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!

Server Updates

The server has been updated once again, bringing you Album Languages, completely rewritten Guess Case functionality, fancy-looking input forms and a few bug fixes. Read on for the full change log…

The server has been updated once again, bringing you Album Languages,
completely rewritten Guess Case functionality, fancy-looking input forms
and a few bug fixes.

Read on for the full change log…

Continue reading “Server Updates”

Mailing List Summary: 2005-05-21

Summary of Recent Mailing List Discussions, compiled by Matthias Friedrich (yalaforge) and Alex Dupuy “Your weekly guide to the discussions on the MusicBrainz mailing lists.” AR: Covers and Composers AR: Vocal styles SURGE submissions ‘bot Testing of new server release Style Council founded Sortname style Style Council organization

Summary of Recent Mailing List Discussions, compiled by Matthias Friedrich (yalaforge) and Alex Dupuy

“Your weekly guide to the discussions on the MusicBrainz mailing lists.”

  • AR: Covers and Composers
  • AR: Vocal styles
  • SURGE submissions ‘bot
  • Testing of new server release
  • Style Council founded
  • Sortname style
  • Style Council organization

Continue reading “Mailing List Summary: 2005-05-21”

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”

Mailing List Summary: 2005-05-13

Summary of Recent Mailing List Discussions, compiled by Matthias Friedrich (yalaforge) and Stefan Kestenholz (g0llum) Too busy to keep up with the mailing lists? Try this summary! If people like these, they may become a regular feature (and probably get their own Blog category) Errors during FreeDB import AR instrument dropdown list improvements New release … Continue reading “Mailing List Summary: 2005-05-13”

Summary of Recent Mailing List Discussions, compiled by Matthias Friedrich (yalaforge) and Stefan Kestenholz (g0llum)

Too busy to keep up with the mailing lists? Try this summary! If people like these, they may become a regular feature (and probably get their own Blog category)

  • Errors during FreeDB import
  • AR instrument dropdown list improvements
  • New release type request – ‘Demo’
  • Album Languages and Scripts discussion
  • AR Documentation
  • Artists with ARs
  • FreeDB interface
  • Special countries for release dates
  • EAN/UPC codes
  • Miscellaneous

Continue reading “Mailing List Summary: 2005-05-13”