JimC;167482 Wrote: 
> To that end, I would absolutely love to hear from the community about
> what you think is great about Slim Devices/Squeezebox/Transporter and
> about what we can do to make them better.
The main things that made me fell in love with my SqueezeBox
============================================================
1. You get your whole music library easily accessible, no more CD
switching. 

2. The sound quality. There are other products that solve point 1, but
often they do it in a way that decrease sound quality compared to a
standard CD player.

3. The display!. The way you can actually sit in the sofa and see which
music is playing is great. This is the thing most of the devices from
other companies are missing, they either have no display at all, a
small display that can't be seen from the sofa or requires the TV to be
on. The display is one of the things that looked even better in place in
my livingroom compared to when I read the product pages on internet. I
guess you just won't realize its potiential until you see it live.

4. The plugin architecture and open source model. This is something
that most normal customers won't think about directly. In my opinion
there is a great potential here because it means that Logitech can
focus on the core/massmarket functionality and make it really good,
simultaneously third party developers will contribute with plugins and
extensions to the slimserver code to broaden the functionality to cover
all non massmarket interests.

5. Linux support. Since I nowadays runs most of my computers on Linux I
would really hate if the linux support would be dropped. Linux also
makes it possible to run slimserver all sorts of small footprint
devices such as NAS boxes.

Point 1 and 3 is the things that will make almost anyone love the
SqueezeBox at first sight.

Some things that could be improved
==================================
1. The web interface works for me since I don't use it much, but for
people used to iTunes or similar applications its a huge step back.
Ajax is one solution a Windows client is another. I think the people
complaining on the interface are typically Windows (and maybe Mac)
users.

2. The server hardware. A thing that has been frequently requested the
last year, when I have read these forums, is some sort of server
hardware. It is sometimes requested directly and sometimes indirectly
as a including server functionallity directly in SqueezeBox making it a
non slim device and sometimes by questions about how to install
slimserver on NAS boxes. The thing is that most massmarket customers
won't like to have their computer running 24 hours a day. Without a 24
hour server I don't think I would love the SqueezeBox as much as I do.
The problem is that instead of just switching the SqueezeBox on, I
would have to also turn on a noisy computer everytime I want to listen
to my music. To keep full flexibility I would suggest that there should
be a SqueezeBox offer with both the SqueezeBox and a dedicated
preconfigured silent server hardware. This way people which already
have a 24 hours server can buy only the SqueezeBox and people which
don't can by the SqueezeBox+server package. It's important that the
server is preconfigured with slimserver already installed, this would
probably get rid of some of the installation problems people are having
today.

3. Stability. People are sometimes complaining about slimserver
crashes, sometimes due to actual bugs but often due to incorrect
configuration or a plugin that doesn't work correctly. With the plugin
architecture in slimserver the stability for malfunctioning plugin must
be improved, today a malfunctioning plugin will often crash slimserver.
Many times the problem is that people are running a plugin version
incompatibile with the current slimserver, but sometimes the problems
are caused by a bug in the plugin code.

4. Tagging and ripping. Today people must buy/get a separate program to
tag and rip their music before it can be used with slimserver. I think
the current solution where no ripping/tagging functionality is included
in slimserver might be correct, but there is a need to include some sort
of tagging/ripping software with the SqueezeBox/slimserver to get it
ready for the massmarket. It might be solved by bundling the software
with the SqueezeBox or just adding some links and instructions to the
slimserver download pages.

Thanks for a really great product, keep up the good work.


-- 
erland

Erland Isaksson
'My homepage' (http://erland.homeip.net) 'My download page'
(http://erland.homeip.net/download)
(Developer of 'TrackStat'
(http://erland.homeip.net/download/do/viewapplication?name=slimserver-trackstat)
, 'SQLPlayList'
(http://erland.homeip.net/download/do/viewapplication?name=slimserver-sqlplaylist)
, 'DynamicPlayList'
(http://erland.homeip.net/download/do/viewapplication?name=slimserver-dynamicplaylist),
'Custom Browse'
(http://erland.homeip.net/download/do/viewapplication?name=slimserver-custombrowse),'Custom
Scan'
(http://erland.homeip.net/download/do/viewapplication?name=slimserver-customscan)
and 'RandomPlayList'
(http://erland.homeip.net/download/do/viewapplication?name=slimserver-randomplaylist)
plugins)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
erland's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=3124
View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=31324

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