Rhythmbox Annoyances

I've seen a lot of swish looking mock-ups and modified versions of Rhythmbox such as Rhythm-e and others but they all seem to concentrate on it's looks and layout. What I'd like to see is the annoying little bugs and improvements in performance and features which have been in Rhythmbox for years but still haven't been fixed. I only use Rhythmbox for adding music to my mp3 players and mainly use Gmusicbrowser for playing music. Here's a not-exhaustive list of Rhythmbox annoyances and feature requests:


Rhythmbox can only have one music folder.

I've recently discovered this since my 250GB hard drive I store music is nearly full so I have some music on another hard drive but there's no option to add another folder, unlike my preferred player, Gmusicbrowser. This means if I want to add music to my Mp3 player I have to find another option. I could use sym-links but that's inelegant and a new user shouldn't have to do that either. (Apologies for the blurryness of the images, click for a better view, having trouble with Bloggers uploader)














Compare that with Gmusicbrowser with multiple folders:














Erroneous import errors

When scanning or rescanning the music folder, rhythmbox shows "Import Errors" with a red 'no entry' symbol, which makes it hard to ignore, but when you look at them they are mostly album covers. Gmusicbrowser has an option in preferences: "Do not add songs that can't be played" as you can see in the above screenshot.














Visible Columns has no option to change the order they appear.

Pretty much every opther player has the option to move the columns either by dragging them or in preferences. I want Artist, Title, Album, Time, Quality in that order!














There are some things Rhythmbox does do well like handling devices, it works better with mp3 players than Gmusicbrowser (which seems to have no support) and Banshee which has trouble with the SD card in my Sansa Fuze. Also I have recently found out Rhythmbox actually transcodes FLAC and ogg on-the-fly to iPods and accessing DAAP shares works well. But Rhythmbox's school report would read: "Has been essentially coasting for several years, has improved in some areas but needs to buckle up and get this sorted! Must do better."

Unboxing My Newly Arrived (and early) Birthday Present - a 4GB Sansa Fuze

My main birthday present this year arrived early, it's a 4GB Sansa Fuze mp3 player. I requested a Fuze rather than the new Fuze+ for two reasons. For one you can pick up the 4GB version for around £35 through Amazon and I think it's a backward step removing the scroll-wheel for the Fuze+. My Fuze was nicely packaged in a plastic bubble-pack that arrived in a Jiffy bag that actually fitted through the letterbox, for once. I would have liked to have preserved the packaging a bit but I had to hack it about with scissors to free the little beauty. The back of the pack has the player's specs on and I noticed they don't even mention that it can play FLAC for some reason. It does actually play the usual mp3 and WMA, plus ogg and FLAC, which is another thing it has over an iPod. It's also a lot cheaper than a similar sized Nano and has a microSD card slot for expansion. I'm using my 8GB card that I had in my Sansa Clip+.


Package Contents:

• 4GB Sansa Fuze Player
• Proprietary USB lead
• Earphones
• 8cm driver disc
• Pretty little flip booklet for quick usage instructions
• Instruction booklet

The player feels nice to hold, it's rubberised backside preventing it from slipping out of my hand and the 'piano black' finish to the upper surface looks nice but as usual attracts finger prints very easily. The iPod-like click-wheel is also rubberised. There is a slight rough plastic edge at the base of the player but that's not much to grumble about and it does feel more durable than the Clip+ The power-on slider is on the right-hand side of the player and you slide it down for the Hold function to prevent the buttons being pressed while it sits in your pocket. This is a 'physical' hold function that's much preferable to the smaller Sansa Clip+'s software hold function. I'm not quite sure why the headphone socket is on the bottom edge of the player but it's not much bother, I'll just have it upside down in my jacket pocket.


















