date:20100803


garym;566214 Wrote: 
   Also, any thoughts on what sort of bad things will happen when my
 vortexbox loses power unexpectedly ... And I'm new to linux systems. On
 my windows machine, it just goes off, reboots, and I'm back in business.  All 
 computers have done that since Windows NT.  Only machines that
could lose data due to an unexpected power off were Windows 95/ME
vintage machines.  Today, power off must never damage saved software. 
And unexpected power off - even 50 years ago - must never damage
electronic hardware.

UPS serves only one function - to provide temporary power so that you
can save unsaved data.   So that you need not be interrupted by the
power loss.


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Re: [slim] Quality loss with ReplayGain?

2010-08-03 Thread cliveb


Teus de Jong;566160 Wrote: 
 Clive, I hope I understand your reasoning. As I understand it, this
 means that with an album peak level of 0.9, the positive gain will be
 at most 0.92, even if the RG of the album is +3.
 [snip]
 Album Volume Adjustment: 3.24 dB (1.62 dB to prevent clipping)
 So, if I set the digital volume to 90 there would be room to apply the
 +3.24 dB, but even then only +1.62 is applied. Is this sound reasoning?
In the Squeezebox world, yes. That's just the way RG is implemented on
Squeezeboxes.

Other players might be intelligent enough to factor in the additional
headroom available when digital attenuation is in force, although I
don't know of any that do.

I get the impression that Squeezebox Server is in possession of all the
necessary data to do this (file peak level, RG gain, SB volume setting),
so I'd have thought it ought to be fairly easy to implement. But
Logitech's engineers might have reasons for not doing so (other than
the obvious one that they can't be bothered). The peculiar behaviour of
the volume control I mentioned in my previous post is one possible
reason; perhaps there are others too subtle for my feeble brain to
think of.


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance


westom;566325 Wrote: 
 All computers have done that since Windows NT.  Only machines that could
 lose data due to an unexpected power off were Windows 95/ME vintage
 machines.  Today, power off must never damage saved software.  And
 unexpected power off - even 50 years ago - must never damage electronic
 hardware.
 
 UPS serves only one function - to provide temporary power so that you
 can save unsaved data.   So that you need not be interrupted by the
 power loss.

Wrong: I've seen machines fail to come back due to power loss.

When a car runs into a telephone pole, you do not get a clean shutdown
at the OS level (has everything been written to disk at that instant? 
On a busy machine, the answer is likely 'no').  Worse, the power
fluctuates in such instances: providing the same effect as plugging and
unplugging the power at the wall plate repeatedly.  Drives spin up/down,
and surges trash data and possibly do severe hardware damage.  I've lost
3 drives at home due to power failures, and 2 power supplies at work (on
a building UPS -- those orange outlets).

Heck, I've even seen huge building-wide UPS's damage machines when
someone turned the dial from 'Online' to 'Bypass' and accidentally went
too far and hit 'Off', then correcting and turning to bypass.  This
creates nasty powerdrops followed by a spike as several hundred
machines come back online.

A UPS is a good investment.

For a VortexBox appliance, probably any old cheap UPS will do you fine:
the current draw is not much at all, so you don't need a huge UPS. 
Stick with a brandname, but a cheap APC should be fine.


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance


garym;566328 Wrote: 
 That's what I assumed (basic UPS). Thanks. I don't worry about this for
 my windows machines as it's never been an issue and I'm good at
 diagnosing any windows systems issues should any arise (and I have
 plenty of data backups off the grid!), but I'm such a newbie at linux
 that the mounting, unmounting, etc. etc. is all a mystery to me (thus
 far) and I wanted a little extra insurance on screwups

The main thing would be trashing the drive or the power supply --
motherboards are usually safe, the P/S gets to act like a giant fuse in
such cases.  But power nasties can be painful on drives.  The power
supply won't really isolate them -- too much mechanical stuff that
reacts badly to power cycling.

I'd still keep a backup, of course...  I have too much time spent in
ripping and tagging to want to lose my music.

I don't worry about the Windows machine: it's been dead for ages
anyway...  :)


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance


snarlydwarf;566327 Wrote: 
 
 For a VortexBox appliance, probably any old cheap UPS will do you fine:
 the current draw is not much at all, so you don't need a huge UPS. 
 Stick with a brandname, but a cheap APC should be fine.

That's what I assumed (basic UPS). Thanks. I don't worry about this for
my windows machines as it's never been an issue and I'm good at
diagnosing any windows systems issues should any arise (and I have
plenty of data backups off the grid!), but I'm such a newbie at linux
that the mounting, unmounting, etc. etc. is all a mystery to me (thus
far) and I wanted a little extra insurance on screwups


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance


snarlydwarf;566327 Wrote: 
 Wrong: I've seen machines fail to come back due to power loss.
 When a car runs into a telephone pole, you do not get a clean shutdown
 at the OS level 
When a car hits a pole, all unsaved data is lost.  Everything else is
intact. 

