FeedTune
Wednesday, September 6, 2006, 01:28 PM
The new site is underway and is a complete (read: total) overhaul. I have been working a couple weeks on and off and still have quite a way to go. But, I figure it's time that I put a little bit out there so people can see what is coming. I have some screenshots of the rough interface. You will be able to see some formatting problems and a lot of other issues, but my style of working is to work on a lot of things all at the same time. I work a little on something and then move on to something else. It keeps things more interesting.Ok, on to the screenshots.
Artist View
This is the view that each artist gets. An artist can have any number of albums and tracks that all collapse into here. You can write a review, rate a track to add it to your recommendations feed, or download it directly from here. There is a lot missing like artist watches, historical edits, and a lot of other things.
Browse
This is a really rough spot for now. I intend to add a nice interface for paging through the songs, but for now it's just a list.
Recommendations
I have built a weighted slope-one algorithm to do item-based comparisons on tracks that have been rated by you and tracks that have been rated by others. Using this algorithm and your historical data I can predict what you would rate a track. The more you rate, the better this algorithm gets (to a point, then it hit's the long tail effect). Still needs some tweaking though...
Submit MP3
To submit a track to FeedTune you merely copy the url into this box and hit go.
ID3 Information
The system takes the url you gave and goes out to get the song. It caches all the ID3 information for that track and prepopulates all the information you need. If it's wrong, you can correct it, but if the ID3 info is right, you won't have to. If the artist exists it will link it all together and add a new album if needed. If not, it will do what's needed to add it all. It's pretty effortless to add anything to FeedTune. I added 15 tracks in about 5 minutes one night.
Album Art
FeedTune interfaces with Amazon.com to pull down album art for any artist. If the album art is shown, you can just click it to attach it to the album. If it isn't shown, you have to option to upload your own.
These are just a few of the features of FeedTune that are coming down the road. This project is alive and going strong. Just wanted to get an update out there.
2 comments 
Wrapping up.
Saturday, August 12, 2006, 12:23 AM
Well, my job wrapped up today and I will be moving back Sunday. It's nice to finally have a bit of closure, but I really will miss my job and this place. There have been a lot of ups and downs this summer, but I wouldn't trade any of it for the world.Now that I won't be pulling 15 hour days at work I should have more time to work on any of the hundreds of things I have wanted to do for the past few years. Things I have never had a chance to do before. I'm already making a list and at the top of that list is the reboot for this site.
I am still torn on my use of technology for the coming redesign, but I decided recently to try to build up my php skills again. Last weekend I built up a search engine and web crawler in mysql and php. Mysql full-text is pathetic compared to MS SQL. No stemming or support for thesauruses. Oh well.
Tonight I was listening to an old episode of Security Now (#31) about symmetric stream ciphers and I thought it would be a nice little project to build a SSC algorithm. Basically, a SSC is a 100% un-crackable encryption algorithm made with psuedo-random generators that uses a one-time pad to decode it. Your person on the other end has to have the key it generates to decode it, but no one else can. It's the same algorithm the Nazis used in WWII to encrypt all their messages to the u-boats.
I loaded it up on here and feel free to play with it. It takes a pretty limited set of input characters, but most sentences with basic punctuation should work. I built it in about an hour (in under 20 lines of code!), so it'll probably fall apart in 5 minutes, but I think it's fun.
Anyway, I will be out of commission for the following few days, but things should even out mid-week. Hopefully I can get a new server/domain set up and get a developer blog to move my rants and musings over there.
Hasta la Vista... Vista.
Sunday, July 16, 2006, 06:13 PM
After nearing 100,000 hits in 10 months I am getting tired of the blog idea. The traffic shows that there is interest in creative commons or legally-distributed music, however, and I am not going to throw in the towel just yet. I have been working my tail off at my consulting job for the past 2 months, but I haven't given up on the idea of revamping the site.
The first idea was to reboot the css and add an admin interface tailored to my needs that would simplify the addition of new content. This however doesn't reduce my work, just makes it easier. Besides, this crappy blog uses flat files and not a database and that is unacceptable.
