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Music plays significant role in my life, there’s always something playing when I’m on bus, train, at home, at work, anywhere. N900 allows even more possibilities with built-in media player.
One of the very first thoughts after unboxing my N900 was that I want to test it’s media player, pack it with my favourite music, check files indexing by tags and subsequently use last.fm so-called scrobbler to keep track of what I’m listening to. I even wanted to write my own daemon or plugin to make it possible, but someone was faster than me. Right then there was a package called mafw-lastfm (aka. Last.fm scrobbler, available in extras-devel), and then it was still pretty buggy. Today I use it every day without any problems. Only thing you need to do after installing is going to settings, and put your login and password in Last.fm settings.

If it comes to music I don’t have good memory for titles, artists, albums and so on. Sometimes it would be nice if I could check what I’m currently listening to while browsing the internet in the same time. Lately I’ve found Now Playing Notifications (available in extras-devel), which pops info as for the mail or text message every time the next song is being played. One thing you should know before you start using this is the fact that every time notification is displayed and screen is not locked backlight will be turned on, so be careful with your battery life when using this stuff. After installing you will also experience N900 reboot, it’s normal in order to turn on new notifications.

This is what I find really good in Maemo society, some people think in similar way and I can get something I need just because someone thought the same.
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For more info on devel and testing catalogues visit Application catalogues tutorial
Please visit Nokia N900 Forum

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Here is the promised “Part 2″ of the Home Media Streaming with the N900. In this short tutorial I will show, how to setup Windows Vista for the use as an UPnP server, so that you can stream all kind of media (with some exeptions – read more about in the maemo.org talk section, link in previous post) with your N900 over the air. In Windows 7 it will work similar. Unfortunately I cannot describe the setup for the use on Windows XP, but maybe a reader could add some lines in his comment about this.
First go to the Control Panel in the Windows system settings. Click on “Network and Sharing Center” to open your network connections setup. Make sure that the network is set to “Private network” otherwise it will not work. In case you find listed “Public network” you need to customize the network to private.

In the Sharing and Discovery section you will find sharing options for several services listed. Chose “Media Sharing” to open the tap, and click on “Change”. In the appearing window check “Share my media to” and goto settings. Just make sure that the media types you want to share are checked.

Confirm all windows with “OK” and your setup is done. Open your network environment and make sure that the Media Server icon appeared. Otherwise open the Windows Media Player to activate the server. You can close it after you checked the functionality of your Media Server. 
Fact is, by activating the UPnP Media Server on Windows you can stream to several devices in your home network, not just to the N900. Try it out. Have fun!
- sam -
Please visit our Nokia N900 forum.

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You got lots of videos, films or tv-shows stored on your Pc? Or your favorite music, cd collections and mp3 compilations?
I was pretty excited about the possibility to hear music or watch videos on my N900 over my network while cooking dinner, exercising on the home trainer (I do not really do that) or even sitting in the bathroom .
All you have to do is to setup an UPnP server. UPnP is short for Universal Plug and Play and runs over an IP network with standardized devices. On Windows you don’t even have to do that, because the Windows Media Player includes already the media server option. Just enable the sharing in the network settings and you’re ready to go. On the mac side you have to install some additional programs to be able to stream media. For example this link will help you setup the UPnP on a mac.

Since the N900 assists the UPnP standard out of the box, the only thing you have to do, is to activate WLAN on your phone to run in your very own network. Thats it. If you open the media player on your phone, you will see the station or the device which is sharing appear in the left bottom corner. Just tap on it, and there they are: your media folders with all your favorite films, videos, music, and what ever …

What if you want to watch your movies on your big flatscreen TV set? Just plugin the videocable, which came with the N900 and enjoy! No need for expensive extra equipments. (For longer events, use the power supply to avoid running out of battery).

Nevertheless some issues with a few media types are known. Goto maemo.org to read more about which codecs, files and videocontainers are assisted.
Fact is, media streaming with the N900 is an enrichment for my/your multimedia experience.
- sam -
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