Blog

Nov 7 2007 - Catastrophic server upgrade

So i upgraded the sever to Leopard and NOW I HAVE NO FUCKING MAIL! Sorry, there is simply no way to email me. DAM DAM DAM DAM!!! I've lost ALL emails sent to me in the last 3 days, with no way to get them back. And I still don't have email. this is the suckiest upgrade ever. Update: It's back. Sadly I lost all mail sent between Nov 5 and Nov 7. If you sent me an email during that time, please resend!! Up-Update: Okay shifting the blame now: it's not Leopard at all, in fact Leopard has been great. It seems Comcast (our favorite ISP) has taken the opportunity to block port 25, both incoming and outgoing (that mean email for you non-techies). Well, you know what I say to you Comcast? I say FUCK YOU Comcast! I'm switching to Verizon (i know i know, the "other" evil empire, but at least they won't block me). New fiber to be installed next thursday YAY!

Aug 25, 2007 - Meta Mania & a new Bug Reporter

You may have noticed you can now right click on the Column Headers and get a list of meta data columns that you can add and/or remove at your whim! This is starting to kick some serious ass! Very soon you'll be able to add *customized* columns that show whatever *you* decide, you won't be limited to picking ONLY the ones i've included! Also up soon is using Aliases in the database rather than file paths, so your songs will be much more immune from getting lost if you rename or move them!

This just in: I've added a new Bug Reporter!! Please use that to report bugs and request features!!!

July 11, 2007 - OMG Remote Control

I love my iPhone!

April 27, 2007 - More Meta

The next release will see the first real overhaul of how I handle meta-data internally. In the past the meta data was stored in custom coded "instance variables" directly in the song object. Now i've written a generic data handler based on key-value pairs, and all the meta is now stored inside this container. This probably doesn't mean anything to you non-programmer types, but what it means for me is: i can now very easily add any kind of data to a song (or a playlist, or playlist item, or whatever) without having to write tons of custom code to support it. Coming up next is the ability to show columns for each type of data: currently, the columns you see in the browser are hand coded, that means to add a column i have to write a ton of support code for each individual column, a major hassle. In the new scheme, I can use a single generic column handler for ANY type of data. You probably don't care, but it's a pretty big deal to me. Warning: this is bound to introduce new bugs.

Jan 30, 2007 - The First Fruit

The first fruit of the overhaul is real ID3 meta tag management. This now means, eg: when you're doing "add to library" that there is no need to do interpretation, it just "knows". Also, when you edit meta info, the tags in the files are updated. For good measure i've thrown in VorbisComments and QuickTimeMeta handling as well. Handling arbitrary meta data per item has to come before arbitrary custom columns in the browser view, to give you something to view in the first place! :D

Jan 9, 2007 - I've started the big push

Okay i've been procrastinating this whole database overhaul long enough. I've started designing the new database. This one includes arbitrary customizable meta data per whatever (song, singer, playlist, CD, iPod, Venue, Rotation, etc etc), arbitrary custom columns per list, instant sorting, playlists of playlists, ie: folders, singers can have multiple favorites / burn lists, the Venues list living inside the Sources list, the list of every CD you've ever stuck in your computer living in the Sources list, never ever again get the "PLI Index map out of date" nor ID conflicts, ability to edit meta info any time, even before during after a rip, get and submit from freedb even without the CD in the drive, plus plus plus. And some cool things that are still under wraps, related to "filler" sequencing. This will take a long time.

Dec 15, 2006 - You do not have the POWER!

Yeah we lost power last night around 10pm, was out until about 12:30 in the afternoon today. The server, of course, was down.

Nov 3, 2006 - QuickTime coming soon

I'm hard at work on incorporating real QuickTime export for CDGs and import while ripping. For export this means the ability to export to any QuickTime type, including 3G, iPod, MPEG4 etc etc, and you can create as many "preset" output options as you like, and simply pick from your list when you want to change the type. My plan is to make KJ AppleScriptable, so you can easily request it spit out a song in a format at a location. For ripping, it means you'll finally be able to rip in AIFF, AAC, WAV, (in addition to LAME MP3), and i'll be dropping support for "rip with iTunes". Same story there about how you can set up all the presets you like and just pick one quickly.

Also, kJams is now available 日本翻訳. Go get it! (same download) Update: QuickTime is here.

Oct 3, 2006 - Multilingual

this is a test:
<multilang> @en Text in english @fr Texte en français @de In Deutsch @jp 日本翻訳 </multilang>

July 25, 2006 - Updated Site

Finally huge thanks to Bradley, who got the web site updated to use Wiki 1.7.1 and Forums 2.0.21.

July 19, 2006 - Cool New Features

Oh recently I added the ability to import and play many QuickTime movie types, including KAR and MIDI, with pitch bending. Also new: when you burn a CD+G disc, your pitch changes are burnt to the disc.

June 12, 2006 - Universal Binary done!

It's official. 1.0d43r6 is the first official Universal Binary. Go get it!

May 15, 2006 - Update on the Universal Binary

I'm back from my vacation. I went to Japan, Las Vegas and Hawai'i! Japan pix are already posted.

There are 4 things that stand in the way of the Universal Binary:

1. Convert to XCode and get compiling and running (Very Hard)
2. the LAME Framework & Quicktime Component (Moderately Hard)
3. the burning plugin (easy)
4. eSellerate (Time consuming but otherwise easy)
5. the inevitable Bugs (Time consuming)

You'll be happy to know that 1 and 2 and 3 are DONE!!! Yes, today you can download the Universal Binary of the LAME Installer. What's left is the farkin' eSellerate update, they require you to use a whole new format, so I have to go and read a buncha manuals and learn a whole new system, and get that integrated grrrrr. So it could still be a coupla weeks. The Burning Plugin, i'm sure you've known, has been done for a while, I just haven't gotten eSellerate integrated, glad I didn't even start now that I know i have to use a whole new system.