The next idea was to build out a new app that would keep the same format, but would allow me to ditch the flat files and customize the design to work around an artist->album->track hierarchical structure instead of a blog-based timeline structure (Posted @ 12:27 on July 4th). I also considered building a userbase of a few, trusted moderators to handle posting. This is what I was thinking last time I posted.
Since then the vision has changed a bit. Ok, changed a lot. I'm not going to give too many details, but it will be moving to a community-moderated design that will allow a much more interactive approach to defining your tastes and collection. All post, all mod, all benefit.
There are a lot of technical details to layout, but my requirements list is fairly well built out for a version 1 app. The stage I am in right now is the choice of technology to utilize. I am currently working in ASP/MSSQL and i hate it. I hate ASP for ruining my php and being a sick, old language. However, I do love SQL Server and see it as an ideal platform for production usage. It may not be a viable choice for me as I do not intend to develop on any other MS technology and have no easy way of setting up a production environment running linux and getting a Server 2003 unit plugged in anywhere. My choice of framework may reduce some of my perceived benefits of MSSQL, however.
I have avoided laying out my DB schema for the past week as I am investigating using Ruby on Rails to develop (or I'm just lazy). What I really love about RoR is the migration abilities and the capability it has to layout DB schemas in ruby. This would allow me to version the database along with the code and roll forward or backwards in time. I like the idea of the RoR framework, but still do not know enough about it to really know if it fits my needs yet. Really, I have a lot to learn about MVC frameworks in general (It's not something the really get into in Graphic Design 2). I have also looked into Django as I have some (limited) experience in Python, but do not see the same community activity that RoR enjoys. Also, I have investigate Symphony, but quickly turned away after seeing some benchmarks. Not production-ready IMO.
So, it's a tossup between RoR and standard php. My existing php skills can build this app. If I do RoR I need to learn MVC and Ruby at the same time.
At the very least I need to reboot this CSS (getting sick of pinstripes) and move servers (flat files aren't THAT slow).
Sorry for all the technical info. I just had to tell someone...
PS. If anyone has any input or experience with rails or other MVC frameworks, shoot me an email.
Imogen Heap
Sunday, July 16, 2006, 05:42 PM
OK, it's time to post. I'll start with the music and move on to some technical stuff and my vision of where this is going to go is going in another post.
"Hide and Seek" basically makes Imogen's latest Solo Album for me, as I am a bigger fan of George's work with her in Frou Frou. Basically, I think Speak for Yourself is an overproduced mess and a great example of artists doing it 'because they can'. Little beeps and arpeggios and clicks and anything else you can throw in just end up getting in the way of the music and "Hide and Seek" is the oasis of that album. (And what is that "I am in Love with You" song all about? Bleck.) Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, but I have a bit of pent up aggression to get out here.
After positively wearing out my iPod on "Hide and Seek" I found this "remix" of it. It adds some tasteful strings and brings a new angle to the direction without really destroying its simplicity. It's not perfect, but it is something different. And... being a remix, it's legal to distribute! All hail the vocoder!
Artist - Imogen Heap (kinda)
Song - Hide And Seek (kinda)
Album - Speak For Yourself (kinda)
Genre - happiness
Artist Page - imogenheap.co.uk (warning: annoying site)
Ich bin umgezogen.
Wednesday, June 7, 2006, 05:19 PM
Well, things have been going fast lately and since last post I:1. Graduated
2. Moved home
3. Hiked a portion of the Appalachian Trail
4. Accepted a consulting job in another part of the state
5. Moved out of home
6. Moved into a duplex in an unfamilar place
All-in-all, I have been busy.
I have some things to post now that it is slowing down again, but unfortunately I do not have internet yet. I should have a line run by the end of the week so I'll be up and running with full capacity next week. I don't think I want to upload an mp3 file over my phone right now...
Nonetheless, just an update and a promise to be back online in the near future.
Bottle it up, boys.
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