The Dream: All around house remote control of empeg connected to stereo with visual feedback & streaming to Ipaq for network walkman.
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The Equipment: 802.11b Wireless LAN, Ipaq 3600 with PCMCIA sleeve & Orinoco card, host PC with Winamp, and of course the trusty empeg with displayserver installed, VNC software.
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My situation: I've had wireless music control in the house via an X10 RF mouse & winamp & Max10 software. I have an RCA cable running to the stereo downstairs from my PC, but this is prone to 60 cycle hum & is not very helpful when you want to know what song is next etc...
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The progress:
This little project has had partial success. I've managed to control the empeg via the Ipaq but in two rather round-about ways, both of which require a PC running VNC server.
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State of the state:

So far I've managed to control the music in two ways, neither of which are optimal. I have not managed to stream music to the Ipaq at all. Both control methods start with a VNC connection from the Ipaq to the host PC. From there the only difference is to control the displayserver applet or Winamp which is streaming from the empeg.

Both methods have their problems. Using winamp seems to be better so far. The more visual interface makes navigating between songs easier as the 5 way joystick/button does a good job of scrolling up and down between songs & selecting them. Using the stylus as a mouse is problematic, as the PC becomes confused by the positioning of the sylus taps, and often makes a drag window or moves a window you're trying to control. The keypad works well to control winamp. This & the joystick are the best way of controlling winamp remotely. Someone has written a network remote control for Palm, but I didn't find any for PocketPC.

Using the displayserver applet suffers from two things. The PC seems to send continuous taps when the stylus is positioned over the applet buttons which makes playlist & menu selection nearly impossible. Secondly the Ipaq-->VNC-->Displayserver-->PC-->Ipaq display lag is excessive which makes control even harder/impossible.

The limiting factors are the lack of java support on the Ipaq & the lack of a winamp control or player for Pocket PC. I've installed the Java 1.1 Beta for CE onto the Ipaq, so hopefully I'll be able to at least get Jemplode installed. However, since the test jars aren't even running yet, I have a ways to go.

As far as a network 'walkman' goes, I haven't found any mp3 players that will stream audio. The forthcoming Windows Media Player will stream, WMA only. Since I don't plan on re-encoding 1000's of files this doesn't help.
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Moving forward: My next project will probably be trying to get Java to work on the Ipaq so I can use Jemplode & a serial cable for in-car song list generation and/or party time playlist generation via the network. I know virtually nothing about Java so any input/pointers would be greatly appreciated.

I am also going to attempt to set up VNC server on the empeg, but I'd still lack a player/control unless I can run displayserver via the loopback address in a browser in my VNC session. Again, any input is gratefully accepted, as I'm not a programmer. I know this is a high-overhead proposition for the empeg and may not work at all even if the loopback thing does work.
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In conclusion:
Despite the setbacks having a VNC session from you handheld to your PC & controlling the empeg is WAY COOL!!! PHENOMINAL COSMIC POWER!!! itty bitty living space.... If you have the gear, it's at least a cool experiment. If you're considering purchasing the equipment just to do this, put your money in an X10 MouseRemote & wait a while. The VNC-Winamp-Displayserver stream worked well enough for me, but I'd have a hard time showing friends how to use it because of the unpredictable nature of the stylus actions.

Some technical gotchas to watch:
Make sure your wireless connection is set up properly. My SMC 7004WBR required a firmware flash before I consistent wireless connections (they were being dropped randomly).

Make sure you have the right VNC client build for your processor, pretty obvious but I'll say it nevertheless.

Always be sure to check 'Restrict pixels to 8-bit' when connecting the VNC client. Failure to do this crashes the VNC server (at least on W98se) while it eats 100% available resources & RAM. It is easily killed by Cntl-Alt-Delete if you catch it in time.

Otherwise, this is pretty easy.

Useful Links:
VNC (Virtual Network Computing): Home site http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/index.html
Arm Distribution of VNC Viewer from Conduits.com: http://www.conduits.com/ce/main.asp
Winamp www.winamp.com
Java for CE, Register & download http://developer.java.sun.com/developer/
You will need a CE registry editor to install this. One is available in the CE Developmenet kit here: http://www.microsoft.com/mobile/developer/default.asp (300MB download)

And of course Displayserver from Frank: http://empeg.dyndns.org/empeg/

-Zeke

just say you weren't paying much attention...