A kids WiFi Radio would be nice

[famousdavis]

Now that I've worked out lots of kinks in my home WLAN, I was thinking that it'd be awfully nice to have a portable WiFi Radio -- something like this WiFi radio (http://www.theregister.com/2004/04/23/net_radios/) except I'd want it to be able to navigate my desktop PC to play media I've stored on my harddrive, too. I suppose if a WiFi radio couldn't access my PC, I could always FTP my media to my personal website (333MB for $40/year by a fantastic web hosting company (http://www.icdsoft.com)), but then, the goal here is to make it ultra-easy to play stored media throughout the house.

Similarly, I'd love to find a way to get my MP3s and WMAs played on my old analog stereo system, without a lot of difficulty....or expense.

Thoughts?

[mikewren]

One word:

Squeezebox (http://slimdevices.com/pi_overview.html)

[famousdavis]

One word:

Squeezebox (http://slimdevices.com/pi_overview.html)

Very interesting!

A few things I didn't like:

- encryption support is only for WEP
- doesn't support WMA file format
- requires a digital stereo receiver
- seems a little pricey for what it is

Still, I like the idea of consolidating my CD collection onto a harddrive, keeping the CDs out of the hands of my 4 young children, and yet making the audio content accessible through our home stereo system.

I didn't see whether or not you could create playlists and have functions like shuffle and the like.

Aren't WLANs fun? :-)