68 | MAXIMUMPC | JUN 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
R&D^
EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USEHOW TO
Why listen to commercial streaming radio at work when you can stream
tunes from your collection at home? —WILL SMITH
Create a Custom Internet
HOW TO
Create a Custom Internet
HOW TO
Radio Station
TWO PCs
SQUEEZECENTER SOFTWARE
Free, http://www.slimdevices.com
A DYNDNS ACCOUNT
Free, http://www.dyndns.com
DYNDNS UPDATER
Free, http://www.dyndns.com
AWESOME MUSICSUBMIT YOUR IDEA Have a
great idea for a How To project?
Tell us about it by writing to
[email protected].WHAT YOU NEED
TIME = 42 MIN
Y
our IT department won’t let you copy MP3s onto your work PC, and your iPod
won’t hold your massive music collection, but you need to listen to tunes while
you toil away at the day’s labor. What’s an audiophile to do? The answer is sim-
ple: Stream the collection you have stored on your rig at home to your PC at work.
Sure, you could fire up a streaming service such as Pandora, Last.fm, or any
one of the thousands of radio stations that simulcast their programming on the
Internet, but then you’d have to either listen to a fairly random playlist based
on your typical listening habits or to someone else’s playlist instead of your
own. It can be fun to hear new tracks and find new artists, until you get stuck
with a band you just hate—like Linkin Park. Sometimes you just want to fire up
a favorite album and listen to the whole thing from start to finish. That’s where
your own personal streaming station comes into play.
It’s easy to build a private streaming radio station that you can connect to
from anywhere on the net using free software and services. We wouldn’t sug-
gest deleting your Pandora account and just jamming to your private station,
but personalized web radio is a great alternative for days when other stream-
ing services just don’t cut it.