On turning on the player, I was greeted with a nice little graphic and it booted fast. I checked the firmware version in System -> Settings -> info and no surprises that it isn't the latest version. Upgrading firmware was easy, and much easier and quicker using the manual method rather than using the Windows only update tool. I followed the instructions on Sansa forum, just extract the two files into the root directory of the player, safely remove the player and wait while it updates, which took only a few seconds. The new firmware restricts the volume of the player (to comply with EU regulations) if you set it to English/EU region, so it's best to set the language to English but then set location to "rest of the world" so you can actually hear it properly in noisy areas!



















The user interface is rather nice looking, though it takes a little getting used to if you are switching from using an iPod as there are slight differences in navigation. Like the iPod, the Now Playing section shows the album cover and info and click the middle button to show just the album cover or info plus graphic etc. Another thing I like about the Fuze (and other Sansa players) is that you can delete tracks from the player interface and it can show you the info about the track - bitrate, filesize, format etc - which the iPod cannot. As with other Sansa players, the Fuze works best in MSC (mass storage device, like a USB stick) mode when using it with Linux, working well with Rhythmbox on Ubuntu. I find it's best to set the player to only use MSC mode rather than setting it to auto or MTP.

The sound quality is excellent, certainly as good as my iPod Mini, but like the iPod, you're best of ditching the little earbuds you get with it, to take advantage of it. It would be nice if it used a normal micro-USB connector rather than the proprietary connector, much like the iPods, but unlike my iPod's connector, this one stays in better thanks to release clips either side. Also I've seen them on Ebay for about £3 so it's handy to get a spare/replacement cable.

Conclusion

So far I'm very impressed with the Fuze, it's good value for money, particularly compared with an iPod Nano. I like it's interface, great sound quality, codec support, look and feel. As long as it's reliable and the battery life is usable (24hr while playing audio, according to the manual) I'll be happy.


Update

I've installed alternative firmware - Rockbox - on my Fuze to achieve perfect gapless playback - and I've detailed that in a new blogpost.

Ubuntu 10.10 - First Impressions

Ubuntu 10.10 (codename: Maverick Meercat) was recently released at 10:10am on 10/10/10. I upgraded from 10.0.4 on my HP nc4400 notebook (2.0ghz Core 2 Duo, 2.5GB RAM, 120GB HDD) and the upgrade went very smoothly. After upgrading all I had to do was re-enable or re-add my PPAs/ software repositories, including adding the new Medibuntu repo. The main things I noticed immediately are slight changes like tweaked login screen, "Ubuntu One - Syncronize this folder" in the Documents folder and the nice new font, so I decided to install Maverick in Virtualbox to experience a fresh install.


After the the live CD has finished booting you are greeted with the new installer. It is even simpler to use than it was previously. As usual you can try the live desktop or start installing straight away.







Next up Ubuntu now has a check list to ensure a smooth install. Also tick "Third Party Software" and you get mp3 playing 'out-the-box'! Also very useful is being able to download updates while installing which saves a bit of time.






Then choose your partitioning - going for fresh install and letting Ubuntu choose automatically here.








..and next a confirmation page, last chance to check your settings before your hard drives are formatted...








User Settings: Here is where I noticed that Ubuntu starts installing whilst you fill in your details, which saves time yet again. After choosing keyboard settings, username password, the installer moves on to....






..the new installer slideshow, which you can now move backwords and forwards in, with a nice little effect. It highlights the new version of Software Centre, Shotwell photo manager (which replaces F-Spot, which I never liked), Ubuntu One's new mobile syncing abilities and Rhythmbox integration, it's new sound applet, Firefox, OpenOffice, and Ubuntu's built-in social networking (Gwibber, Evolution, Empathy, MeMenu).


And soon after (install on a fast machine can be as quick as 10-15 minutes) it's time to reboot into the install.








After a sprightly boot-up this is the fresh Ubuntu desktop. Not sure about that wallpaper but it's much better than the one seen previously during the beta.







The window controls are still in the 'wrong' place!









