Laptop mp3 server woes

So, a friend has a laptop and wants to use it as an mp3 server in his living room.
Unfortunately he doesn’t know much about computers. After taking charge of said laptop, I’ve since found out that the HD is gone and it’s only a 233MHz Pentium with 32MB RAM. Along with a nice 80GB HD from Komplett or elsewhere it should be enough to play mp3 files shouldn’t it? Even if I have to stick with Windows 98 …. shudder
As a side note, I booted a Knoppix based distro, Local Area Security Linux, to see what hardware was in the machine. Nice bootup! Unfortunately I selected a resolution that the screen didn’t like, but the bootup is nice, picked up the sound card that I wasn’t sure was in there!

How to download Real Audio streams and convert Real Audio to MP3

This guide is good, and there’s even a link to a page with instructions on doing the same and more on Linux!
And in a timely coincidence, Justin’s delicious bookmarks points at this page with instructions on recording streaming audio with Mplayer! I’ve done the same and posted command lines here before. Go search for “mplayer” or something! Lots more Linux stuff on that site including the odd opinionated piece..

MP3 Blog Roundup

This extensive roundup of MP3 blogs looks good! Must set a few downloading tonight!
I’ll have to figure out some way of recording meta data about the mp3 files if the files don’t have mp3 tags as one of the posts there suggests.
Possibly the simplest way is creating directories named after the bands and putting the songs there.

CorkGigs.com – one to check daily!

Maybe I should make this a family blog, Donal again comes up with the goods! He told me ages ago about CorkGigs.com but I always forgot to blog it. It’s an, “events listing for live music concerts and other performances in Cork”, although I don’t see the King of Hearts there anywhere. Owen, perhaps you’d like to change that?
Anyhow, that link’s going in my links section!
If you’re in the Cork area, you might like to know about the Listeners’ Choice Festival on Campus radio, starting on the 15th. Hmm, anyone know if Campus Radio can be picked up in Blarney?

Oh! What a Night – mini review

Last night, as I mentioned previously we went to see “Oh! What a Night” in the Cork Opera House. In one word? Wow!
It’s a highly-charged musical set in 1970’s New York, mostly in a disco called Inferno and the auditioning for a movie about a new phenomenon called “disco dancing”!
The musical is all about the music, dancing, clothes and atmosphere of the 70s and it’s a funky look into an age past! The audience was dancing in the aisles by the end of the show, people were clapping along to the beat and not all the singing was from the stage!
If it comes to your city go see it. It’s only in Cork for a week, probably going on (or been to) Dublin, so go see it if you get a chance!