Useful Tools

To administer the remote server:

To organise your music collection:

To automatically backup your PC files to the server:

 

PuTTY - For a remote Command Line Interface (CLI)

You can download and install PuTTY from:

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/PuTTY/

To use it just enter the IP address, click on the SSH (secure shell login) button - you can save your settings.

Then click 'Open', you will be presented with a window and login prompt, enter 'root' as the user and the password you created during installation and you will be presented with the Linux command line interface (CLI)

(The first time you login you will be asked to accept the SSH Key, just accept this.)

  

 

WinSCP - For a remote 'Explorer-Like' file browser

You can download and install WinSCP from:

http://winscp.net/eng/index.php

Again enter your IP address, user name (root) and password in the 'Sessions' window (save them so you don't have to keep entering them), and click 'Login'

The first time you login you will be asked to accept the SSL Key, just accept this, and you will be presented with an explorer like file browser that will let you drag, drop and edit files.

  

 

CDex - a good FLAC and MP3 ripper

Many SqueezeCenter users prefer the EAC ripping tool to convert CD's to FLAC's (due to the use of AccurateRip plug in), this can be complicated to set up and take a long time to rip the music.  A much simpler solution is CDex which now comes with both the FLAC and LAME (for MP3's) encoders built in.

You can download and install CDex from here:

http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/index.html

Under "options - settings":

 

 

 

MP3tag - a good tag editor

To easily change the embedded tags within FLAC and MP3 music files, I use this tool that scans your music directory and allows you to modify the tags of either single of multiple files.

You can download and install MP3tag from here:

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

 

 

 

Album Art Aggregator

To have the album art appear in the SqueezeCenter web interface, a "folder.jpg" image file for the album art has to be placed in each of the album directories. I use this tool that searches your music directory and allows you to easily manually or automatically download the correct images from the internet.

http://team.thenexusnet.com/nexus/AAA/

 

FLAC Plug-in for Windows Media Player

You can actually get Windows Media Player to recognise and play your FLAC music library, there's a great guide on how to install the plug-in here.

Essentially all you need to do is install a FLAC Direct Show Filter from here: http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/

And then install the WMP Tag Support Extender from here: http://wmptagext.sourceforge.net/

I can confirm this even works with Vista 64bit and Windows Media Player 11.

 

SyncBack - a free backup and synchronisation tool

I use this tool to simply back up my personnel files, photos and music between my PC and the network server. You can define 'profiles' with specific rule to ensure only the new and modified files are transferred.

You can download and install SyncBack from here:

http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/

(Make sure you get the freeware one rather than the proprietary SyncBack SE)