This is fairly easily sorted though. Do CTRL + F2, type "gconf-editor" and press enter. Navigate to Metacity -> general and then double click on the entry beside "button_layout" and change it so it looks like the screenshot below. Alternatively you can also switch to an older theme like Clearlooks that uses the normal button arrangement.











Conclusion

I have to say on trying a fresh install, this is the smoothest Ubuntu install I've experienced and possibly one of the smoothest OS installs out there. I'm starting to notice new little things like the waste basket/ trash is now the Rubbish Bin (in UK language settings) and I love the new font. The new sound applet is better than I expected, much improved over early versions, I might actually find it useful now with Rhythmbox. Hopefully it will eventually work with my favourite player Gmusicbrowser at some point. Also I notice deb files now open with the Software Centre by default.

My only niggle is that since I upgraded my laptop, it has upgraded Deluge to version 1.3.0, which isn't in the Deluge PPA, which means it won't connect to my Deluge daemon on my server, since they have to be the same version. I'm keeping my server on the LTS release so I'll see if I can downgrade my laptops Deluge client. At the moment I can make do with using the web interface instead. Update 14/10/10: version 1.3.0 has now arrived in the Deluge PPA.

Many of 10.10's new features are under the surface and on an upgrade from 10.0.4 it's harder to spot them at first. On a fresh install though you can see that a lot of work has gone into making it as easy and smooth as possible. I'm going to explore 10.10's features as I go along on this laptop but I'm keeping my desktop on 10.0.4 and servers which will only be upgraded when the next LTS arrives.

Download Ubuntu here

How to setup Firefly Media Server on Ubuntu 10.0.4

Firefly, formerly known as the incongruously titled mt-daapd is a server based streaming app that streams to DAAP clients like iTunes, Banshee and Rhythmbox (see screenshot above) or hardware players like the Roku Soundbridge. Unfortunately iTunes 10 cannot access Firefly at the moment, hopefully this will be sorted soon. Since I'm installing this on a headless Ubuntu 10.0.4 server I'm using commandline configuration, accessing it from my laptop via ssh. Either enter these commands sitting at the server in a terminal, or ssh into it from another PC that has a terminal or ssh client. Enable ssh access to your server with sudo apt-get install ssh and login to your server with ssh ip-address - for example: ssh 192.168.16.14


Install Firefly

sudo apt-get install libid3tag0 (I think this ensures Firefly can read mp3 tags, it's usually installed already in Ubuntu)

then:

sudo apt-get install mt-daapd


Configure Firefly

Next you need to edit Firefly's config file:

sudo nano /etc/mt-daapd.conf


Use Ctrl + W to find the parts of the config file you want to edit. First you need to edit Firefly's admin password (replace password with something you'll remember that's secure):

admin_pw = password


Next add your music folder - mine is:

mp3_dir = /storage1/music


You can also have a password for playing music (the one you enter in the player e.g. iTunes) - remove the '#' and replace mp3 with a suitable password, but this is entirely optional.

#password = mp3


Then you might want to change the Firefly server name, I've named mine "server2-Firefly".

servername = Server2-Firefly %v on %h


Next start Firefly with:

sudo /etc/init.d/mt-daapd start


Now you should be able to log in to Firefly's admin page from your web browser on your network.

http://servers-ip-address:3689

for instance mine is http://192.168.16.14:3689

or if you are configuring it on your server:

http://localhost:3689



Here you can rescan the collection, set scanning preferences and various other options. And that's pretty much the whole setup. You may have to set your music folders permissions so they they can be read by everyone, so Firefly can see all your music. Now you should be able to play your Firefly server's music from Rhythmbox, Banshee, Amarok, iTunes or whichever DAAP client you use. Rock on!

