So I moved to WP8 from a Blackberry last fall and bought an L820 at launch. The three prime reasons I carry a smatphone aside from actually making calls are for Music/podcast player,GPS,and text/email. Primarily the ability to listen to podcasts and have a GPS in one unit that can also make calls eliminates carrying multiple devices.
I primarily listen to podcasts (I like talk radio while I drive) and have a podcatcher that runs on a server in my house. With Blackberry they had WiFi Music sync and I could come home at night and within a few clicks all the podcast were copied to my phone in a matter of minutes. Moving to Windows phone I made the assumption that I would be doing the same thing with Zune so I didn't really look at the feature too close. Well we all know that's not the case. Yes I know we can plug in to our PC's and sync music but frankly I work on computers and networks all day so the last thing I want to do at home is sit at a PC. My server has no monitor and I normally access it via RDP so hooking up the phone to transfer a few MP3's on the weekend is a pain. The podcast app I use is excellent and I can use it to stream or DL the podcasts from the cloud but why transfer the same data twice. I don't have a super fast cable modem and there are caps so I do watch my bandwidth use. Plus it takes fairly long to download a few hundred MB from the cloud.
So here's what I came up with. Works great for transferring a few files over your home WiFi. Since there is some manual stuff that needs to be done It would be too much work for transferring large collections of music or files. I won't get real specific since there's other ways and programs do to this so I'm just listing the general steps and concept. If anyone does scripting or has other tools that could automate this please contribute. I'd love to hear it.
What's needed:
A web server: I already have a Win2008R2 server running IIS so that was no problem. Can be done with LAMP or many other ways.
A podcast app: I use Podcast Picker. Great app. Great Dev. Podcast Picker | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United States)
Some way to to generate an XML file in RSS format: I found this app. It has a wizard and generates the proper text. You can also do the same with a text editor if you know how. RSS Feed Creator (this is only a 30 day trial. Since I now have the correct XML format I can just edit with notepad as needed)
Server: Configure your webserver with a directory,Virtual directory or other link to your MP3's or other files. I already was running IIS so I just made a new virtual directory that linked to my podcast download directory. The important things here are to make sure your permissions are correct on the directory and whatever particular authentication your using for the webserver. You can use anonymouse access depending on how anal you are about security. Make sure your server/PC firewall is configured to allow inbound access on your web port. Select an available port. Port 80 may already be in use depending on what's already running.
Create RSS feed: here is an example of of what the end result should look like. The app I linked to is pretty intuitive and will prompt you through creating the correct format. The important items are to make sure the I.P's/URL are pointing correctly and the "enclosure" portions. While it doesn't need to be in the same directory as the other files that's where I saved it to.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Sample xml</title>
<link>http://192.168.1.253/recordings</link>
<description>Just for demo reasons</description>
<generator>Jitbit RSS Feed Creator</generator>
<pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:43:27 -0400</pubDate>
<item><title>test mp3 1</title><description>This is a test</description><link>http://192.168.1.253/recordings/testmp31</link><pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:43:27 -0400</pubDate><enclosure url="http://192.168.1.253/recordings/testmp31.mp3" length="1024" type="audio/mpeg"/></item>
<item><title>test mp3 2</title><description>This is a test</description><link>http://192.168.1.253/recordings/testmp32</link><pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:43:27 -0400</pubDate><enclosure url="http://192.168.1.253/recordings/testmp32.mp3" length="1024" type="audio/mpeg"/></item></channel>
</rss>
Podcast app: Subscribe to your new RSS feed the same as any other with the correct address ex http://192.168.1.253/recording/sample.xml and that should do it.
Notes: Sure would be nice if MS would allow the Dev's to access the SD card so I could put these podcasts where I really want them. Also why the heck do I gotta plug the phone into power just to DL a file over 1MB. I know if I have enough battery or not (this really annoys me).
Anyone with advice on how to make the above process more automated I'd really appreciate it. In particular how to scan the whole directory and create the proper XML file.
I primarily listen to podcasts (I like talk radio while I drive) and have a podcatcher that runs on a server in my house. With Blackberry they had WiFi Music sync and I could come home at night and within a few clicks all the podcast were copied to my phone in a matter of minutes. Moving to Windows phone I made the assumption that I would be doing the same thing with Zune so I didn't really look at the feature too close. Well we all know that's not the case. Yes I know we can plug in to our PC's and sync music but frankly I work on computers and networks all day so the last thing I want to do at home is sit at a PC. My server has no monitor and I normally access it via RDP so hooking up the phone to transfer a few MP3's on the weekend is a pain. The podcast app I use is excellent and I can use it to stream or DL the podcasts from the cloud but why transfer the same data twice. I don't have a super fast cable modem and there are caps so I do watch my bandwidth use. Plus it takes fairly long to download a few hundred MB from the cloud.
So here's what I came up with. Works great for transferring a few files over your home WiFi. Since there is some manual stuff that needs to be done It would be too much work for transferring large collections of music or files. I won't get real specific since there's other ways and programs do to this so I'm just listing the general steps and concept. If anyone does scripting or has other tools that could automate this please contribute. I'd love to hear it.
What's needed:
A web server: I already have a Win2008R2 server running IIS so that was no problem. Can be done with LAMP or many other ways.
A podcast app: I use Podcast Picker. Great app. Great Dev. Podcast Picker | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United States)
Some way to to generate an XML file in RSS format: I found this app. It has a wizard and generates the proper text. You can also do the same with a text editor if you know how. RSS Feed Creator (this is only a 30 day trial. Since I now have the correct XML format I can just edit with notepad as needed)
Server: Configure your webserver with a directory,Virtual directory or other link to your MP3's or other files. I already was running IIS so I just made a new virtual directory that linked to my podcast download directory. The important things here are to make sure your permissions are correct on the directory and whatever particular authentication your using for the webserver. You can use anonymouse access depending on how anal you are about security. Make sure your server/PC firewall is configured to allow inbound access on your web port. Select an available port. Port 80 may already be in use depending on what's already running.
Create RSS feed: here is an example of of what the end result should look like. The app I linked to is pretty intuitive and will prompt you through creating the correct format. The important items are to make sure the I.P's/URL are pointing correctly and the "enclosure" portions. While it doesn't need to be in the same directory as the other files that's where I saved it to.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<rss version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>Sample xml</title>
<link>http://192.168.1.253/recordings</link>
<description>Just for demo reasons</description>
<generator>Jitbit RSS Feed Creator</generator>
<pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:43:27 -0400</pubDate>
<item><title>test mp3 1</title><description>This is a test</description><link>http://192.168.1.253/recordings/testmp31</link><pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:43:27 -0400</pubDate><enclosure url="http://192.168.1.253/recordings/testmp31.mp3" length="1024" type="audio/mpeg"/></item>
<item><title>test mp3 2</title><description>This is a test</description><link>http://192.168.1.253/recordings/testmp32</link><pubDate>Fri, 06 Sep 2013 10:43:27 -0400</pubDate><enclosure url="http://192.168.1.253/recordings/testmp32.mp3" length="1024" type="audio/mpeg"/></item></channel>
</rss>
Podcast app: Subscribe to your new RSS feed the same as any other with the correct address ex http://192.168.1.253/recording/sample.xml and that should do it.
Notes: Sure would be nice if MS would allow the Dev's to access the SD card so I could put these podcasts where I really want them. Also why the heck do I gotta plug the phone into power just to DL a file over 1MB. I know if I have enough battery or not (this really annoys me).
Anyone with advice on how to make the above process more automated I'd really appreciate it. In particular how to scan the whole directory and create the proper XML file.
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