If, by now, you've accumulated enough digital music to make travelling something you treat delicately, it may be time for the next innovative technology: Accessing your music library from anywhere that's connected.
Apple and Amazon peddle this as the frontier they're pioneering.
Instead of waiting for the marketing, engineering, security, and contract negotiations to come together, give some consideration to a free and customizable alternative that grants you the authority and autonomy you deserve: Ampache.
Ampache is a free and open source media-streaming server that supports transcoding, depends on negligible hardware resources, and is accessible by web or smart-phone client.
Relying simply on a web server (I use Apache2), PHP5, and MySQL server, Ampache provides a secure but easy-to-navigate web interface for managing, administering, and selecting audio streams.
In addition, several free alternative interfaces have emerged from the software community, including a Ruby-base command line interface, a Python GUI interface called Viridian, and iAmpache for iOS. Clients for Palm and Android provide access to your music library from anywhere you'll find cell service.
Moreover, Ampache is well documented and well-supported on IRC by a very committed, knowledgeable, and friendly community.
If your digital music collection has been accumulating since 1996 to the point that preparing for a road trip is longer than the actual trip, don't wait for Apple or Amazon to provide a proprietary subscription service. Ampache is a FOSS solution that values flexibility and your autonomy.
