The Nasmare is over.

I got a new caddy delivered yesterday, I say new, but it wasn't exactly 'new'. Anyway, after all the bother I almost couldn't be bothered with it to be honest. Anyway I fitted the hard disk, it recognised it immediately and asked me if I wanted to format, which I did. That was it it took five minutes. I now have a 320Gb Storage and media server after two months of trying.

Do I need a Squeezebox?

For ages now, I've struggled with obtaining a decent bedroom media player. Yes we have a TV in there but I've always wanted to be able to play my music collection in there without spending too much money.

I bought a Philips Streamium Network player, but the interface was clunky, the display was too bright to be left on at night and it needed speakers. It was just too much trouble, so I returned it. Undeterred, I rigged up my old laptop, it has speakers, could store music and had its own display and could obviously access the internet as a bonus. But this comes with a hefty PSU block, runs hot as hell and it's not the sort of thing you want on your night stand! So back to the drawing board.

Recently I saw a thing called a chumby http://www.firebox.com/product/2595/Chumby. It's a tabletop streaming gadget thing that replaces your alarm clock. Links to internet radio and streams music. Trouble is the speakers look tiny and it looks a bit well, daft. It also has no mention of it being UpNp and being able to stream from your PC or NAS. So back to the drawing board.

So enter the Squeezebox radio. http://www.ebuyer.com/product/184791. It has its own decent speaker and colour display, is UpNp compatible and will also play from Last.FM. Downsides are that you need the Squeezebox server running on a PC/NAS (if I had one) to stream your music but not for the internet radio. It has an auto dimming display and daily alarms. Could this be the one for me? All I need now is £130.........! Mmmm what can I sell!

NASmare update.

Finally, after threatening Pluscom with legal action I got an email back saying 'who are you and what do you want'! So after I politely explain who I was (by pointing them to the foot long email trail) I get another email,

"Hi,

We issued you replacement for the item today 27April you will get item soon."

Mmmmm, we'll see.