Howto: sync music to your Verizon Wireless cell phone using Amarok!

NOTE: You may notice that this same tutorial exists on the Ubuntu Forums. That's because I wrote it! This is a re-posting of that tutorial. So not to worry, no one is being ripped off. Scout's honor.

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I have found that there is a dearth of information on ways to get music onto cell phones under Linux, so I'm hoping this tutorial will help many of you out there. I have tested this method and verified that it works with my LG Dare from Verizon Wireless as well as my girlfriend's LG Chocolate II (also from VZW). This method will probably work with Verizon's other BREW handsets (just about everything they sell that isn't a smartphone) because the music player software is very similar across the board but again, I've only tested using the two phones mentioned above. VZW phones are the focus of this tutorial.

As to be expected, VZW provide no support for anything other than Windows and leave users of other OSes in the cold (and even their Windows solution is god-awful). My phone never even recognized MP3 files that I manually copied over to the proper folder on the memory card either. Even if that did work, who wants to manually copy over songs one by one? I created a playlist and wanted to send the playlist to the phone without a lot of copying and pasting.

This method may work with other phones as well-- so if you have luck with your phone, please post your results and comments in this thread.

For the purpose of this tutorial, we will assume that you already have Amarok and have scanned your collection into the library. We will be using Amarok 1.4.10, the last 1.x release, since as of this writing Amarok 2 does not offer mobile device support. I have verified everything listed here under Ubuntu Intrepid, but other variants should work as well.

What you will need:
-External Memory Card (sorry, no way to do this with the phone's internal memory AFAIK)
-Card Reader
-AmaroK 1.4.10 (currently available in the repositories)

What you will NOT need:
-USB Cable/driver
-VZW's Rhapsody crapware
-DRM-protected music. Sorry, but DRM-protected files are outside the scope of this tutorial.


Ok, down to business!


Part A: Make sure your memory card is set up properly

1. Formatting
The phone expects a specific set of folders on the memory card in order to handle media properly (my_music, my_pix, my_flix, etc). If you have just bought a memory card, you may need to format it in order to ensure that these folders exist. The easiest way to do this is to insert the card into your phone and then just turn the phone off and back on again. The phone will probably create the folders for you at this point.

2. Mount the card
Insert your memory card into your card reader and mount it, then check the mount point if you don't know it already by navigating to it in Nautilus and checking the address shown (usually something similar to /media/disk/ ). Open the card and make sure the folders mentioned above exist. If not, create them manually.

Part B: Configure your memory card as a media device in Amarok

1. Choose Settings - Configure Amarok - Media Devices

2. Choose Add Device...
You will be presented with 3 options:
-"Select the plugin to use with this device:" -> Choose Generic Audio Player
-"Enter a name for this device (required):" -> Name the device whatever you like
-"Enter the mount point of the device, if applicable": -> Enter the mount point from Part A, step 2
Click OK

3. Click the Devices tab, then click the gears icon (to the right of the Transfer button) to configure additional settings for the device:
-Ignore pre&post-disconnect commands, transcoding options
-Leave all checkboxes at defaults (all unchecked)
-Song location: This part is important. You must tell Amarok to place the files in the my_music folder in the phone. Configure the filenames however you please but make sure that the files will NOT be nested in any folders underneath my_music. For example if you leave it at the defaults, Amarok will create a hierarchy of my_music/artistname/albumname/filename.mp3. If you sync using this hierarchy, the phone won't see your music when you are finished.

The path asked for here is relative to the root directory of the memory card (e.g. /media/disk/ in this example) so you don't need to specify the path to the card. The format I use is simply: my_music/%artist-%title.%filetype.
Click OK

Part C: Sync your tunes

1. Under the Collection or Playlists tab, choose the songs or playlists you want to sync, right-click and choose transfer to device or sync to device.

2. In the Devices tab, Choose audio player you set up in part B from dropdown at the top of the Devices section, then choose Connect.

3. Click the Transfer button and watch your music sync!

4. Once the transfer has completed, click the Disconnect button, unmount the disk in Nautilus, remove it from the reader and insert it into your phone.

5. Start your phone's music player. There should be a one-time initialization where it reads through the track info and loads up your songs. Once you see that, you know the phone has successfully recognized the music on your memory card.

6. Enjoy your music!


That's really all there is to it. Once you have done the initial setup, just repeat Part C to sync/resync additional music as you please. If you find alternative methods or find any issues with this tutorial, please post a reply. I will update this post as necessary.

Troubleshooting:
If your phone does not see your music, check that your
If you have issues, please post as much info as you can, including:
-The symptom you ran into (such as "my phone doesn't see my music")
-Whether you received any errors from Amarok (and if so, what the errors are)
-Wireless carrier and phone brand/model
-Phone software version: where this can be found depends on the phone. For example on my LG Dare, I find this under Main Menu->Settings&Tools->Phone Info->SW/HW Version. My firmware version is VX970V05.