Wrong in spades are the most naive who *know* only using observation.
Also called junk science reasoning.  A naive observer will be quick to
blame power loss when his own technical ignorance was a most common
reason for failure.

In another example, the computer powered off suddenly.  Well he blamed
power off for the damage.  He did junk science.  He observed - that was
knowledge.

We did the autopsy.   A pullup resistor to bootstrap the power supply
controller had failed to due too many hours of continuous operation - a
manufacturing defect.   That resistor failed probably months earlier. 
Then when power was lost, the computer would not boot.

Observation: power went off.  Computer would not boot.  Therefore
that *proves* power loss causes damage.

Science and reality:  A manufacturing defect a month earlier created
a failure only detectable after any power off.

When does a disk drive learn that computer power is going off?  When
the 5 and 12 volts suddenly starts dropping.   Again, those who do not
first learn the science - who know only from observation - would not
know that.  A disk drive is never warned that power is being removed. 
All power offs ( shutdown, yank the power cord, car hitting a pole,
entire state blackout) appear as the same power off to all disk drives.
A reality that was true even when heads were moved by motor oil.  Those
educated only from hearsay - who only know from observation - would
never know that.  Those educated by observation immediately know
unexpected power off causes damage.  Amazing how observation alone
becomes knowledge.

Just like Windows, a power off do to any reason must not harm any
Linux hardware.  UPS has only one function - time to protect unsaved
data.  That Liux machine is equally fine with or without a UPS. 
Greater threats to that hardware are solve elsewhere - not by a UPS. 
Also requires knowledge not obtained from observation and hearsay.

Linux is just as robust as Windows  as are all other computers
today. Linux has the same Windows features that make all power offs
irrelevant.


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Re: [slim] Logitech/Squezebox other forums?

2010-08-03 Thread TiredLegs


erland;566029 Wrote: 
 That way the slimdevices.com site can eventually be shutdown.
I'm just hoping that Logitech migrates all the great content from this
forum before it gets shut down. It would be a major shame to waste all
the collective knowledge contained here.


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance


westom;566338 Wrote: 
 When a car hits a pole, all unsaved data is lost.  Everything else is
 intact. 

Wrong: the AC input to your device goes all over the place.

The 12v output of your P/S is NOT regulated to the point that providing
random input to the power supply will always produce 12V.  It will drop
to 0 and back to 12 over and over as the 120VAC comes and goes.

That is VERY bad for mechanical devices like hard drives.

 
 Wrong in spades are the most naive who *know* only using observation.
 Also called junk science reasoning.  A naive observer will be quick to
 blame power loss when his own technical ignorance was a most common
 reason for failure.

Back this up with proof.

Your experience is meaningless.

 
 When does a disk drive learn that computer power is going off?  When
 the 5 and 12 volts suddenly starts dropping.   Again, those who do not
 first learn the science - who know only from observation - would not
 know that.  A disk drive is never warned that power is being removed. 
 All power offs ( shutdown, yank the power cord, car hitting a pole,
 entire state blackout) appear as the same power off to all disk drives.
 A reality that was true even when heads were moved by motor oil.  Those
 educated only from hearsay - who only know from observation - would
 never know that.  Those educated by observation immediately know
 unexpected power off causes damage.  Amazing how observation alone
 becomes knowledge.  All power offs are same to every disk drive -
 despite obervations that *know* otherwise.
 

Wrong.  They do NOT appear the same as a power off unless you include
power off includes the state where the power may come on and off
dozens of times in a second, and provide both under and over voltage
conditions).  Drives see that when a car hits a pole, when a tree limb
falls across a power line, when too many a/c's turning on at once cause
brownouts, etc etc.

 
 Linux is just as robust as Windows  as are all other computers
 today. Linux has the same Windows features that make all power offs
 irrelevant.

You're wrong.  MILLIONS of hard drives beg to differ with your
assertions.

Hardware damage occurs with voltage over/under conditions.  I have no
clue what the hell you're talking about operating systems for.

Applying the wrong or inconsistent voltage to a drive will damage it,
regardless of OS: and power outages are typically not clean -- you
get tons of spikes and drops both as the power drops out and when it
comes back on.

Hint: the regulated 12v from your power supply is not all that
regulated.  It is based on certain presumptions of the quality of the
input power.   That quality goes to hell when the power drops.


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance

2010-08-03 Thread JJZolx


snarlydwarf;566331 Wrote: 
 The main thing would be trashing the drive or the power supply

These are problems due to the spikes involved in the typical power
event, not the fact that the system has shut down unexpectedly.

