Subsonic

Thanks to mobile multimedia devices and smart phones, we can play our music wherever we go. Unfortunately, these devices have a limited storage capacity, which prevents us from taking our entire library with us. If you want to hear your music almost anywhere you go, then you should definitely turn to Subsonic. It gives you the possibility of streaming audio files from your computer over the Internet. If you leave your home computer running, you will be able to play your music on other machines or on mobile devices from anywhere in the world, as long as you have an Internet connection.

The application provides a web-based user interface, which you can access on your preferred browser, through an icon on the menu bar or manually, by typing "http://localhost:4040" in the browser's address bar. A user account is required to access the interface. When running Subsonic for the first time, you can log into a default account, by typing "admin" in both the username and password fields. Once you have access to the application's main controls, you may change the password and create additional accounts, with different privileges.

The web interface is split into various sections, in which you can manage playlists, share them, create podcasts and much more. Before streaming your music, you have to specify the location of one or more audio folders, in the general settings section. The contents of the selected media folders are listed on the left side of the interface, along with options for playing, queuing or downloading the files. Playlists can be created or imported in the same area of the interface. Queued files are displayed in the lower region of the window, where you can select them and perform various actions, like saving the queue as a playlist, sharing the files, sending them to an existing playlist and more.

Besides playing, editing, downloading or exporting a playlist, sharing it is another possibility. The application allows you to share your playlist on Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus, but you can also share it via direct link, if you register an address in the general settings section. Shared media files can be reviewed in the same section, where you can unshare them or set them to expire automatically after a week, month or year.