I can't guarantee I'll be able to help, but having worked for the big "V" for 3 years (not anymore, thank goodness) I have a fair amount of phone-savvy and I'll help if I am able.

Notes:

1. The tracks I transferred were all mp3 files with data stored in ID3 tags. I have not experimented with other formats.
2. Album Art embedded in the ID3 tag will be read by the phone's music player automatically! This seems to be the only way to get artwork onto the phone in a format that the phone will recognize.
3. The phone didn't recognize any of my genre tags, although it did pick up on Artist/Album/Song Title.
4. Make sure not to use nesting of files under my_music - they must ALL be in my_music and NO other subfolders.
5. As I mentioned, I used this method to sync a playlist I created from my library on my desktop to my phone, but the playlist itself did not end up being visible in the phone's music player. This wasn't a big deal to me, so I left it at that.

Further Reading: Howardforums.com is an excellent source of information for cell phone enthusiasts. You will be able to find a lot of related info such as how your music player works, other known tricks, etc. Couldn't hurt to read up on your phone!

Throwing in the towel

It has been five weeks since I purchased a Hauppauge WinTV-HVR 1800 for my desktop box at home. The goal I had in mind when I purchased it was to take my fledgling networked home theater to the next level: in addition to streaming music and movies from my desktop to the downstairs TV (via XBMC) and all other computers in the house, I wanted to be able to watch/record TV on the desktop (which is in my bedroom) and yes, stream my recorded programs to the rest of the network too.

However, things did not go so well once I installed the card. This is due to the fact that, unfortunately, the state of such hardware under Linux (I is not as good as it could be. As it stands now, few cards support OSes other than Windows in any official capacity -- very few indeed. My Hauppauge card was no exception. Prior to making the purchase I did a good deal of research and found that, according to many reliable sources, it would work thanks to some 3rd party drivers. Even linuxtv.org lists the card as functional.

Unfortunately, I never was able to get the card working properly with analog signals: no matter what I did, I could not get audio. This is a deal-breaker as I have no cable box in the bedroom and don't care to pay an extra $10 to get one, thankyouverymuch. I also need analog because another plan I have is to hook up a VCR to the card and capture old home movies from VHS. I am not the only one who had issues, either. I even went so far as to compile a new mainline kernel that hadn't yet made it into Ubuntu as it includes Steven Toth's V4L-DVB drivers. Alas, no joy.

So tonight, after several weeks and countless hours spent futzing with it, I have thrown in the towel. Tomorrow the card will be shipped back to newegg and I'll begin hunting for a card with which I may have more luck.

A (somewhat) Sad State of Affairs for Linux iPod Users

I have a 30GB iPod Video (5th generation) that I use with Ubuntu Intrepid. My music collection is larger than the capacity of my iPod, so I can't simply sync everything-- what I do is sync specific playlists. This, coupled with the fact that I view album art support a must, creates a specific need that not every program can satisfy.

I've tried out most of the popular players and IMO, the only one that really does everything properly is AmaroK 1.4. Here's why the others don't live up:

Songbird: Can effortlessly sync my playlists, is (AFAIK) the only program that can "restore" your iPod to factory defaults like iTunes can, BUT has no support for artwork (yet). This is a deal-breaker for me. Another strike against Songbird in my book is the fact that it ignores use Gnome's window manager and uses its own.

GTKPod: I have to admit I hate this one. The things you have to do to get stuff on the iPod are just silly. The interface is not intuitive. Also there seemed to be no easy (possible?) way to just sync the playlists I want-- I can transfer a whole playlist there, but when I update the playlist there is no quick way to sync the changes to the iPod. It does support artwork, however.

Banshee: Supports artwork. Does a pretty good job overall but again, no real "sync" feature. Like with GTKPod, I'm stuck having to drag and drop things I want and can't just sync changes to my playlists. This one is a bummer because Banshee is my preferred app for library management & playback on my desktop.

Rythmbox: Basically the same as Banshee with respect to syncing. Didn't bother to check if it will put the artwork on my iPod.

...which brings us to...

AmaroK: I'm not a big fan of KDE apps in Gnome due to the differences look and feel (especially ugly KDE 3.5 apps) but AmaroK 1.4 just does everything I want, the way I expect. It supports selective syncing (e.g. my playlists, even when I update them) and puts the artwork on the iPod. AmaroK 2 doesn't have device support yet, so I'm sticking with 1.4 for this sole reason.

