Saturday, 1 November 2008

November News

I know, I know. Many of you have been wondering if I am planning on putting out an update for the Remote Speakers Output Plug-In. There hasn't been any official news in months. Well, I have some news for you now on that front. I have been juggling around a lot of ideas lately: AppleTV support, synched remote playback, local playback, old firmware support, better laptop support, support for other players and even a full C++ rewrite!

So, let me fill you in on my plans for the short term. I am looking to create a version 2.3 with support for the AirPort Express 6.1.1 firmware, Bonjour 1.0.5 bundled and some other minor bug fixes. This should be out before the end of November.

6.1.1 is an older version of the Express firmware, but I get emails every now and then asking why I don't support it. The funny thing is, iTunes no longer supports it either. And for a long time I had no way to test against it because Expresses have shipped with 6.3 or newer firmware for a few years now. Well, as it turns out, I ran into a feature in the AirPort Utility that lets one upload an older version of the firmware to the AirPort Express. So I flashed one of my test boxes with 6.1.1 and went about seeing just what incompatibilities existed. As it turns out, I needed to make only a few minor changes to add back compatibility. So I did.

After 2.3 is released, I plan to get back to working on version 3.0, which should feature synched remote speakers playback and quite possibly AppleTV support (I finally got a chance to poke around with one for a weekend recently). I'm not sure if I plan on rewriting the plug-in using C++ for version 3.0 or if I will save that for 4.0. I have been spending a lot of time researching C++ recently and it has come a long way since I worked with it in school back in 1996. Upgrading from C to C++ has really given our development efforts at work a shot in the arm and I am hoping to see the same thing with Remote Speakers output.

Thanks to everyone who has purchased a license. Your enthusiasm and support is what keeps me going. Also, if there is something about the plug-in that doesn't work the way you would expect, post it in a comment here and maybe I can get your problem fixed before the 2.3 release is cut. I sort of lost track of my minor problmes list. And lastly, if you have purchased a license and not received an activation code or you have installed new hardware or operating system and your plug-in is asking for reactivation, don't forget to send me your site code in an email and I'll generate an activation code for you ASAP. More details on that can be found here and here.

Posted by emilles at 12:14 PM in Software
Responses (2)

Saturday, 19 April 2008

Remote Speakers Output Plug-In 2.2

As promised, here is the new release of the Remote Speakers Output Plug-In with support for the new AirPort Express with 802.11n base stations. I have tested the new base station with the plug-in for everyday playback, password-protection and remote control. If anyone runs into any situations that do not seem to be behaving, let me know.

Unfortunately, Apple TV support will have to wait a bit longer. I still haven't gotten a hold of a unit and I'm unsure whether that will go into a 2.3 or a 3.0 release. Stay tuned for more details.

Posted by emilles at 9:40 AM in Software
Responses (5)

Friday, 4 April 2008

New Airport Express model

It recently came to my attention that Apple has released a new version of the Airport Express. This particular model supports the newer and faster 802.11n wireless ethernet standard. I was very glad to hear of this because I thought Apple was phasing out the Express and this clearly confirms that they are not. At the same time, Apple changed the AirTunes protocol slightly and it turns out to be incompatible with the current version of the Remote Speakers Output Plug-In.

So, I marched down to my local Apple store to pick one up and scope out the differences. It didn't take me too long to make the necessary changes and get a development version of the plug-in up and running. In the process of looking into all of this, I also noticed that the Apple TV has recently added support for AirTunes as well. And so I'm going to see if I can borrow my friend's Apple TV and try to get the plug-in working with that too.

If anyone out there has purchased a new Airport Express with 802.11n and was thinking of using Remote Speakers output with it, send me an email or post a comment here with contact information. I'll send you a time-limited development version of the plug-in that should tide you over until I get a new release version cut.

Posted by emilles at 11:14 AM in Software
Responses (4)
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