Mac|Life - June 2009

2Fire It Up

Launch Simplify Media, and follow the prompts to set up an account. Write down your username and password, because you’ll use this info when you set up Simplify Media on the devices you’ll be streaming the music to.

On the next screen, you can ignore the Display Name and Email Address fields for now (the Email field may come in handy if you want to invite friends later—see step 7). In the Computer Name field, enter a nickname like HomeMac or WorkMac.

Remember this login info.

Yes, I know, my collection is huge.

3Share It The next screen asks you how much you want to share—only certain playlists, your whole i Tunes library, or even your whole Music folder. If your selection is large, it’ll give you a warning that the setup could take a little while.

4Check It Once everything is set up, Simplify Media gives you a few screens of instructions to read and click through, and then all you’ll see when the app is running is the Media List window, which should show your account name and the library you’re sharing, with a green bar next to it to show that it’s available.

The Media List window is just what it sounds like.

5Set Up Another Now it’s time to download and install Simplify Media on the machines that you want to stream this shared music to. Switch to the Login tab since you already have an account, and log in with the username and password you set up in step 2. You can share this machine’s library too, if you want, but it’s not required. You can use your Simplify Media to log in on up to 5 devices, and the app is available for computers running Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux.