Tag Archives: Music

Waiting for Google Music Beta Invitation

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I’m getting impatient. Actually wishing for this as soon as Voice Actions for Android came out with “Listen To” but only worked with cloud music services that implemented the functions in their apps. It didn’t work with the stock music player on my HTC Evo. That got me looking for other things, and I tried mSpot. A joke for me.

mSpot couldn’t ever get my stuff uploaded. It took over night to get like 10 songs. It took all day, then all night, to get a few songs. I deleted everything from mSpot, and re-did the info as to what to upload, and it wasn’t any different. Now I have a large library of music, but it’s not that big really. Also it’s not encoded in anything but .wma or .mp3 and neither at a very high rate (it bothers me, but less than making higher rate rips that take up tons of space, so I live with not quite up to snuff, but good enough to get more on my player, which never made a difference anyhow with playing music at any high or low rate with it. Good earphones worked well enough also. Whatever. I digress.

I’m waiting for the $$ to put together a new desktop computer. On this future computer I was going to re-rip all of my music on higher settings. I wanted a cloud music service to be able to listen on a device that way (therefore not needing huge Micro-SD cards just for the MUSIC anymore.)

All I have ever wanted was a connected device and a way to use it with MY music.

Enter Android. I got an Android phone in September 2010 and very shortly dreamed of what it could be for me if only …

Google Cloud Music would happen.

I found a leaked Honeycomb music player, found the .apk file for it, installed it on my phone. That’s the one that also installed “Jumper Test” and that had a music sync thing that worked, it seemed, though I never tried it without my Micro-SD card installed with the music still on it. The app was nice, but not everything that should have been was implemented. Basically it would play my music sideways, and that made me happy, plus it scrobbled.

In any case, recently I looked for an update, and found an updated version. I installed that .apk (had to uninstall the above one before it would install) and the app was similar, but better, yet had no “Jumper Test” and the “add google account” area for syncing music was “empty” … but otherwise the regular player was nice, worked awesome with the music on my phone.

Just yesterday, early morning I was on my computer and found more information, that Google was unveiling the Cloud Music that very day … So I got over to music.google.com and requested an invite. And I’m still waiting. It’s been over a day. I used to Tweet about how much I wanted this. I wish to try it out so badly since I really want this, now use a SoundBlade with my phone to listen to music via bluetooth.

I have the official 3.0 Google Music app on my phone now. It’s the same as that last one I tried, minus all the streaming stuff in the menus. I mean, it’s not in the menus at all. I’m wondering if it’ll magically appear once my invite arrives?

On my Google Account it’s there, but I can’t access the service yet. It’s in my Dashboard as “Music by Google Beta” with “Manage Music Library” and “PrivacyPolicy” links. I’m anxious to have access to this, and part of that is my curiosity to see if something is there already, from the Jumper Test days of the previous few months.

Also, on my HTC Evo I have “Listen To” use with this app. That’s a great step ahead. My basic need though is for that to be cleaned up. If I say “Listen To … Wasteland” if there is other noise around me it asks me if I meant Listen To Wasteland and many other options.

If there isn’t other noise it loads the
“Listen To Wasteland”
“Go Cancel”
window, then the music app with the search field filled in with “Wasteland” and the song category is shown with the song listed below it, and the keyboard is popped up. But, the song then plays, without showing the Now Playing screen (which I find highly annoying) without me touching anything.

Right now I tried another

The Cure has an album, Disintegration. There is also a song on that album with the same name.

I touched “Voice Search” and said “Listen To … Disintegration”

“Listen To
Disintegration”
“Go Cancel”
Window Loads
Then the music app with “Disintegration” in the search field and the Abum category showing the album on top, with the song below it. The keyboard is also open, of course. Without touching anything, the album begins playing. Yes, the first song in the album, then the next, etc.

How to distinguish you want the song, not the album, or Vise Versa? I don’t know.

I really wish it would play what you want when you ask for something specifically, without the search junk showing, just play it and show me the Now Playing screen.

Because of this I am now more into the idea of using Playlists, naming them with quippy unique names. It’d be nice to have the Instant Mix thing of Google Music. It’s not in the Music app I installed yesterday. I can make a new playlist, but just a regular one. Oh well. I know the video they have for the new service shows using the web browser version to do that, but I did read the info for the Android version and it mention doing it in the app (but you must be online to do it, hence why I can’t access it though I am online, I’m not allowed access to Music Beta …. :( )

I just want a cleaned up way of dealing with what loads with Listen To, and what to say to get this or that implemented better. Accessibility to the cloud storage in order to easily have any of my music at my beck and call without having to “load it” on every device!!!!!!

Like I have the new Duran Duran album. I still haven’t gotten it on to my phone, and I just don’t feel like connecting it to my computer, accessing it like a drive, dragging or syncing anything now. Just waiting for full implementation of what it should be like to live in the 21st Century!

Last.fm dump & Libre.fm import

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I looked at the issue of the Python methodology of getting my Last.fm profile data to my Libre.fm profile today. I can happily say I have completed this task already.

I followed the instructions on the Wiki about it. It wasn’t as straightforward as that, since I use Windows Vista. Most of the instructions are geared towards Linux users. I got the correct Python install for Windows. That was easy enough. Then when that was installed I had to use cmd to set the path to Python, to make it easier to use. That much I got easily.

Then came the understanding of how to run a Python script, which I eventually did get going, the lastscrape.py which is the first part of the job, the getting of the information from last.fm. That was a bit heady, all that info streaming in the small black cmd window. I was mostly frazzling myself over what was to come, the worst part, the “deleting duplicate entries” deal. I haven’t done this sort of work before, and doing it from instructions not really meant for Windows users was frustrating, and searching the web for help, as directed from the libre.fm wiki, had me still not knowing what to do. I finally gave up on that angle and searched for a Python script to do the job. I found something, and I fiddled around with getting it to run, and finally did. It re-ordered the results, but that didn’t seem to matter, as everything uploaded fine, but I can’t tell on my profile if the dates go back to 2005 or not.

My biggest struggle after the duplicates thing was to get import.py to work. I ended up having to type the full path to the script and to the file, I guess whatever I did in the beginning I made work to make it easier then, but that was pre-29,313 tracks dumping from last.fm, I hadn’t written it all down, as I SHOULD have, thus I can’t be sure as to what I did that was different beforehand.

I did get the import.py to work though, it went fine for 7,386 tracks, then errored. I found a blank line in the file right there. The only thing I had on hand to open the file and jump to a specific line was Firefox (view source) where the “jump to line …” command is available. It worked out fine. I copied the remainder and put it into a new text file, and gave it a new name, then started the Python import script again. It works for 16,198 tracks, then hiccupped again, but this time I couldn’t find anything in the file where it stopped, that seemed to indicate anything … so whatever. I just did what I did before, copied the remainder of the file that wasn’t uploaded yet into a new file with a new name and re-started the Python import script. That part was 5,729 tracks.

The total tracks that uploaded to Libre.fm were 29,313. The dump included a couple of days of multiscrobbling, so I deleted those from the top of the dump before deleting dupes and importing it to Libre.fm.

Overall:

  • Last.fm reports that I have 29,817 track listens.
  • Libre.fm reports that I have 29,359 track listens.

    • That’s a difference of 458 tracks. I’m not sure if it’s real or not. Absolutely my top several artist show the biggest discrepancies, on last.fm my The Cure listens is at 4,057 while the same group at libre.fm is 3,985 listens, for instance.

    I figure I’ll make a comparison chart for myself tomorrow. It’s just one of those weird things I like doing, charting things. I used to make index cards of my last.fm stuff as it changed week by week. In the old days I’d keep lists of songs on the radio, and their ranking with the weekly top whatever shows. It’s cool to look at data that changes. I guess it’s not everyone’s thing, to be so into it, I have to admit that I’m overly into it. FWIW, so I’m tyring to push myself into some kind of coding stuff, learn something new & useful on the computer, as I’ve been wanting to, but just haven’t. This little exercise in Python scripting use had awakened my PHP understanding wishes, my desire to use SSH into my websites but haven’t done it, setting up a dual-boot with Linux on the second boot portion … being able to write programs for solutions to things I’d like is what I want, to make a nice script that would take my rockbox .scrobbler.log and submit it to as many services as I want easily. That would be great. How about things to aide putting music on a player, moving certain data, solving wishes and desires in how things work. Not waiting for others to do it.

    I’m there. I guess so since I put myself on libre.fm the day I truly looked at it, and got myself multiscrobbling that very day, and just a couple of days later I’ve gotten my data moved to the new service, while it remains at last.fm, I can multiscrobble as long as I want to. I just need to get my rockbox problem solved, so that I can multiscrobble. I made myself not look into that, to write this tonight instead. Which is good, since tomorrow some of the fuzzy details right now would be only even fuzzier.

    Libre.fm & Songbird & Last.fm & WMP

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    I signed up with libre.fm yesterday. I did struggle to get WMP going with it. I did find a modified last.fm plugin for WMP which was fixed to scrobble to libre.fm. It and the real last.fm plugin could run at the same time in WMP. But I wasn’t able to get the libre.fm one to actually successfully scrobble to my libre profile.