With a machine running Squeezebox Server there should be very little
being written to databases or other files most of the time.  There is
an outside chance, though, that an unexpected shutdown could trash a
file or two and make startup of the application impossible.  So, if you
want to minimize the odds that a power outage will cause some type of
failure, you need a UPS and need to take one of two approaches to using
it:


  
  
- Use a large enough UPS that it will weather all/most power outages.
  A headless Vortexbox doesn't draw much power, so a typical
  inexpensive UPS for a desktop system would most likely provide at
  least 20-30 minutes of up time, possibly quite a bit longer.  So you
  could cover the majority of power outages in your area, but you can
  never cover 100% of them.
  
  
- Use a UPS that communicates with the computer to allow the system
  to shut down gracefully after some number of minutes on standby
  power.  Considering the application - the Vortexbox is a music server
  and when your power goes out, your music system will be nonfunctional,
  there's little reason to keep the music server running forever.  So if
  your UPS has, say, 20 minutes of capacity, configure the system to
  shut down after 15 minutes.
  
  The UPS will need the capability of communicating with a computer
  (usually a serial port of some type), which all but the most basic
  UPS's have, and the Vortexbox or its operating system will need
  software to respond to the signals received from the UPS.


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance


JJZolx;566358 Wrote: 
 These are problems due to the spikes involved in the typical power
 event, not the fact that the system has shut down unexpectedly.
 

Yes, and despite the claim of westom, these are very real and even if
there is no activity at the time, WILL damage hardware.

Case in point from today:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/power-problems-damage-appliances-electronics-in-glendale.html

A severe enough outage that it damaged electrical meters.

If you're planning for an uncontrolled power event a UPS will do a
fine job of protecting your hardware in almost all nasty conditions (if
it blows up the meter on the house, well, then, it may kill your UPS
too.. but then you have a $50 fuse that would likely save your
computer).


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance


snarlydwarf;566351 Wrote: 
 Wrong: the AC input to your device goes all over the place.  When someone 
 posts that nasty, that dumb, that uneducated, and
incessantly, then being polite to  an asshole is useless.

Reality taken from so many industry standards from the Computer
Business Equipment Manufacturers association to Intel specifications
for all power supplies.  AC voltages can change so much as incandescent
lamps dim to less than 40% intensity.  And that is more than sufficient
voltage for all computers.  Regulation is the job of all computer power
supplies.  To maintain perfectly ideal DC voltages even when AC mains
voltages vary that much.

A spec even defines how long a power supply must output completely
stable power when no AC input voltage exists.  How does one know that
when only using observation?

Any regulation that a UPS might do is already done by a superior
computer power supply.  Why must computer work uninterrupted and
normally when incandescent bulbs dim to 40% intensity?  Because those
requirements are what we (the people who go educated) must design to
even long before the IBM PC existed.

View the output of typical UPSes in battery backup mode.   This 120
volt UPS outputs 200 volt square waves with a spike of up to 270 volts
between those square waves. Is that destructive?

Potentially harmful to small electric motors and power strip
protectors.  And ideal perfect power for all computers and other
electronics.  Because all computer power supplies - even before the IBM
PC existed - were required to be that robust and stable.  How does one
learn that reality from observation?

What happens when the UPS switches from AC to battery?  A long period
of no power while the relay switches.  And yes, all computers are
required to provide stable uninterrupted DC power even during that
switchover period.  A period of no AC input power.  Buy another
function found in all computer power supplies to make events on AC
mains irrelevant.

UPS outputs the 'dirtiest' power during a blackout.  No problem.  
Every computer is required to make that 'dirtiest' power into ideal
perfect and stable DC. This was known over 40 years ago. Incandescent
bulbs dim to below 50% intensity.   And all electronics must operate
uninterrupted.Computers are required to be even more robust.  Those
educated by hearsay and observation would not know.  Will only reply
nasty.

Those educated only by observation also proved spontaneous
reproduction.  Many without basic science would not even know what
spontaneous reproduction is.  Victims of knowledge only from
observation.

The best voltage regulation is required inside every computer. Even
required by international design standards. 

UPS has only one function - to provide temporary power to save
unsaved data.


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance

snarlydwarf;566360 Wrote:
Case in point from today:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/power-problems-damage-appliances-electronics-in-glendale.html
A severe enough outage that it damaged electrical meters.
A friend knows someone who actually knows this stuff. A 33,000 volt
electric line fell upon local distribution. Hundreds of electric
meters were blown 20 and 30 feet from the pan. Shattered.

So many who had plug-in protectors had destroyed protectors and
appliances. Obviously, a relay inside a UPS (that takes tens of
milliseconds to respond) did nothing. Surge went right through that
UPS damaging the UPS and electronics.

At least one had a circuit breaker that would no longer reset.

But my friend installed the only thing that does such protection.
The solution that was installed even 100 years ago so that even direct
lightning strikes cause no damage. He spend about $1 per protected
appliance to earth one 'whole house' protector. He had no damage even
to the protector. Only his electric meter was damaged.

