Wireless MP3 Music System

I don't write about my personal life much on here, but I had to mention a gift I got for Christmas, the Linksys Wireless-B Music System WMLS11B, which I bought when I saw it mentioned on the A VC blog.

I consider myself pretty "plugged in," probably more than most. I have made some pretty unusual technical choices that have affected my day-to-day life in ways some of my friends found strange at first. I guess they consider me a guinea pig for these things. For example, I completely cut off my phone line at my house (going completely with my cell phone and cable broadband), and I haven't regretted it. And if I do get a phone again, it will probably be some VoIP option, such as Vonage. There's really no reason to go with the service the phone company provides to me, when there are other options with many more features at a much lower cost.

I also don't have cable TV, only the internet (they unbundled the two in my neighborhood). If I want to watch a TV show I must admit it, I download it, usually through bittorrent. Fortunately, I only want to watch a couple. For DVDs, I rip them as soon as I get them, and I have a media server with all of this on it hooked to my TV.

And of course, I ripped my Music CDs to MP3s a few years ago, which is extremely convinient. So this device is quite cool for a collection like mine... it connects to my wireless network (so I can move it anywhere in my house, or within a certain range outside) and through the music match jukebox server I can access my entire collection of a couple of hundred albums, and browse by artist, album, or genre. In addition, it has a directory of internet radio stations it can dial in to (a couple of hundred also), and although I've never made it a habit to listen to them, in this context it is very easy.

Recommended if you have a large MP3 collection, especially when its on sale.