If not for AmaroK 1.4 I would have to rely on a Windows app under WINE or VirtualBox, which would just add another layer of complexity to the whole thing.  The biggest annoyance here would be the fact that I would have to edit my playlists to be Windows-frienldy (change every slash to a backslash in the playlists using a text editor) then save a "Windows" copy for the syncing player to use.   This is on top of my current process which is:

1. Edit playlist(s) using Banshee, my preferred app
2. Export the playlist
3. Import the playlist to AmaroK
4. Sync

So even as it stands now, I have to do a couple more steps than I'd like (if only Banshee synced the way I like, I wouldn't have to bother with exporting/importing the playlists like I do).

"Why not use AmaroK for your music playback?"

Not a bad idea, and I actually used to do this-- but now that I have a burgeoning video library in addition to my music  (for use with XBMC downstairs or playback on the computer in my room), I like that I can use  one app for both audio and video.

So, seeing as 2009 will certainly be the year of Linux on the Desktop, I hope that this will improve with time.  In the case of Banshee, which is currently under active development and becoming more and more popular, I'm sure that will be the case.  I eagerly await future releases of what has become my player of choice lately.

Reading Material

Due to the business my company is in, publishers often send promotional copies of books in hopes that we'll republish their content. Some of what we receive are technical books. Recently, as sometimes happens, our marketing department was good enough to give away books that are no longer needed -- whether they were used or not. I was lucky enough to score several technical reference books. One of them was Mark Sobell's A Practical Guide to Ubuntu Linux, second edition.

After just a short time, I'm already 120 pages in and have learned a lot about what makes the OS tick and what forces drive GNU and Linux in general. It has been an invaluable resource and is already helping me to better administer my desktop PC, where I have been using Ubuntu Linux for nearly two years (since just after the Feisty release). If you have the means, I highly recommend this book. It is well worth the while!

Time to Step Up: What the Bucks Will Need in LA

Beanie will need to do what he does and open things up on the ground

It's no secret that the match-up of the week (possibly the entire regular season) will be Ohio State against USC this Saturday in the Coliseum. What appeared two weeks ago to be a dominant Ohio State against a USC team that would not be as strong as they had been in recent years will now in fact be a #1 ranked firing-on-all-cylinders-and-taking-no-prisoners Trjoan team against a Buckeyes team that so far has only succeeded in underwhelming fans and critics alike. Any questions about Mark Sanchez's knee injury have vanished and the Trojan defense looks strong as ever. The Buckeyes have failed to execute as expected against two overmatched opponents and star Beanie Wells has been injured. Will the Trojans continue their streak of non-conference domination? Will the Buckeyes' O be able to get traction if Beanie doesn't return to carry the load? We'll find out four days and four hours from now.

If one thing is certain, it's that the Buckeyes- who now will enter the game as a 10-point underdog- will need to step up their game and play a tough one if they want to stay in it. In their first two games we have seen a lack of boldness on play calling, freshman-caliber mistakes, and more missed catches than a schoolyard game of monkey-in-the-middle. The running game at this point is a bit of a question mark. There is no doubt that Beanie will play, but lips have been tight as to his condition. Even if he is at 100%, which he will certainly need to be, there is always a possibility that he could re-aggravate the toe injury. He will already be targeted by a hungry USC defense - lead by stars such as standout linebacker Rey Maualuga. If Ohio State want to open up the ground game, Beanie will be the guy to do it. Unless we were missing something on Saturday, we saw that the rest of the running backs on the OSU depth chart could not take his place altogether.

Rey Maualuga won't be the only hurdle in the Buckeyes path.

There has also been rampant speculation about what we have so far seen from Ohio State. The prevailing notion seems to be that the coaching staff have been deliberately refusing to show their hand so that USC won't have any film to study and won't know exactly what we plan to throw at them. I, for one, hope that this is the case because we sure won't be gaining many yards with the sort of "vanilla" offense that OSU typically runs. Trying to run it up the middle every 2nd or 3rd play won't go over too well in LA.

Another hot topic is what to expect true freshman QB Terell Pryor. Again, unless we haven't really seen him utilized to the best of his ability, he won't be a factor. So far we have seen that although he can run well, he lacks the sort of "touch" he needs, a la Todd Boeckman. It's great if the guy can run, but pre-designed take-the-snap-and-run-to-the-outside plays won't be fooling anyone. If Pryor proves that he can pass well and (usually) run when he is under pressure, he could emerge as a threat.

Speaking of emerging as a threat, we have finally seen some razzle-dazzle out of WR Ray Small. His combination of speed and agility (something we haven't seen since Ted Ginn, JR) is exactly the sort of thing the Bucks will need if they want to spread the out that tough USC defense. Hartline and Robiskie have both proven reliable, but they have never had the ability to burn the defense when they hit open space in the same way as Small can. He spent much of season struggling against a leg injury, so expect better things out of him this year.

