Reuse: Sounds Good

I like to listen at streaming radios all day long while working and hacking, but I was annoyed by plugging and unplugging the speakers' audio jack from my laptop every time I have to move it. Some time ago I attached speakers to a RaspberryPI, so to obtain an isolated system to play music, but it was inconvenient to interact with it by a SSH connection and I always procrastinated the effort to give RuneAudio a try.

Today, inspired by this post on Slashdot, I remembered to have still around my old Android smartphone and decided to try with it. It is an HTC Desire first version, with Android 2.2: after the factory reset I was unable to retrive any update available online, and as it runs the old Android Market it is not possible to install any app through Google Play. Probably somewhere on the internet I can find some method to root and flash it with a custom and more updated ROMs, but I'm ways too lazy to do it.

The stock web browser is also very old: of the many web radios indexes available online some give me a blank page, others are impossible to use through a mobile device, some others work only occasionally.

But...

After some more try I discovered that directly accessing a MP3 stream opened the stock app media application, which indeed seems to work pretty well. So:

• in the web browser, I opened the screen to add a new bookmark
• filled the form with the name of the radio and direct URL of the MP3 file to play
• saved the bookmark
• on the home screen, long press opens the screen to add new icons
• Shortcuts - Bookmark - the just added web radio
• tapping the new icon, it automatically opens the proper media app

Et voilà: all my preferred radios easily accessible and perfectly played by the right application. My standalone music system is ready, at zero cost and effort.