Recently got a Nintendo DSi for my child and one of the first things she asked was for her music to be copied there.
Since the device does not read mp3 files, we had to get them converted to aac, despite the fact that they have to have the m4a extension.
ffmpeg does a great job for converting several file formats, so after some googling I got this one line to convert all the stuff in one folder:
for f in *.mp3; do echo $f ; ffmpeg -i "$f" -acodec aac -ab 256k "${f%mp3}m4a" 2>/dev/null ; done
And it works like a charm 
I own a really cheap MEMUP Wizzle video player. It plays regular mp3 files, but it’s not simple to get videos to run on it.
This device uses a AVI video compression codec (sherpya mencoder-mingw) with some strange options (version 1.0, based Xvid 1.1 video with 20 fps and audio codec 0×0050 mpeg1 layer 2, 44100khz and sample rate 128kbs)
After some research, I found that you can convert your videos easily with, surprise surprise, mencoder !
This works perfectly under Linux and even on other OSs (so said, I did not test it).
Here is the command line to convert a video:
mencoder -noodml INPUT_FILE -of avi -o OUTPUT_FILE.avi -ofps 20 -vf-add scale=320:240 -vf-add expand=320:240:-1:-1:1 -srate 44100 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=600:max_bframes=0:quant_type=h263:me_quality=4 -oac lavc -lavcopts acodec=mp2:abitrate=128
Replace INPUT_FILE and OUTPUT_FILE with the filenames you wish to convert from and to.
Thank you, Lord, hallelujah
You’ve been so good to me
Thank you, Lord, hallelujah
I’m grateful for my blessings
I’m grateful for my struggles
Trials and tribulations I’ve been through
I’ve realized no one can love like You do
Thank you, Lord, hallelujah
I feel your presence near
Thank you, Lord, hallelujah
I won’t hold back my tears
I gave you my trust
And you took me out of the dark rain
My Lord I survived it
I give You the praise
Lord, You’ve been so good
You’ve been so good to me
I’m so grateful for my blessings
Givin You all the praise
Lord, You’ve been so good
You’ve been so good to me
I’m grateful for all of my blessings
Giving You all the praise
Jesus loves me, oh yes He does
Jesus loves me, oh yes He does
Jesus loves me, oh yes He does
For the Bible tells me so
So… so, ohhh… so..
(My Jesus loves me, I know)
A-a-a-men, a-a-a-a-men
A-a-a-men, a-a-a-a-men
A-a-a-men, a-a-a-a-men
A-a-a-men, a-a-a-a-men
A popular song by Diane Warren, as a tribute to her father for his encouragement, that I tried to adapt as I prayer.
For all those times you stay by me
For all the truth that you make me see
For all the joy you bring to my life
For all the wrong that you make right
For every dream you make come true
For all the love I found in you
I’ll be forever thankful Lord
You’re the one who held me up
Never let me fall
You’re the one who sees me through it all
You are my strength when I am weak
You are my voice when I can’t speak
You are my eyes when I can’t see
You see the best there is in me
Lift me up when I can’t reach
You give me faith ‘coz you believe
I’m everything I am
Because you love me
You give me wings and make me fly
You touch my hand I could touch the sky
I lost my faith, you gave it back to me
You say no star is out of reach
You stay by me and I stay tall
I have your love I have it all
I’m grateful for each day you give me
Maybe I don’t know that much
But I know this much is true
I am blessed because you love me
You are always there for me
The tender wind that carries me
A light in the dark shining your love into my life
You are my inspiration
Through the lies you are the truth
My world is a better place because of you
I’m everything I am
Because you love me
Some friends have been asking me if the iPad could eventually replace my custom made Linux multimedia car system.
I reckon that the screen is nice an all, but can the iPad …
- Take Skype phone calls
- Automatically pause live radio (not just mute) when a call comes in
- Update the twitter account @linuxcar with what ever it is doing
- Bring up my current location on Google maps
- Update my current location on the web
- Allow free WiFi in the car
- Allow any other web devices in the neighborhood to control the multimedia
- Allow for a remote system to use the web interface
… all at the same time? No? Well, there is your answer.
Now, an Android based system like this might do it…