Saturday, 30 September 2006

Remote Speakers Output Plug-In 0.13

Lucky number 13...(fingers crossed). This is a momentous release of my AirTunes solution for Winamp and MediaMonkey. The Remote Speakers Output Plug-In has finally been refactored to decouple receiving audio data from the player and sending audio data to the remote speakers. Why is this important, you ask? Before I made this change, the responsiveness of the player was pretty bad because execution was held up in the output plug-in as soon as the buffer in the AirPort Express filled. Take a look at how poorly the spectrum analyzer updates with a previous version. Now, it should be back to normal—bouncing along with the music, as you would expect.

With this, the last major milestone I have set for the code, the plug-in is soon to be submitted to winamp.com for widespread distribution. I just need all of you to run this version and get back to me with any problems that may have been introduced by this large and complex change. Hopefully nothing major rears its ugly head, but please let me know right away if anything does.

So, on that note, thanks to all of you who have sent or will send comments and bug reports. I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel... Go download the new version of the plug-in and enjoy streaming music to your Apple AirPort Express. Cheers!

Posted by emilles at 3:12 PM in Software

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Sunday, 24 September 2006

A little weekend maintenance for the web server

I spent a few hours updating the web site this weekend. It was in need of a lot of attention. All of the following changes were made:

Updated blojsom from 2.30 to 2.32
Restored XHTML 1.1 compliance to all blog pages
Added HTML 4.01 Strict comliance to all pages I authored
Reduced complexity of main CSS stylesheet used on pages I authored
Incorporated YUI reset and fonts CSS stylesheets on pages I authored
Added page counter to footer of all blog pages
Added Google AdSense ads to template for blog entries
Added security code CAPTCHA to blog comment form
Enabled email of new comments to myself for immediate approval/deletion
Enabled comment moderation so only approved comments appear
Separated Remote Speakers Output Plug-In screenshots out onto separate page
Added screenshot of Remote Speakers Output Plug-In configuration dialog
Moved Remote Speakers Output Plug-In FAQ and Screenshots pages into out_apx directoty

Posted by emilles at 12:43 PM in Stuff

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Tuesday, 5 September 2006

Remote Speakers Output Plug-In 0.12

Well, I got the itch and decided to work a little over Labor Day weekend. Here is the latest and greatest Remote Speakers Output Plug-In for Winamp and MediaMonkey. Did I ever mention that I love AirTunes? The biggest change is the addition of the remote speaker selection submenu to the menubar for Modern Skins, as demonstrated by this screen capture:

Also in this build, I have added support for per-user configuration, fixed a few small details like eliminating the connect dialog "flicker" when a connection can be established quickly, which is the most common scenario. And I have increased performance a little by using a lighter-weight process synchronization construct. Enough technobabble already...if your interested, you can see all the changes made for this release in the complete history file and the source code.

I am listening and respondig to your comments and suggestions. Next on the list is to provide asynchronous writing to the AirPort Express so visualization doesn't get so choppy due to the use of blocking (i.e. synchronous) I/O. Keep those comments—and compliments—streaming in. And please don't forget to click on an advert or two now and again... Cheers!

Posted by emilles at 10:15 PM in Software