Apple iPad Review

Yesterday I had my first go on an iPad, several iPads actually since they had one in Comet and several in Currys, both shops being in the same area of Triton Road, Lincoln. Apologies for the poor photo, I had to be discreet and use my phone. Having heard people going on about the device for ages, with all the hype, I was expecting to be blown away, or at least a bit impressed. But it was not a very 'magical' experience for me, not helped by the fact my fingers still hurt from typing on the on-screen keyboard. I managed some Tweets, browsed the net and checked out the various apps installed. It was annoying trying to select part of a URL to delete it and it was harsh to type on without feedback. I could have attached it to the keyboard accessory, but that seems like defeating the object of a tablet.

I played with it for awhile in Currys, I must have been there for about 20 minutes without being hassled by staff, plus the time I spent on the one in Comet, so I had plenty of time to explore it. The iPad is most at home playing music and videos, and viewing photos, which was the only thing that impressed me, a bit. The way you can flick back and forth with your finger, and zoom in and out by moving your fingers together and apart was nice. Also doing this with web pages was useful too, though I couldn't seem to get the page to stay zoomed in like that. Auto-switching between landscape and portrait when it is turned round was nice too. Browsing through iTunes was OK apart from I kept accidentally selecting things. I suppose at least it could play music and browse the web at the same time, which is something...

I then tried the "Magic Piano" app that, having seen many videos of it, I expected better. The lag was atrocious! It was difficult to play a proper tune or chord sequence when the sound took a few seconds to play after hitting the keys, no matter what instrument I chose. I suppose the only realistic instrument to emulate would be a Mellotron, perhaps that's why there's a Mellotron app, even then the lag is longer than most Mellotron's I've seen in videos. And it was hard to actually play a chord without my fingers touching other notes by mistake.

Overall I wasn't blown away by it and I was not comfortable browsing the web on it for more than a few minutes. For viewing photos, music and videos it's fine, but it seems a very expensive toy just for those features, I was more impressed by an £79 Eken tablet from Amazon than this, which has the greater freedom provided by the Android OS, though i think I might save my fingers for something with a keyboard or a stylus. I certainly wouldn't recommend a tablet like the iPad for those who have even the slightest RSI!

Integrating GMX Storage as a network drive via Nautilus in Linux

This is quite a simple way to access your GMX online storage in nautilus, I found this trick on this forum post, so I'm posting it here in case it disappears.


1) In nautilus' location bar, type this in and press enter:
davs://storage-file-eu.gmx.com/ (or davs://storage-file-us.gmx.com if you live in the US).




2) Enter your GMX e-mail address and password when prompted:




3) And now your GMX storage appears in nautilus:

PC vs Mac: Here's what you (really) need to know

Microsoft really must be getting desperate when they resort to simple mud-slinging to get people to buy there products. MS has a new page on their website on why you should get a PC rather than a Mac. Here's just some of their points and my response:

"Macs can’t connect to an Xbox 360" Why? because MS made it that way! Also you could use open source software to stream media to your 360 on any OS.

"Macs take time to learn" ALL operating systems take time to learn. As soon as you start to use a computer, you have to learn how to use it. It just depends where you start from! If you started off from Mac or Linux you would take time to get used to Windows.

"Apple’s productivity suite file formats won’t open in Microsoft Office on PCs." Er... MS Office available on the Mac. Also if MS file formats were truely open there wouldn't be any problem on any OS.

"It’s easy with a PC." It's easy on the Mac too. It depends what you want to do, some things are easier on Windows, some easier on the Mac, some easier on Linux.

"If there’s a Mac version of a program you need, you’ll have to buy it again and relearn how to use it on a Mac." Again, that works both ways, same argument as previous point. Plus there's plenty of free equivalent software on the Mac.

"Macs don’t work as well at work or at school." Increasing numbers of schools and university students use Macs.

"With PCs running Windows 7, you can play the videos and music stored on your home PC while you’re on the go, for free." Try Subsonic which is cross-platform, and also has iPhone and Android apps.

Microsoft should just concentrate on making a good product (or trying to) and not mud-slinging.