Prediction Time

Ohio State will struggle out of the gate. Expect the first couple of posessions to be short. Maybe not 3-and-outs, but not scoring drives either. The defense will be hungry, perhaps too hungry- USC's O will capitalize on miscues and exploit their weaknesses well. If the OSU D can step up, execute, and keep USC bottled up, the offense may be able to make things happen. This will absolutely key: if our defense doesn't slow down USC's offense, our offense will struggle. If both the offense and the defense struggle early on, expect USC to tear this one wide open. They will do their best to get us out of it quickly because they know that if we can hang with them, we will eventually gain momentum and give them a run for their money.

Boeckman will struggle. He will do well if the O-line gives him enough time, but he will overthrow his receivers on the deep passes. He will throw at least 2 INTs. If he can establish a rhythm he will produce results. However this is doubtful since USC's D-line will be tough to hold back.

Pryor lacks big-game experience but may still yield results.

We will bring Pryor out in the Red Zone, using 4 and 5 receiver sets. Don't expect this to burn USC's defense though. His first couple of series will be key because we haven't seen how he handles big time pressure. If he can keep his cool and execute, he will produce. If Boeckman struggles, we may even bring him out at midfield.

Beanie will play and he will do his part, but he will be too high of a priority target to be able to have many big runs. He will probably average 2-3 yards per carry. Don't expect the offense to capitalize on USC's D focusing on Wells.

The defense will do well early on, just like they did against LSU in Janurary. They won't be able to keep it up and eventually USC will open things up, but not enough to run away with the game.

Ultimately, OSU's demonstrated weaknesses will outweigh their strengths. USC will win by two scores.

Of course this is all given the assumption that Tressel & co have more up their sleeve than we know. But given Ohio State's recent record in "big" games, don't hold your breath. If the Buckeyes escape, it will be by 7 points or less.

Somebody Check the Temperature in Hell...

It was announced early yesterday that Verizon Wireless plans to open its network to "any apps, any device" in 2008. All I can say is it's about damn time.

What this means is that any company (heck, even any individual with the means) can produce devices for direct-to-consumer sales, provided that said devices meet the technical standards to be set forth by the carrier. This of course is welcome news to many technophiles out there. Many of us have a bit of a love/hate relationship with VZW in that while we love the wide coverage area and solid network performance, we hate Verizon's history of removing/disabling features from phones as well as replacing elegant manufacturer-designed interfaces with their own God-awful UI.

Now with this announcement Verizon has pledged to work with anyone who chooses to purchase a compatible phone from a source other than directly from the wireless company. New Android-powered über handset out? No problem. Just ask Verizon to activate the phone for you. What I wonder though is how much this would cost. Right now, customers in many places (maybe the whole country) are subject to a $20 charge just for activating a phone on their existing phone number (a process which basically entails the Verizon rep keying in the ESN/MEID of the phone to be activated, a process which takes about 30 seconds in most cases). Would this charge (and only this charge) apply? Time will tell. Let's just hope Verizon makes good on what could really be some truly pro-consumer pledges.

Ideally this could usher in a new era of competition and innovation among handset makers, which should result in more choice for Joe Consumer. Of course the downside is that device prices could be substantially higher (Verizon subsidizes the prices of the handsets it sells). Again, time will tell. I believe it will be quite some time before we see any great selection of available "open" phones on the market. I will be watching and waiting with great interest.

What Was That, Hart?

Today was going to be the day. The day that a stellar Michigan team, led by returning seniors Mike Hart, Jake Long, and Chad Henne as well as a slew of others was going to beat Ohio State. After years of sub-par performances and blown opportunities, they were finally going to kick the Buckeyes' asses. On their way to a BCS Championship game, no less.

At least, that's what today was supposed to be coming into this season. Hart Henne and Long stayed at UM for an extra year instead of entering the NFL draft because they had something to prove. They had things to accomplish. Above all, they had a score to settle.

Ah, what a difference 12 weeks have made. Michigan, after screwing the pooch in weeks 1 and 2, has capped off a mediocre season with a loss to their arch rivals in Scarlet and Grey.

Today's victory over the Wolverines tastes especially sweet given the trash talk coming from tailback Mike Hart ever since last year's loss to the Buckeyes. Running a measly 44 yards on 18 carries against a stout OSU defense, Hart delivered one of the worst performances of his career (and Michigan delivered one of their worst performances against the Buckeyes). Granted he isn't fully healthy and hasn't been for much of the season, but then again the same is true of Beanie Wells.

So now that it's over, what will Mike Hart have to say about today's game? I hope that for once, he may actually have learned to keep his mouth shut.

I believe this photo sums Hart's experience today perfectly. Eat it, Wolverines!