I'm heading off to college in a few months, and I'm leaving a server behind so my family can access all the movies/ music i have. my friends intend to do the same except they intend to add to it.
I'm working on getting a vpn set up so i can just run a samba share between my ubuntu desktop and laptop. the desktop will be simple enough because it ll have its own local copy. however i would like my laptop to run off this magical vpn server some 1000 miles away. i have been able to set up music sharing under media devices, and that works for now. but i would like to be able to have the collection stored remotely. does anyone have any ideas on how to do this. ( the vpn server is windows for compatibilities sake)

This sounds like something great for Ampache (http://ampache.org), which is built into Amarok 2!

But if you want something more immediate, if you can just mount your samba folder in the VFS.. then you can add it to your collection like a normal folder.