doodledee

A few weeks back I picked up one of those network storage drives at the local computer megastore. I went with the Buffalo LinkStation but I didn't do any real research so maybe that's the wrong one to get. Don't do what doodle does just because doodle does it.

What it is: 500 gigabytes of network ready web-browsable media servin' ass kickin' network storage. And it worked as soon as I turned it on. Bam. Right on the network. A little light set-up - via the web-based admin console - and it's like I've never been with out it. A couple of hours later I've got all our photos and music and stuff up there and I couldn't pat myself on the back hard enough. Genius. Seriously. I was so pumped. I'd [d]evolved our house into a dumb terminal world. We basically use the web for everything now - mail, calendar, documents and spreadsheets, whatever else google is offering yes I'm a tool so save it - and once I offloaded our 'media' to the NAS, the client we use became basically irrelevant. I know!

What it's not: friendly with iTunes. At all. And yes, I noticed that it immediately showed up in iTunes as a 'shared' playlist or whatever, but of course you can't sync your player to that, because then you'd be stealing. Even though you own the music. And the drive it's on. But whatever. Result: I 'add folder' from the NAS to my iTunes and it imports everything. Which takes like a week. Also: iTunes doesn't 'watch' a directory like, say, Picasa does, so you have to add all your new tunes via iTunes instead of just dragging to the NAS. Which is a super bitch when you're so proud of how you built your whole network into a dumb terminal zone and now one [literally] stupid app is ruining it and chaining you to a specific box. Gross.

And yes, I've already d/l'd several iTunes alternatives and will be going with one of them. Thanks for asking.

On a related note: my Deadhead buddies have finally started doing the massive HD trades I've been dreaming about since the early 90's. I just knew this day would come. And I'm a little choked up by it all. Um, does anyone know anyone who wants like 1500 cassettes? Please?