Read its numeric specs. No UPS claims protection in its numbers.
Destructive surges are hundreds of thousands of joules - or higher.
Numbers that cannot be obtained using observation. The UPS has only
hundreds of joules. How does that hundreds of joules absorb or stop
surges that are hundreds of thousands of joules? It does not. And it
is not suppose to. It claims near zero protection on the box. Then
those without education will proclaims, That UPS does 100% surge
protection! The naïve are that easily deceived.

When does near zero protection do 100% protection?

Why did my friend have no damage? He installed the only thing that
protects from that type of anomaly. He did not listen to people
educated by retail myths. Instead he viewed numbers, knew an engineer,
and had zero damage. A solution that costs tens or 100 times less
money per protected appliance. Only myth purveyors and fools educated
by observation would think a UPS does any real protection.

Even the manufacturers numeric specs do not claim surge protection.
And still so many only recite what the salesman told them to believe.

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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance


westom;566361 Wrote: 
 When someone posts that nasty, that dumb, that uneducated, and
 incessantly, then being polite to  an asshole is useless.
 

Exactly.  PLONK.


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[slim] Let's make the Squeezebox to the ultimate music discovery device!

2010-08-03 Thread erland


I've been thinking a bit and it really feels like it's time to try to
move the Squeezebox products to the next level. I'd like to get some
more focus on features that's related to finding music both in your own
library and also new music which you currently don't have in your
library. It's getting painfully clear to me that it's not the primary
focus area for Logitech, at least not during the last year or two. At
the moment with the smaller team, they seems to be mostly focused on
fixing bugs, doing some technical enhancements and doing small
enhancements to the core functions, but nothing revolutionary related
to the music discovery. I should say that the Logitech developers are
doing a great job with the amount of resources they have access to, so
this isn't any critique on them.

However, if we want something to happen it feels we need to take this
into our own hands. I'm not sure about exactly how to do this yet and
I'm also not sure how much time I'm personally prepared to commit on it
but I like to at least start a discussion about what's missing to make
the Squeezebox the best music discovery device out there. If I decide
I'm not prepared to do this myself this discussion might at least
result in some good ideas which Logitech can use. Hopefully more people
in the community are willing to help with various parts if something
good comes out of this discussion, I'm definitely not going to do
anything if I'm alone. However, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be the
only one interested in this kind of functionality.


So some questions to guide the discussion:

1. 
How do you find music in your own library ? 
- Which way to you browse/search ? (which browse or search menus)
- Which type of remote/interface do you use ? Different for different
situations ?
- Do you find music through statistics based browse menus ? (ratings,
play counts, history)
- Do you find music through smart playlists based on statistics or
random selection or other kind of automatic mixes ?
- Do you use album art when selecting what to play ?
- Do you typically start searching/browsing from an artist, album or
track and want to find something related to that ?


2. 
How do you usually find new music you like to get but currently don't
have in your library ?
- Heard it on the radio ? 
- Where do you start when searching ? Top charts ? Genres ? Similar
artists ?
- Do you use some web site when searching or do you browse some music
store directly ?
- Are you using the computer, your Squeezebox or some other device when
searching for new music ?
- Do you preview the music before puchasing ? Do you preview it on the
real system or cheep laptop speakers or something similar ?
- Do you use a subscription based service so you aren't actually buying
albums, you just need to find the albums/tracks you are interested in by
browsing the service ?
- Through reviews ? Any specific online site ?
- Through friends ? Some community site ? 


3. 
How would you like to be able to find music in your own library in the
future ?
- What kind of functionality is missing today related to browsing ?
- What kind of functionality is missing today related to searching ?


4. 
How would you like to find new music you like to buy/get in the future
?
- What would you like to do through the Squeezebox/SBS or one of it's
remotes ? 
- What would you like to do on some other hardware ?


5.
What kind of tagging/management do you do on new music you add to your
library to make it easier to find stuff later on ?
- Which additional tags do you add which isn't handled by standard SBS
today ?
- Is the folder structure the music files are stored in important ?
- If you use Custom Scan, which additional tags do you add besides
those supported by SBS ?
- Do you manually add ratings to your music ? Why ?


6.
Do you synchronize the data in SBS with some other application to make
it easier to find interesting music ?
- Import statisitcs from MusicIP ?
- Export statistics to MusicIP ?
- Import files, playlists and statistics from iTunes ?
- Export statistics to iTunes ?
- Do you use some other application integrated with SBS/Squeezebox ?


I've probably missed a lot of relevant questions, so feel free to post
your thoughts about other areas that's involved in discovering old and
new music even if it's not mentioned in the questions above.

