rshields

Update, June 28, 2008: This client is taking a lot longer than the other examples because I've been swamped at work, have a new linux install (and discovered similar functionality to iTunes scriptability in Rhythmbox-client), and I'm getting married in a few weeks. When I get some time to tie all this stuff together I'll post examples that work like this:

http client (psp or any other web device)
>> socketserver
>> music player (iTunes/mac, Rhythmbox/linux, ??/Windows)

Of course, the Windows player isn't a very high priority for me, but if I come across something I'll be sure to include it.
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Coming soon, details of a socketserver client for a playstation portable... This is almost a 2-for-1 client page, because there's nothing that says that the client has to be a psp. It could be any LAN web client. However, the screens and UI I'm creating for this are formatted specifically for a psp.

I picked one up a few days ago and still haven't bought any games; I've been too busy playing around with Flash Player 6 on the psp browser. At the moment I have the psp wirelessly connecting to an ad hoc network on my macbook, requesting loadVariables (through php/Apache on the macbook), which triggers php to connect to socketserver and pass the sent request to another socketserver that talks to iTunes via osascript commands (applescript from the command line). Currently the controls are limited to start, pause, back, and forward, but it does respond back with the current artist and track and the volume, because I'll be adding volume control soon. I'm also planning on adding playlist selection and individual track selection from a list of available tracks on the current playlist.

I still have a bit more testing to determine how much user interaction I have (probably just 4 buttons, the joystick mouse and the 'X' mouse button), because moving the mouse around and clicking on the psp is a bit of a drag. It's going to need to be easy to use, too, because who knows who will actually be using it at the wedding...

Anyhow, details and source code are coming soon, but for now here's a little text chart of what talks to what:

PSP <--wifi--> Macbook (apache w/php)

Apache <--socket connection through php--> socketserver

socketserver <--> iTunes socketserver client

iTunes client <--osascript--> iTunes

back and forth, all the way around. I'm getting 50% signal strength on a macbook network at about 100 feet; should be enough, because our wedding isn't in a huge place.