    I was struggling around the ‘net, and I can say I know I did modify my “hosts” file as described on one page about getting it going (my mind is overloaded, I’m not sure which page that was now but it was simply about putting the audioscrobbler ip into windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts file) and I did notice that WMP tracks had scrobbled to libre.fm at some point. Either before that or after. But the point being it still works, and I un-modified the ‘hosts’ file and it’s still working. Thus far. FWIW. I realize now that the first place I found about “how to scrobble to libre.fm” was that Turtle page. It was beyond me what to do about it, I did also see the Client Support page and was still in WMP mode, so I was looking for a way to stick with WMP (since I have Vista and use Media Center some, but I’m not stuck with having to.)

    During all that I started to consider Songbird (I have a slight recollection of downloading it in an earlier version before, like a very early version, and totally ditching it) as a media player since they seemingly are on the way up, as was Thunderbird & Firefox when I switched to them (so long ago, it seems.) I downloaded it last night and couldn’t make it do what I hoped it would. The Last.fm plugin alone wouldn’t even work.

    I found more info today after searching more and more. I changed something in the Songbird config file to not challenge things it thought weren’t compatible, and had it successfully install an older last.fm plugin that was modified to scrobble to libre.fm.

    Then I looked at the Client Support page and understood it fully, though I had looked at it before, just wasn’t learned enough about it yet. I had Songbird, took out all the last.fm/libre.fm anything that I’d installed in it, then loaded in the order from the Client Support page about Multiscrobbling with Songbird: the libre.fm modified one, then the other one linked that will send scrobbles directly to the official Last.fm Client (i.e. the one WMP sends scrobbles to.) I have “always” had the Official Last FM client installed, which is an essential part of Multiscrobbling with Songbird.

    I now have two online profiles, and am scrobbling to both.

    I ponder over how I can get my last.fm data and import it to libre.fm now, but it’s python scripty so I haven’t sat down to tackle it yet. I don’t know what to do about it, and also I do want something that will send my scrobbles from Rockbox to both services, and if I had to pick one it isn’t a choice, since last.fm is the only thing I have to submit to (I currently use qtscrobbler) so both these things have me not sure about where to go from here, for now.

    I have thought of finding another something but hadn’t found what I wanted, happy enough on my end with Last.fm, how I use it, but definitley if I can have a more independent online profile, I’m all for it, but I do not want to leave the last 4+ years of accumulated listening data lost, nor do I want to move all that and then listen only to via libre.fm scrobbling, but then where do my Rockbox scobbles go … I really do like Last.fm, listener pages, being a top listener, or recent one, or something, but some artist pages are so bogged down bieng so popular, I’m lucky to show up on any of them ever, nearly always show up on something more independent, but what’s it matter. Thing is, in May 2005 Audioscrobbler was one thing, then they were Last.fm, then they were … are now but are not but … I’m looking for a way to make it work out for the best.

    Thing is, I got two of my children into Rockbox & Last.fm recently, so this is something I’d like to see happen, switching happily, for good, soon.

    Stryper 25th Anniversary Tour

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    My husband and I went to see Stryper in Atlanta a few days ago, Wednesday, October 21, 2009. The whole show was really good. I really liked their opening band, Manic Drive. I’d not heard of them previously, and found their show super, so we got a couple of t-shirts & their latest CD after the show from their booth.

    Stryper was fantastic too. It’s the 3rd time I’ve seen them, which isn’t as much as I would like it to have been. My first was in 1988 Sept. in Disney World “Night of Joy” event. My friend and I went just for them, though I’d been to other NoJ events before that. That year it was precisely Stryper that I wanted to see and that was that.

    I never did have friends interested in Stryper like I was, and being an introvert wasn’t one to find ways to get to concerts unless people I already knew would want to go, the internet not being a way to connect to others back then … sigh.

    So I went through the mid-80′s with that one Stryper attendance, and then finally in 2005 I got to go again, when they released a new album and toured again after a hiatus. This year they released another album, and I wasn’t able to get it until just this month. I didn’t listen to it a lot, but loved it the first listen I gave it. I didn’t plan on attending the concert, things being tight of late, but mentioned that the concert that I knew would be in Atlanta had changed from what I last knew and it was to be that coming Wednesday. I said something about it to my husband and he initiated interest in seeing if there were tickets available. There were.

    So we had a date. It was tiring, but fun. It was exhausting, but worth it.

    I have some horrible cell phone pictures that I have to sort through, tag, and load up somewhere online, so I’ll make a Page here about it when I get that done.