I don’t have any life management tips today nor do I have any real updates on my struggle to manage my own life. I also missed the politics post on Wednesday so I suck. I have been busy at work on a project that firmly has my attention so nothing is wrong per se. I am learning PHP, well more PHP, for the purposes of adding to or recoding the web interface we use for Linux deployment. Of course learning a new programming/scripting language requires that you actually code so that’s what I am doing. I am writing a frontend for MixWidget (the tape thingy I use for mixes and intros). It’s not going to be something you can build a whole site with like the old MixWidget of Muxtape but something you can install on a site like this one and use to make your own compilations. There won’t be any multi-user functionality ever but it’s looking pretty slick so far. The obstacles I have to overcome are: file uploads, archive extraction, validating uploaded/extracted files, creation of XML files, and a couple of other little nagging bits. I also plan for this to be self-installing so it will be easy to use. I like mix tapes and think MixWidget is a cool interface for them but it’s damn annoying to use since it relies on text files for all of its configuration and that results in a lot of file editing to put a mix tape up on your site. I have a BASH script that does everything except create the playlist but that’s still not user friendly. So when the chance for me to learn PHP by working on whatever I wanted to work on came up I took it. I will likely toss in some AJAX as well but that’ll mostly be stuff other people have written. I did actually think about workflow and the UI before I started coding so it looks decent is easy to use. When I get a little more done I’ll put up a demo somewhere. Being focused on this as well as my other projects is why I haven’t been tweeting, updating FB, or posting here all that often. I did get the Monday Mixtape up on time so techincally I only missed one post this week. I guess that ain’t bad.
I seem to have lost around 90% of the regular blogs I used to read. Better yet they seem to have lost me. What I mean is that they have gone so far off the deep end since President Obama was elected I can’t stomach them any longer. About half of them are birthers, a bunch of others are pretty much hate filled racists at this point, and some of the others are simply doomsayers. I don’t have time for that lot any more. I have much better things to do with myself than follow around soft headed morons as a cheerleader. So my daily reads are now pretty much technology sites and few folks who haven’t had the koo-aid in the past year or so. I do miss being part of the conservative blogosphere like I was back in the minion days but I think I miss talking to people more than I miss the blog part of it. I am not welcome in many places I used to comment, and by not welcome I simply mean derided and ridiculed, so I don’t go there. It seems like reasonable thought has fled the general public and if you aren’t polarized to either extreme then niether side wants to hear your ideas or thoughts. That’s pretty sad actually but it’s also commentary on the current state of things. I am not sure what that commentary says but I am pretty sure it’s not good.
So here I sit, halfway through the last day before the weekend, surrounded by PHP books and a regex book, posting here in an attempt to pull back and not get forest-for-the-trees syndrome. I am not inspired and I don’t have any exceptional ideas but I do have a bunch of words that may have made sense in the order I spat them out from my fingers to the keyboard and eventually to your screen. I need to look into planning my weekend so it’s not like last weekend but other than that I think I am about done.
Have a great weekend everyone!
1. Handle creation of xspf playlists both automagically and manually
2. Conform to directory naming standards
3. Option to upload files or use files in an existing directory
4. Create directories as necessary
5. Create multiple files (embed and standalone player) as necessary
6. Add multiple mixwidgets to a single page
7. Allow selection of skin
8. Automatically decide text placement based on skin
9. Auto-editting of multiple files
10. Create archive of tracks
11. Manipulate ID3 tags when necessary
12. File renaming based on ID3
Best language for this?
1. PHP
2. AJAX/Javascript
3. Ruby (doubtful)
4. Perl
Just a brainstorm for my personal use. Mixwidget lacks documentation but provides a damn cool interface. I don't know and refuse to learn flash so I won't be extending mixwidget. This will be a wrapper to install as many mixwidgets as you need on a LAMP website. The interface will likely be coded in AJAX/Javascript and call some existing scripts on the backend for some of the heavt lifting. ID3 editting may be available but that might be more than I want to play with out of the gate. Archive creation is a must as it auto and manual xspf playlist generation. If I can find all the tools this may be a week long project and if not it could stretch out forever. Hell I may never even get started. The goal is to require no module installation on the server and to be secure as well. We'll see how it goes.
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