May 6, 2006 - I'm Psyched

Well, if you're paying attention you will have seen I've passed thru my doldrums. I'm still on vacation tho, so it won't be full swing 'till i get back. Just thought you'd like to know if you didn't already. You can keep finer-grain tabs on my mood by watching the Version History page.

Mar 28, 2006 - I'm tired

You may have noticed i've been a little slow to respond lately. And slow to fix bugs. Well, truth be told, I'm tired. I miss my wife on the nights I program, I need more hugs, and I've been feeling that more lately. And I just wish I had a dozen people to help me work on kJams, but it's all me and only me, and it's lonely. And I'm just a little burned out. I'm not finished, not by a long shot, but I just thought I'd let you know what the story is so you don't think i fell off the earth. So it'll be maybe slow going for a bit. But my programming attention comes in waves, been that way for years. So you can expect it to pick up again eventually.

Mar 18, 2006 - Fixed those crashers, and GigaBit ethernet

Well, you'll *all* be relieved to know that i've finally gotten a solution to those spurrious crashers related to the Spooler. I've completed my proof of concept code, and it works. I'll be working this sunday (tomorrow) to fully implement it and hope for a release sunday night! Other good news, mostly for me, is I now have my GigaBit ethernet switch in place, so my network is running at full speed. I'm not sure you'll see such an improvement (my outbound signal is limited to 768 kbps or something 346 kbps), but boy my LAN just screams now.

Mar 13, 2006 - New XServe up and running!

It's unusual for me to have so many blog entries, but i'm just SO stoked! The web site wiki is much faster now. Note i'm still on running 10baseT net gear, I get my GigaBit switch in a few days, so that might help a little too. And my favorite news of today is i finally fixed that audio stuttering bug! If you've got an older system, even 500 MHz, NO audio pops or stutter any more!

Mar 9, 2006 - New Computers

Tonight is my programming night, i hope to fix the ripping bug and the crash-hang on quit bug. Meanwhile, I just bought an intel dual MacMini, so the universal binary of kJams isn't far away, and *my* favorite news is I just got a Dual 2.3 G5 XServe to run the site. After this weekend you can expect much faster page load times.

Feb 23, 2006 - Update

Well, as most of you are probably aware, I had a pretty lame release recently, just a kajillion bugs and so many crashes. So i've been in panic mode (along with the rest of you trying to run shows) for the past month. I am praying to the Code Gods that i can get these bugs under control and release a stable version for you all. Needless to say this fiasco has put Burning on hold, I can't take the time to work on it while so many of you are unable to run your shows!

Jan 18, 2006 - More Burning News and Bugs

Frackin' fantastic news on the Burning front: I've actually successfully burned my first Karaoke CD!! Yes! You heard it here first! The thing frickin' works!!! Now it'll take me a few weeks to package it up in a nice user interface, but the point is, Burning is now FOR REAL and is no longer just a hope! Unrelatedly: I've fixed a dozen bugs or so but there's one left that I feel must be quashed before making another release. Sooooon!!

Jan 14, 2006 - Burning News and Bugs

Good news on the Burning front, i've got enough info from Apple to start building the burning plugin. Bad news is there are a slew of "thread" bugs in the current release. They appear as spurrious crashes that seem unrelated. I'm presently mutexifying and serializing everything

Jan 12, 2006 - New server installation up and running

Well THAT didn't go as smoothly as I had hoped. Gall Durn! If anything could possibly theoretically go wrong, it WILL go wrong, that's like a law or something. But I persevered, pushed, kept marching on, tried plan B, C, D and EFG, and I can finally say, the server is "back", completely, *AND* I have a verified, working, complete backup. I took this vacation to *work* on kJams, but i've spent probably HALF of it dealing with the frackin' server!! Yeeesh! Brad thinks it could be bad RAM, which *would* explain everything, actually.

Jan 10, 2006 - re-installing the server today

My 2 new drives are "out for delivery" right now. I've put the server onto the iMac, this means slow server performance for today. Normally it runs on my Titanium 15" PowerBook, but i'm using that right now to do installs (it has a DVD drive, the iMac does not). Anyway, the server should be back to it's "normal" speed tonight. One day I'll get an XServe. mmmmmmmmmmmm

Jan 8, 2006 - Brand new installation coming

I just bought 2 new firewire 7200 rpm drives, one for the server and one as a backup. When they arrive tomorrow I'm going to do a clean fresh install from scratch (shudder) of the entire web site, and keep a running backup. I've been using these Notebook drives and they just seem to fail too often.

Jan 7, 2006 - Mail limping along

Thanks to my Favorite Person In The World™ Bradley, my mail box has been resurrected. I am now getting mail again directly from my server. That same day my friend Nik helped fixed the bug reporter. Since the 4th i have not been able to get bug reports due to the failure of my mailbox. Now both problems have been resolved.

Jan 4, 2006 - Catastrophic Server Failure

I had the server's HD go bad on me tonight. Just wouldn't boot. I rebooted from the 10.4 Server Installer CD and it said "this disk is reporting hardware failue" and it refused to work with it. Dam. So I pulled it out and plugged it into my WiebeTech Notebook DriveDock, and was able to mount it, so I CarbonCopyClone'd it to another drive, and that's what's running now. But the wiki broke complaining about some SQL files needing to be restored from a backup, luckily there were some sitting right there, so I put them in and it seems to work. Not so fast with my mail authentication. I don't know what to do there so for now i'm forwarding to another account. It may be a few days before I can get back to real work here.