I realize there are many questions to answer and that this is a huge
functional area, so feel free to answer in several posts if the forum
post max length feels too limited. :-)


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Re: [slim] Let's make the Squeezebox to the ultimate music discovery device!


erland;566383 Wrote: 
 I've been thinking a bit and it really feels like it's time to try to
 move the Squeezebox products to the next level. I'd like to get some
 more focus on features that's related to finding music both in your own
 library and also new music which you currently don't have in your
 library. It's getting painfully clear to me that it's not the primary
 focus area for Logitech, at least not during the last year or two. At
 the moment with the smaller team, they seems to be mostly focused on
 fixing bugs, doing some technical enhancements and doing small
 enhancements to the core functions, but nothing revolutionary related
 to the music discovery. I should say that the Logitech developers are
 doing a great job with the amount of resources they have access to, so
 this isn't any critique on them.
 

You're probably the ideal person to spearhead this: anyone who has used
your plugins knows how well they work to make a library manageable.

 
 However, if we want something to happen it feels we need to take this
 into our own hands. I'm not sure about exactly how to do this yet and
 I'm also not sure how much time I'm personally prepared to commit on it
 but I like to at least start a discussion about what's missing to make
 the Squeezebox the best music discovery device out there. If I decide
 I'm not prepared to do this myself this discussion might at least
 result in some good ideas which Logitech can use. Hopefully more people
 in the community are willing to help with various parts if something
 good comes out of this discussion, I'm definitely not going to do
 anything if I'm alone. However, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be the
 only one interested in this kind of functionality.
 

You're not. :)

My music buying has slowed down lately and that's not good!

 
 How do you find music in your own library ? 
 

I tend to just wander: I do use Dynamic Playlists for my morning alarm
clock, and for my I don't know what to listen to things

From my 'Random SQL' one (which is pretty much a normal random
playlist, but I exclude 'Explicit' and 'Comedy' and such genres, as
well as things less than a minute long or more than 15m... this is my
usual 'work mix'), I sometimes hear a song and think, Oooh, let me
play something else by them.

Being able to insert something (track or album) into a playing playlist
would be nice.  I think I can do that in Fishbone with an option, but
never remember to turn that on.  For the I just heard this, now want
to take a diversion, but don't want to remember to turn Dynamic
Playlist back on when that album ends sorts of cases.

I do have mostly complete album art and do sometimes choose from Albums
when I don't know what I want.  I usually just choose a random page and
look at cover art to see what tickles my fancy at that point.

  
 How do you usually find new music you like to get but currently don't
 have in your library ?

Last.fm and Emusic, the wife uses Pandora.  When -really- bored, Amazon
to see what they tell me to listen to.  Emusic and Amazon unfortunately
have to be done from a browser.

I do often play a song and wonder what is similar use that as a key to
start a last.fm 'similar artist' station.  That works well right now.

 
 I realize there are many questions to answer and that this is a huge
 functional area, so feel free to answer in several posts if the forum
 post max length feels too limited. :-)

What about if my brain just overloads and I have to take a break? :)

As I said, most of my personal library discover comes from Dynamic
Playlists of some variety... I am curious how to expand that to not in
my library.  Last.fm and Pandora type services seem to be good for
that, but they're sadly limited in areas they can legally serve.


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Re: [slim] Announcing SqueezePad - the first dedicated iPad App to controll your SqueezeBoxen !

2010-08-03 Thread jhonsber...@msn.com


Is there any word on when squeezepad will support
Mysqueezebox.com?


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Re: [slim] Announcing SqueezePad - the first dedicated iPad App to controll your SqueezeBoxen !

2010-08-03 Thread bluegaspode


jhonsber...@msn.com;566412 Wrote: 
 Is there any word on when squeezepad will support Mysqueezebox.com?

According to the poll
(http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=80575) its one of the
top-3 features wishes.
If you vote there too you could make it a favourite !


-- 
bluegaspode

Big Screen for great Boxes available now at your AppStore: *'Squeezebox
+ iPad = SqueezePad '
(http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/squeezepad/id380003002) *! 
Want to see a Weather Forecast on your Radio/Touch/Controller ? = why
not try my 'Weather Forecast Applet'
(http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=73827)
Want to use the Headphones with your Controller ? = why not try my
'Headphone Switcher Applet'
(http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=67139)

Setup: 1x SB-Controller+Receiver (Duet), 1xSB-Boom. 1xSB-Radio
Server (7.5.1) running on SheevaPlug (Ubuntu) with attached Western
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Re: [slim] Let's make the Squeezebox to the ultimate music discovery device!

2010-08-03 Thread sebp


erland;566383 Wrote: 
 However, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be the only one interested in
 this kind of functionality.
Oh no, you're not.


erland;566383 Wrote: 
 1. How do you find music in your own library ?
I mainly use the browse by artists menu, and search for songs when not
remembering who's the author.
Although I own two controllers, I mainly use an IR remote with my SBs
(because it never goes to sleep and it's faster to type some text with
it). The Controllers come out of their cradles when friends pass me a
visit. I barely use the web UI.
Statistics, well, last.fm handle mines good enough to me.
I love listening to MusicIP mixes, because that's good music for the
lazy.
Even if I take care of tagging my music with artwork, album art is not
a must have for me. It's nice to get it when playing, though.
Being able to browse music from a track's contextual menu is one of my
favourite features.

erland;566383 Wrote: 
 How do you usually find new music you like to get but currently don't
 have in your library ?
I listen to webradios (really liked the On Amazon feature) and
subscribed to some music services like Society of Sound. Before that, I
was a last.fm subscriber, but stopped supporting them when they decided
only 3 countries - I'm not living in - would legally be able to stream
from the SB.
I also tried Deezer lately, but found paying 10 a month was not
compatible with being not able to listen to a single Pink Floyd album.
Friends are my best source of ideas when it comes to listening to
something new.

