP Home Laptop (2)
* XP Professional - Testing Server for multiple Domains (1)
* Tivo (1)
* LCD Projector (1)
* LCD Television (1)
* Wifi - Linksys (2)
* Palm (Tungsten T)
* Sony W800i (being updated to Blackberry)
* The Cube (mp3 player)
* Digital Cameras (2)
* Scanner (2)
* Printer (2)
* MS SQL Server (1) - Will be converting to SQL Express
* Oracle Server (1)



What is my dream machine? A Single Machine that...

* Communicates to all my computers and elements though interface or sync process
* Web Server (to be accessed internally (intranet) and (extranet) - currently using DynDNS)
* Media Server
* Database (to program in ASP, VB - I am familiar w/ Oracle & MS SQL, but willing to change for the right reason.)
* Jukebox
* Firewall
* Updating Options (Meaning I do not want a server that will not grow or be able to add onto in a year)


Does that answer your question?

A quick note on the convenience of Linux: I set up my music server with Linux about two years ago, and it has required zero maintenance since then. Other than tinkering I did because I wanted to play with it, I have not had to do anything. The Ubuntu installation is very easy and good, and will automatically recognize most modern hardware. I am not saying it will always be trivial to set up (though in many cases it WILL be trivial), it is probably no harder than a Windows install. The only caveat: if you DO have problems, you can't go back to the store where you bought it and complain.

To lhc - which linux package?

Maria

I've used several over the years, and Ubuntu is by far the easiest and best.
I'll save you the trouble of googling...
http://www.ubuntu.com/

to the original question, I have two servers in my basement. One is the music server, which also has a SAMBA server running, so I can rip CDs with iTunes, then simply drag 'n' drop them to the music server using Windows Explorer. If I were more organized I would use it as a regular file server as well.
For the music server I use MPD (http://musicpd.org/) to play the music. There are a bunch of different clients, including web-based clients available for MPD. I use phpMp2, which works pretty well.
I have my stereo hooked up to the computer via a long cable I snaked through the wall. There are jacks at the stereo end to plug in the stereo and at the other end to connect to the sound card of the computer.

By the way, that server also has a web server (apache) which serves the web interface for MPD.

I have a separate web server for a "public" server, since I have a second computer laying around. As a security measure I would keep the internet server and intra-net server separate if you can.

Each of these took a little bit of time to set up (hours, not weeks), and have needed little or no maintenance since.
And the dollar cost was minimal: the computers were surplussed (you don't need high horsepower for file or music serving (but a DVR is a different story)), the software is all free, and the stereo cables, are from Radio Shack and cost about $5 each. No gold plated bling for me!