Author: ruaok

What's up PayPal??

I’m now over two weeks behind in posting the finances for June — please bear with me, while I battle PayPal a bit. I’ve been using their export to QuickBooks feature to download the transactions for all the donations we’ve been receiving. But, for some unknown reason, that option is no longer available — only … Continue reading “What's up PayPal??”

I’m now over two weeks behind in posting the finances for June — please bear with me, while I battle PayPal a bit. I’ve been using their export to QuickBooks feature to download the transactions for all the donations we’ve been receiving. But, for some unknown reason, that option is no longer available — only export to tab/comma delimited files, and QuickBooks can’t import those files.

I’d have to write a converter that takes CSV files and translates them into quickbooks files — something I am trying to avoid. Thus I am waiting for a reply back from PayPal about what’s going on.

If this is not resolved by next week, I’ll go write the script and get our finances back on track.

UPDATE: PayPal permanently removed this feature, with no explanation as to why — I guess we join the ranks of people who have gotten screwed by PayPal. I just wish they would’ve notified me. Grrr.

Picard 0.5.0-test2 released!

With much help from Lukas Lalinsky and Dave Evans, we’ve finally managed to scrape together the next picard release. The highlights for this release are: Full UNICODE support on all supported platforms. Tags and filenames are now read and written with the proper encoding support. ID3v2.3 AND ID3v2.4 support — selectable in the options dialog. … Continue reading “Picard 0.5.0-test2 released!”

With much help from Lukas Lalinsky and Dave Evans, we’ve finally managed to scrape together the next picard release. The highlights for this release are:

  • Full UNICODE support on all supported platforms. Tags and filenames are now read and written with the proper encoding support.
  • ID3v2.3 AND ID3v2.4 support — selectable in the options dialog.
  • Increased stability
  • A more rounded feature set
  • Tons of bug fixes
  • UI improvements
  • Built on top of a release version of wxWidgets, for greater stability
  • New windows installer

Downloads:

Continue reading “Picard 0.5.0-test2 released!”

Picard update

I know that a lot of people have been waiting for the next release of Picard. Fortunately, I’ve been working on it — unfortunately its taking me a bit of time to get to the next release. In order to get end-to-end UNICODE support in Picard, a number of serious changes were required to the … Continue reading “Picard update”

I know that a lot of people have been waiting for the next release of Picard. Fortunately, I’ve been working on it — unfortunately its taking me a bit of time to get to the next release. In order to get end-to-end UNICODE support in Picard, a number of serious changes were required to the underlying libtunepimp library.

The good news is that these massive changes are nearly done. The bad news is that the application will probably no longer run on Win 9x and Me — the UNICODE support in those two OSes is too weak. And the one thing I want to get right with this release is the UNICODE support. It is exciting to see Picard writing Cyrillic filenames — that’s for sure.

I’m trying to finish up the app in the next few days — stay tuned.

MusicBrainz Tagger reviewed in the Washington Post

The Washington Post covered the MusicBrainz Tagger in their weekend edition (reg required): MusicBrainz does this by computing a music file’s digital fingerprint, based on its length and acoustic properties, then seeing if it can find a match in a growing online database of songs. The program will then work its magic, even reporting its … Continue reading “MusicBrainz Tagger reviewed in the Washington Post”

The Washington Post covered the MusicBrainz Tagger in their weekend edition (reg required):

MusicBrainz does this by computing a music file’s digital fingerprint, based on its length and acoustic properties, then seeing if it can find a match in a growing online database of songs. The program will then work its magic, even reporting its confidence in less-than-exact matches. It was right in most of our tests, even when it reported that a song’s fingerprint matched only 55 percent of a title in the database.

Just wait until they see Picard… Speaking of which, I’m supposed to be working on that right now.

Don't buy from compu-terra.com!

The week before last I started the process of purchasing a new computer for the new MetaBrainz office, so I ordered a motherboard combo, memory and a case from compu-terra.com. For the first 24 hours nothing happened and then they called me to upsell me better memory. Wherever Joe and David came from, I can … Continue reading “Don't buy from compu-terra.com!”

The week before last I started the process of purchasing a new computer for the new MetaBrainz office, so I ordered a motherboard combo, memory and a case from compu-terra.com. For the first 24 hours nothing happened and then they called me to upsell me better memory. Wherever Joe and David came from, I can tell you that those were not their original names — I couldn’t understand a word of the upsell, so I asked them to send me a link to the site that described the memory they were upselling.

6 hours later I got mail describing the memory, but no link to their site. They whole thing started to sound fishy, so I declined. Then they said they’d give me the better memory for free — as long as I gave them a good review. Foolishly I went for that, just to be done with it — I figured that I wouldn’t be getting any better RAM, since I couldn’t identify either the RAM I ordered nor the better RAM.