To be continued.


-- 
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Transporter, SB Classic, SB Receiver, SB Boom, SB Radio, SB Touch, 2 SB
Controllers
Will soon need a bigger home - 'Last.fm' (http://www.last.fm/user/sebp)

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Re: [slim] Let's make the Squeezebox to the ultimate music discovery device!

2010-08-03 Thread Aslak3


I'm going to stick my neck out, but something has been bugging me for a
looong time.  You don't really talk about this, and it's one hell of a
can of worms, but your talking about SqueezeBox improvements.  So here
goes.

UPNP/DLNA client support.

I love SBS as much as the next person, but with CPU horsepower in the
player (Radio/Touch), you could conceivably include some level of UPNP
support in the player itself.  This would be a massive change, of
course, from traditional SlimDevices Squeezebox, but it would get
Squeezebox out to new people.  SBS would of course continue to be the
*correct* way to get music into the player, but UPNP would be available
to more casual users.  UPNP would be impossible on the non SqueezePlay
players, but surely now it could be included.  I would look at doing it
myself, if I didn't have a day-job

To briefly answer some of the other questions, I'm old fashioned and
usually play whole albums.  So my browsing needs are fairly simple. 
It's either albums or streaming radio, or maybe LastFM.

I've recently started to use SqueezeCommander (Android prog) and
absolutely love it.  I only really listen to the Radio first thing in
the morning, and find the controls and screen a pleasure to use. 
Otherwise if I'm in front of the thing I play with the Boom controls or
grab the phone and use SqueezeCommander. I don't use the IR remote much
as my eyesight is poor. I find myself using the web UI less and less,
but it's great for doing general admin and making up playlists.

Anyway, I'm interested to hear other thoughts on UPNP/DLNA.


-- 
Aslak3

(SB 2, SB Boom, SB Radio)

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Re: [slim] Let's make the Squeezebox to the ultimate music discovery device!

2010-08-03 Thread erland


Aslak3;566427 Wrote: 
 
 Anyway, I'm interested to hear other thoughts on UPNP/DLNA.
 
That would be interesting but let's handle that in a separate thread
unless UPNP/DLNA is important for you to be able to find what to listen
to and find out which music you want to buy. 

I don't want this thread to turn into a technical/architecture
discussion, instead I like the focus to be how people find their music
and what kind of search/browse functionality is needed to make that
process as effective as possible.


-- 
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Erland Isaksson ('My homepage' (http://erland.isaksson.info))
(Developer of 'many plugins/applets'
(http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/User:Erland). If my answer
helped you and you like to encourage future presence on this forum
and/or third party plugin/applet development, 'donations are always
appreciated' (http://erland.isaksson.info/donate))

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Re: [slim] Let's make the Squeezebox to the ultimate music discovery device!

2010-08-03 Thread Chris Laplante

I've often thought a hook into amazon (or take your pick) mp3 purchases
would be great: I see you are listening to X, amazon suggests Y, shall I
buy it, download it, and pay it next?

-Chris

On Tue, Aug 3, 2010 at 12:41 PM, erland 
erland.4f4vrz1280864...@no-mx.forums.slimdevices.com wrote:


 I've been thinking a bit and it really feels like it's time to try to
 move the Squeezebox products to the next level. I'd like to get some
 more focus on features that's related to finding music both in your own
 library and also new music which you currently don't have in your
 library. It's getting painfully clear to me that it's not the primary
 focus area for Logitech, at least not during the last year or two. At
 the moment with the smaller team, they seems to be mostly focused on
 fixing bugs, doing some technical enhancements and doing small
 enhancements to the core functions, but nothing revolutionary related
 to the music discovery. I should say that the Logitech developers are
 doing a great job with the amount of resources they have access to, so
 this isn't any critique on them.

 However, if we want something to happen it feels we need to take this
 into our own hands. I'm not sure about exactly how to do this yet and
 I'm also not sure how much time I'm personally prepared to commit on it
 but I like to at least start a discussion about what's missing to make
 the Squeezebox the best music discovery device out there. If I decide
 I'm not prepared to do this myself this discussion might at least
 result in some good ideas which Logitech can use. Hopefully more people
 in the community are willing to help with various parts if something
 good comes out of this discussion, I'm definitely not going to do
 anything if I'm alone. However, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be the
 only one interested in this kind of functionality.


