About Sonos, in general , one can at Volker Weber (vowe - his sign c't editor) read quite a lot and entry into this multi-room audio system, get one.

After much back and forth, we finally decided on holidays in Germany in September, two Sonos S5 to take them in Saudi. For the resulting stress due to the chaotic situation on our order page, I would like with Thomas Lang from everywhere-musik.de apologize and thank you at the same time, for the effort he has put on the to us in time to allow the driving!

Arrived in Saudi as hand luggage - you want to let equipment worth of more than 500 € and not necessarily the case and risking that they are after the flight no longer in the case - was announced in commissioning. As in Germany, went off by themselves:

Establishment of the SonosNet

1. ZoneBridge to the power and a LAN to the router
2. ZonePlayer S5 in the living room to the stream.
3. The Desktop Controller install and during installation when prompted press two buttons on the S5.
4. Done!

For the second S5 in the kitchen:

1. ZonePlayer to the current.
2. In the Desktop Controller to add new zone (zone menu -> Add New Zone)
3. Press the Zone Player in the kitchen to call, two buttons
4. Done!

After these steps have had the S5 it for now as far as operational, we synchronized on both devices simultaneously and without hearing problems Kabelwust Internet Radio Stream SWR3. Of course, with the possibility to individually adjust the volume of both units, either the controller or the device itself and also, of course, you can always remove one of the devices from the network and fire up as another stream.
I'm also in that a device at any time from the power and once it is reconnected to seamlessly integrates back into the network. Very handy when slipping out here at the usual outlets, the cable ...

Sonos Desktop Controller with Wine

We know, we have a pure Linux, specifically Kubuntu, household. Beforehand I had contacted in this regard Volker Weber if he could recommend in this environment Sonos. Could not he. Especially in view of the fact that we are in addition to Linux and Android-only-only and are no Apple devices - it is a free iPhone / iPod touch, Sonos Controller - and because of the price and the Sonos CR200 did not want to get into the house .

Experiment as we are, we wanted to test it yet, and at the first test in Germany, we could live with the Sonos Controller for Windows well under Wine, because we could not find any restrictions. The only problem was the representation of the font that is in effect but for the use of the system irrelevant. You can read everything, and mostly wants to finally hear the Sonos devices with

It went to install the Sonos controller from just simple. Either in a console or double SonosController32.exe wine, according to personal taste. During installation, one is prompted as described above to press one of the S5, the bridge or another zone player, the Connect button / Vol + and mute. Then wait short and the respective desktop controller is connected and can control the zones.

Android Andronos Sonos Controller

Currently there are no official Sonos application for Android. Andronos it does I think by then but also completely. I have found nothing that this free-to-find in the Android Market application could not.

• Adjust volume, pan, or each device individually
• Connect and disconnect the zones
• Playlist management
• Source change (radio or music from a share)
• "Skim" through album cover ala Cover Flow

Only the finding of the Sonos player sometimes takes a little long or not working. That's happened to me but so far only very rare and I could not reproduce

Perl Controller

Also on vowe I'm on the Sonos controller Perl encountered. This has a few dependencies, so that an installation is on a fritz.box unlikely. More and more, bring me such "projects" to the point, here in Saudi again set up a small media server.
I made the Perl controller to properly start problems since he broke off during scanning of music with the message "no element found". Obviously, these are but a Perl error message that occurred, more and more in different places. Meanwhile, we have sorted the music folder from az, because the router on which the disk is an eternity needed to listen to the directory. After the re-sorting is properly again afloat. Since I also think the Perl Controller no more problems to have.

The surface is nice, asks me but the queue is not when we have hung several tracks together, so that we will use the Perl controller becomes more likely.

Python Controller

In the Sonos forum, I found another Python controller , which the developer makes available to direct mail. In principle, there is a UPNP control node. And that means you can ensure that all server and player, use that work with UPNP. Here I am just beginning

I can summarize thus:
But listen to the synchronous playback of music and the way without depending on the notebook to make Internet radio, real fun. The Sonos Controller under Wine is not a problem, just as the Andronos controller for Android. Who comes from years of the Linux world is at this point rather tired smile, and just basically have little hurdles, such as Windows / Mac or iPhone / iPod touch users. Whether we get the right feeling Sonos accept ourselves as vowe describes it, I can not say of course, but it feels so very well received
I see more problems in the Sonos desktop controller and its functionality as a media and playlist management. To this end, the days but no more.

So from me a big thumbs up for Sonos related to Linux and Android.

Meanwhile, I no longer belong to the generation that regularly At length new PC hardware. Inside, too, that our ThinkPad R61 notebooks now for almost 3 years and it gets this everyday object, as is the notebook for us to wear. When a computer is likely to be key to the most frequently used part of the device. And they looked at me then after the three years also.

One can see quite well that the enhanced keyboard is the old one. If you have the keyboard in front of you, you can also clearly see which keys were used on most This includes the space bar. Apparently I use almost exclusively with the left thumb, the space bar, so they are visible on the side of the tracks, and most especially so they are no longer on the left almost works. The reason was also the initial purchase of the keyboard. The Thinkpad is enough for me to still totally. Only the battery will slowly become a problem. With a broken space bar, but makes everyday use no fun at all.