Then 3 days passed and the parts still had not shipped. I called up and asked what was up — they said the order was shipping that day. The next morning I still didn’t have a tracking number, so I decided that I was fed up and cancelled the order. I told them to cancel the order and that I’d stay on the line while they credited my PayPal debit card. They proceeded to cancel the order and then hang up on me. I called back, once again demanding to have my card credited right then, and they told me it would take 24 – 48 hours to credit the card and then they hung up on me AGAIN.

So I waited 48 hours and no credit showed. No phones were being answered — all I got were full voicemail boxes. I told myself to wait until monday (today) before dealing with this again, and this morning the credit showed up. Finally. I guess I got lucky this time…

So, the moral of the story is: DON’T BUY FROM COMPU-TERRA.COM!

Questions about the MetaBrainz launch

Matthew Exon asked a few great questions about the MetaBrainz Foundation launch, and I wanted to share my answers with everyone here on this blog: On Apr 19, 2005, at 3:58 AM, Matthew Exon wrote: > Congratulations! This is certainly a big step for MusicBrainz, and I’m > sure it gives all of us a … Continue reading “Questions about the MetaBrainz launch”

Matthew Exon asked a few great questions about the MetaBrainz Foundation launch, and I wanted to share my answers with everyone here on this blog:

On Apr 19, 2005, at 3:58 AM, Matthew Exon wrote:

> Congratulations! This is certainly a big step for MusicBrainz, and I’m

> sure it gives all of us a greater feeling of confidence and

> responsibility about the whole project.

Thanks — I’m glad to hear that. I’m trying to project that on a much larger scale. To the point where corporations get that sense too.

> The teasers on the test MetaBrainz page over the last couple of weeks

> have raised some questions for me, so this is my chance to ask if you

> could clarify some of them for me. I don’t expect full dissertations

> to

> turn up on the MetaBrainz site overnight, and I guess it would be

> prudent for you not to respond to some things here, but you might be

> interested to know what questions occur to this punter in the street.

Do you mind if I post this response to the MB blog? Your questions a excellent and until I can have a fully articulated position on the licenses, I’d like to have something to refer to.

Continue reading “Questions about the MetaBrainz launch”

MusicBrainz Meeting: London, May 7th

The next MusicBrainz meeting will be in London, this saturday evening: Where: Old Thameside Inn (map) When: Saturday May 7th, 6pm Who: You! Why: It is fun meeting other brainerz I will probably show up at 5pm, if not earlier, to try and set aside some space for us. Anyone who wants to come a … Continue reading “MusicBrainz Meeting: London, May 7th”

The next MusicBrainz meeting will be in London, this saturday evening:

  • Where: Old Thameside Inn (map)
  • When: Saturday May 7th, 6pm
  • Who: You!
  • Why: It is fun meeting other brainerz

I will probably show up at 5pm, if not earlier, to try and set aside some space for us. Anyone who wants to come a bit early and help me set aside space would be welcome! If you’re interesting in making it and would like to get my mobile #, please drop me a line and I’ll mail it to you.

See you there!

MusicBrainerz Meeting: Amsterdam

The meeting in A’dam is on for tomorrow: Where: In front of the Dam Monument, facing the Palace When: 19:00 What: Chat about MusicBrainz, have a beer Who: Anyone who can make it Send me mail and I will send you my mobile # so we can make sure to hook up. If its raining, … Continue reading “MusicBrainerz Meeting: Amsterdam”

The meeting in A’dam is on for tomorrow:

  • Where: In front of the Dam Monument, facing the Palace
  • When: 19:00
  • What: Chat about MusicBrainz, have a beer
  • Who: Anyone who can make it

Send me mail and I will send you my mobile # so we can make sure to hook up. If its raining, lets meet in front of Hotel Krasnapolsky.

Virtuosa/FunVibes sponsors MusicBrainz

I’m pleased to announce that FunVibes, the makers of the Virtuosa all-in-one jukebox program have sponsored the MusicBrainz project. FunVibes made a $1500 sponsorship contribution to the MetaBrainz Foundation during our first fundraiser. In exchange for this sponsorship, we’re going to have a Virtuosa jukebox button on the MusicBrainz website for six months. MusicBrainz will … Continue reading “Virtuosa/FunVibes sponsors MusicBrainz”

I’m pleased to announce that FunVibes, the makers of the Virtuosa all-in-one jukebox program have sponsored the MusicBrainz project. FunVibes made a $1500 sponsorship contribution to the MetaBrainz Foundation during our first fundraiser. In exchange for this sponsorship, we’re going to have a Virtuosa jukebox button on the MusicBrainz website for six months. MusicBrainz will also now receive affiliate fees for sales of the Virtuosa jukebox generated through the MusicBrainz web site.

Giacomo Bondi Morra, the CEO of FunVibes will also join the MetaBrainz Foundations advisory board, which will be formally created later this year. Finally, FunVibes has issued a press release announcing the sponsorship of MusicBrainz. This extra press will help MusicBrainz gain more exposure for its ongoing fundraiser. (I’ll post a link to the release once I get one)

We hope to bring on more sponsors like FunVibes in order to get the non-profit bootstrapped and on solid financial footing.