 So some questions to guide the discussion:

 1.
 How do you find music in your own library ?
 - Which way to you browse/search ? (which browse or search menus)
 - Which type of remote/interface do you use ? Different for different
 situations ?
 - Do you find music through statistics based browse menus ? (ratings,
 play counts, history)
 - Do you find music through smart playlists based on statistics or
 random selection or other kind of automatic mixes ?
 - Do you use album art when selecting what to play ?
 - Do you typically start searching/browsing from an artist, album or
 track and want to find something related to that ?


 2.
 How do you usually find new music you like to get but currently don't
 have in your library ?
 - Heard it on the radio ?
 - Where do you start when searching ? Top charts ? Genres ? Similar
 artists ?
 - Do you use some web site when searching or do you browse some music
 store directly ?
 - Are you using the computer, your Squeezebox or some other device when
 searching for new music ?
 - Do you preview the music before puchasing ? Do you preview it on the
 real system or cheep laptop speakers or something similar ?
 - Do you use a subscription based service so you aren't actually buying
 albums, you just need to find the albums/tracks you are interested in by
 browsing the service ?
 - Through reviews ? Any specific online site ?
 - Through friends ? Some community site ?


 3.
 How would you like to be able to find music in your own library in the
 future ?
 - What kind of functionality is missing today related to browsing ?
 - What kind of functionality is missing today related to searching ?


 4.
 How would you like to find new music you like to buy/get in the future
 ?
 - What would you like to do through the Squeezebox/SBS or one of it's
 remotes ?
 - What would you like to do on some other hardware ?


 5.
 What kind of tagging/management do you do on new music you add to your
 library to make it easier to find stuff later on ?
 - Which additional tags do you add which isn't handled by standard SBS
 today ?
 - Is the folder structure the music files are stored in important ?
 - If you use Custom Scan, which additional tags do you add besides
 those supported by SBS ?
 - Do you manually add ratings to your music ? Why ?


 6.
 Do you synchronize the data in SBS with some other application to make
 it easier to find interesting music ?
 - Import statisitcs from MusicIP ?
 - Export statistics to MusicIP ?
 - Import files, playlists and statistics from iTunes ?
 - Export statistics to iTunes ?
 - Do you use some other application integrated with SBS/Squeezebox ?


 I've probably missed a lot of relevant questions, so feel free to post
 your thoughts about other areas that's involved in discovering old and
 new music even if it's not mentioned in the questions above.

 I realize there are many questions to answer and that this is a huge
 functional area, so feel free to answer in several posts if the forum
 post max length feels too limited. :-)


 --
 erland

 Erland Isaksson ('My homepage' (http://erland.isaksson.info))
 (Developer of 'many

Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance


JJZolx;566358 Wrote: 
 These are problems due to the spikes involved in the typical power
 event, not the fact that the system has shut down unexpectedly.
 

Thanks JJZolx. Yep, that's what I was asking about. The simple case of
the vortexbox appliance being the equivalent of unplugged without
going through a normal shutdown. To be clear, I'm simply trying to
avoid any hassles of: the power went off, and now I have to connect a
monitor and keyboard to the appliance and enter some command lines to
restart SbS, mount drives, give out permissions, and all the other
stuff I currently know little about.  If the vortexbox appliance blows
up, I really don't care about that (as long as the house doesn't burn
down). I have lots of safe backups in 3 different cities! It's the
minor hassle and the wife factor (I'm out of town and she says, we
had a power outage and now I can't play music. How do I fix it?). I can
tell her what do do with a windows machine (just reboot!). But the linux
stuff (I'm assuming) is not so straightforward. Again, I'm speaking from
ignorance on this issue.

I fully understand that power spikes, lightning strikes, etc. are an
entirely different issue. I do have things running through one of the
brickwall price wheeler surge protectors to help in this regard, but
nothing stops a direct hit I suspect. And that's not my current concern
in any case. Thanks again.


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Re: [slim] Let's make the Squeezebox to the ultimate music discovery device!


Good idea. answers below.

1.
How do you find music in your own library ?
- Which way to you browse/search ? (which browse or search menus)
TYPICALLY BROWSE BY ARTIST, THEN ALBUM

- Which type of remote/interface do you use ? Different for different
situations ?
IPENG AROUND THE HOUSE, WIFE USES CONTROLLER, AND I OFTEN USE
SQUEEZEPLAY AS CONTROLLER FROM MY LAPTOP, WHERE I HAPPEN TO BE SITTING
IN ANY CASE.

- Do you find music through statistics based browse menus ? (ratings,
play counts, history)
NO

- Do you find music through smart playlists based on statistics or
random selection or other kind of automatic mixes ?
USE DYNAMIC PLAYLISTS, SQL PLAYLISTS PLUGINS AND STANDARD TEMPLATES,
WHICH I EDIT TO PICK CERTAIN GENRES, EXLCUDE CERTAIN ARTISTS OR GENRES,
AND ASK TO NOT PLAY SONGS THAT HAVE BEEN PLAYED IN THE LAST X MONTHS,
ETC. VERY BASIC USE OF THESE PLUGINS TO CREATE RANDOM PLAYBACK WITH
CERTAIN PARAMETERS.