In Saudi Arabia I would only get a keyboard with U.S. layout. Then I wanted to do without it, so that the order to notebook-computer went. This was the only shop that I could ever deliver on time the keyboard layout to German in Germany during our vacation.

So now I have another clever keyboard with the new ThinkPad familiar typing experience, and the rocks!

Now it's happened to us again. There was a cell phone missing. Susan had left her E61i in preschool. Unfortunately, just before the weekend, at the project day was also about healthy eating. Ie Thursday, in spite of the weekend the school open and there was much made on healthy eating.

Accordingly, we do not know whether the phone is already Wednesday afternoon when cleaning, as the project came from the cleaning day or on Saturday morning away. When lost property and safety, it was certainly not given and there has often times things went astray, it is very likely that someone has since taken a little extra money. Somewhere I can understand it, yes. We do not all hurt too much. If there is but one of the cleaners have taken by mistake, it means that, at best, almost an entire month's salary. Although it is more than 3 years old and through the continued use, especially the keyboard, also claimed properly, but still a robust business phone.

So now it's gone and it had to quickly establish a solution for Susan's presence. Mobily, so back in the shop. There, everything went surprisingly smoothly. Brief presented to the Iqama, problem described, harvested regret and get a new SIM card for the same number. Even the credit is fully incorporated. Only 30 riyals we had to pay that landed not in this case as a credit on the card. The equivalent of just over 6 € but that is to get over. to provide for the loss of the phone, or the need for a new weight since heavier.

However, this would of course also possible to put us both on an Android-based. Let's see if my gadget not this time curiosity gets the upper hand and we go the pragmatic way that the E71 in the other half is used. On the other hand, according to a new toy, hmmm ...

To even get an overview of the costs related to get obesity (no, not what you now probably associated) to us, I'm gone, the days on it and have the VDR time in its entirety - ie all the panels, the housing walls, etc. - weighed. It came good 10kg on the scales, which would in turn account for ~ 200 € transport costs.

are so far so good, the VDR was therefore no longer in place and some people had cable for the cradle of action separately. For example, any connections to your TV, network cable and the connection of the motherboard to the power switch.

After weighing, it was logical to the terminal in its original place in the Ikea Hol to bring under the TV and then ready to connect all wires. We do want to have at least long enough to watch TV on it while we are still here in the apartment. Cabling completed and tested a short time, but as usual knock Murphy said to have been according to the VDR and not a peep from him. After further expansion and complete all sorts of testing, I left it on that night lie. Pure frustration!

New day new luck. If you then totally clueless to a source of frustration from the previous day's, is also a one that cables can be connected in different ways. So in this case. Since the motherboard apparently had electricity (a Kontrollled shone merrily to himself), I had the idea of the power switch times to take a closer look. I finally had the situation in other schonmal gets plugged wrong.

The color yellow pins are selected for the power switch. If you now have the right plug one to put far to the left, the mainboard can not of course start and respond. Accordingly, the correct insert resulted in the VDR started up as if nothing had happened. Since mans makes it work even once properly Unfortunately, the location of the pins inside the Hol difficult to detect and is also outside in the housing, a power supply just over it, so it was hardly seen before. The main thing it was not broken, which would have been lacking in front of me as short excerpt yet.

However, after weighing even less clear whether we will really take the VDR. On the one hand, because everything is on it, in terms both of us, so any TV recordings, music, and especially our photo collection. On the other hand, we are much more needed on the ground in Riyadh on demand, meaning it would make sense then, just when needed, over - recharge power - though not too fast. For this, we would in time but also lack of space, so that the VDR would make sense yet again. The nature of VDRs (Server, Linux, some hard drives, not a common graphical interface) is also predisposed to the import tariff to be considered as conspicuous in the, the VDR and possibly only to high fee might be triggered again pulled that. Questions, questions. The first step is to say first that I'm flying without VDR and we then decide on the basis of local experience, whether we run the risk of importation. We will see, once again

After little more than 5 years of private use Linux I'm used eight before buying new computer peripherals, at least on it, if I with the appropriate choice is not a device put on land that in the worst case does not want to work with Linux.

So I did some research before purchasing a scanner and a bit and came to the conclusion that would be the Epson Perfection V300 Photo Scanner for the best choice for our purposes. Epson offers on its own matching packages and even a software to scan in, so that the benefits of this unproblematic Lichtreflektionsabtastgeräts nothing stands in the way. You guessed it, the little word "actually" has since slipped into the sentence.

In any case, the scanner was unpacked and makes a great figure, even if he is perhaps a little too big. On the other hand, he also has a transparency adapter, so it was forgiven that. So just install the drivers and started up the software, but no connection possible. Hmm, but according to the many sites I had previously consulted the will but go no further ....

After some back and forth it turned out that I had installed the drivers for the well-6x as expensive V700. Well I've heard that you can drive a golf with Formula 1 tires, but whether there will be more than straight ahead of it is, may be doubted. Say, you should simply use the correct drivers, then it will come with the scanner. Apparently my brain has problems but actually V300 and V700 to keep them apart. When I wrote this text, I was at the mention of V300 V700 before writing again shortly. At least so it was no short-term mental derangement, but rather a permanent state Now I know even notice