- Do you use album art when selecting what to play ? NO, BUT I LIKE
SEEING IT.
- Do you typically start searching/browsing from an artist, album or
track and want to find something related to that ? ARTIST.


2.
How do you usually find new music you like to get but currently don't
have in your library ?
- Heard it on the radio ? YES, BUT TYPICALLY ONLY INTERNET RADIO
STATIONS
- Where do you start when searching ? Top charts ? Genres ? Similar
artists ? NOTHING I LIKE THESE DAYS IS EVEN ON CHARTS. I READ SOME
SPECIALTY WEB SITES, BLOGS, ETC. RELATED TO MUSIC STYLES I LIKE. AMAZON
SOMETIMES RECOMMENDS STUFF, BUT I EITHER HAVE IT ALREADY OR I'M NOT
ACTUALLY INTERESTED.
- Do you use some web site when searching or do you browse some music
store directly ? SEE ABOVE.
- Are you using the computer, your Squeezebox or some other device when
searching for new music ? COMPUTER.
- Do you preview the music before puchasing ? Do you preview it on the
real system or cheep laptop speakers or something similar ? SOMETIMES,
COMPUTER SPEAKERS.
- Do you use a subscription based service so you aren't actually buying
albums, you just need to find the albums/tracks you are interested in by
browsing the service ? NO
- Through reviews ? Any specific online site ? NODEPRESSION.COM
- Through friends ? Some community site ? FRIENDS


3.
How would you like to be able to find music in your own library in the
future ?
- What kind of functionality is missing today related to browsing ? I'D
LIKE SOMETHING LIKE MUSICIP BUILT IN. I KNOW I COULD INSTALL ALL THIS,
BUT I DON'T WANT TO GO THROUGH THE TROUBLE OF SCANNING 60K PLUS FILES
TO HAVE THE SOFTWARE GO AWAY, WHICH IT SEEMS IS PROBABLE.
- What kind of functionality is missing today related to searching ?
NO COMMENT, BUT I DON'T REALLY SEARCH THAT MUCH.

4.
How would you like to find new music you like to buy/get in the future
?
- What would you like to do through the Squeezebox/SBS or one of it's
remotes ?
- What would you like to do on some other hardware ? RECOMMENDATIONS
BASED ON MOST PLAYED SONGS WITHIN MY LIBRARY, COULD BE SBS OR OTHER.


5.
What kind of tagging/management do you do on new music you add to your
library to make it easier to find stuff later on ? NOTHING OTHER THAN
MAKE SURE TAGS ARE COMPLETE AND CORRECT.
- Which additional tags do you add which isn't handled by standard SBS
today ? NONE
- Is the folder structure the music files are stored in important ?
SORT OF. I LIKE AN ORGANIZED ARTIST/ALBUM OR COMPILATIONS/ALBUM TYPE
STRUCTURE.
- If you use Custom Scan, which additional tags do you add besides
those supported by SBS ? NO
- Do you manually add ratings to your music ? Why ? NO.


6.
Do you synchronize the data in SBS with some other application to make
it easier to find interesting music ?
- Import statisitcs from MusicIP ? NO, BUT WOULD LIKE TO
- Export statistics to MusicIP ? NO, BUT WOULD LIKE TO
- Import files, playlists and statistics from iTunes ? NO
- Export statistics to iTunes ? NO
- Do you use some other application integrated with SBS/Squeezebox ?
NO
I DO KEEP TRACK OF TRACKS PLAYED BY SCROBBLING TO LAST.FM


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance

2010-08-03 Thread JJZolx


garym;566442 Wrote: 
 To be clear, I'm simply trying to avoid any hassles of: the power went
 off, and now I have to connect a monitor and keyboard to the appliance
 and enter some command lines to restart SbS, mount drives, give out
 permissions, and all the other stuff I currently know little about.

Well, like I said, the only way to really guarantee that the system
will be shut down safely is to have a UPS that communicates with the
server and make sure you have it set to shut down before the battery
runs out.  I don't know enough about Linux, and even less about the
Vortexbox, to say whether or not its easy to do with, say, a typical
APC UPS.  Ask the Vortexbox people.


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Re: [slim] Logitech/Squezebox other forums?


TiredLegs;566340 Wrote: 
 I'm just hoping that Logitech migrates all the great content from this
 forum before it gets shut down. It would be a major shame to waste all
 the collective knowledge contained here.

+1. But I wouldn't actually count on that. Great value to us, but you
don't have to get very high up the corporate food chain before they
don't see the value at all.


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Re: [slim] UPS recommendations for my Vortexbox Appliance