RBEQ 1.4 – GStreamer Presets
Just when you thought it was safe...
1.4 of the RBEQ, the Rhythmbox Equalizer, is out and ready for download. The big change here is a switch from storing presets in a flat file to using the GStreamer Preset system. As always, downloads are at RBEQ Google Code.
A big thanks to Stefan Kost, who left this gem of a comment on the 1.3 release posting:
Any reason, you are not using the presets shipped with the gstreamer plugin?
Look at /usr/share/gstreamer-0.10/presets/GstIirEqualizer10Bands.prs and the GstPreset interface.
Users can install own presets to $HOME/.gstreamer-0.10/presets/
Since I didn't know anything about them, after looking at the aforementioned docs, I've gotten things so that they use the GStreamer Preset interface, and it is more well-behaved.
Also a big thanks to Hicham HAOUARI, whose awesome work has gotten RBEQ into Fedora! That's awesome; I was nearly flabbergasted when I saw that. Thank you for the support!
Comments and bug issues are always welcome; please let me know what you find while using it.
Look at /usr/share/gstreamer-0.10/presets/GstIirEqualizer10Bands.prs and the GstPreset interface.
Users can install own presets to $HOME/.gstreamer-0.10/presets/
Exploring the Droid
Recently I've been having a lot of fun playing with my new phone.
The previous statement isn't much of a surprise in this day in age, but I think I should qualify what I mean.
I've been having a lot of fun playing with the software internals of my new phone.
Quandary (part 1)
I wish to pose a question to the masses, particularly to other available software developers. Take this statement:
"The more screwed up the process, the longer you have a job."
How does that make you feel? Does it bother or amuse you? Would you feel uncomfortable hearing it from a coworker? A boss? When does the statement cross the line, if ever? As a programmer, you strive to produce the best product possible. When is there a "good enough" point? If something is broken, but acceptable, is that ethically capable of being released? Is a project that has no (unit, acceptance, ui, etc.) testing capable of release?
Let me know in the comments.
(PS: wrote this post from my Motorola Droid, which I'm having an absolute blast with)
RbEQ update
Not really an update of the software per se, just letting everyone know I haven't forgotten about it. I have two computers at home; one desktop mainly purposed for gaming and general usage, the other is an older, low-powered notebook that I end up doing most of my development on. In the past few months, things have slowed down with rbeq because both of those systems have been outside of the GNOME environment. That's right, I've moved to KDE4. I know quite a few people who find this odd, but it's because of the new direction that GNOME is taking with G3.0, and I don't necessarily want to be a part of it. I know some of those on the team, and I wish them the best, but the new changes, like Gnome Shell, frighten me off, like the initial releases of KDE4 did for me. I was a long time KDE3.5 user, and when they took the plunge, I got off of the boat. Things have been settling in nicely now at KDE4.3, which I'm running on Kubuntu 9.10.
That being said, I saw that someone was having trouble with the recent release of Ubuntu, and so I thought, as maintainer, I should, well, maintain. 
I've got Rhythmbox pulled down onto the laptop, and I'll throw a couple of songs and the plugin on there, to see how everything behaves. Hopefully, there should be an update with some added functionality (saving and loading preferences was a big request) by the end of November.
Rhythmbox EQ update!
Update: Today RBEQ 1.3 was released. Find it on the google code page.
Yes, a month plus later than expected, RBEQ version 1.1 is out.
Updates since the last release:
- The window for the equalizer no longer wrests control away from Rhythmbox itself. This makes it easier to change the EQ and play with volume and songs to get things working optimally.
- Added GConf hooks to allow persistent states for the equalizer between sessions. Most requested feature from the previous release.
- Full base-code rewrite, much cleaner to work with and understand.
Next up, adding a load-save functionality to the EQ so that you can swap settings on the fly.
As always, the download is located here, and the install instructions are the same.
Download from http://rbeq.googlecode.com
Installation instructions:
- Open a terminal, and enter this:
tar -xvzf rbeq-1.3.tar.gz -C ~/.gnome2
- That's it! You're set.
Hope that this release is as popular as the last.
Chris
Rhythmbox EQ
UPDATE: The Rhythmbox EQ has been updated. You can find it at google code.
Good evening everyone!
I've finally gotten to the point where my basic rhythmbox equalizer is up and running, so I figured I'd let the package sit here as an available download. I'll also link it to the rhythmbox devels, in hopes that it generates a bit more interest, and someone might come along and clean up and add to it more, in the true open source sense.
You can download the package here: Click Me!.
Installation instructions:
Uncompress this package using an archive utility (file-roller) to the ~/.gnome2 directory, or use the following command:
tar -xvzf rbeq-1.3.tar.gz -C ~/.gnome2
And that's it! Open rhythmbox, and go to "Edit -> Plugins" and select "Rhythmbox Equalizer."
Screenshot (by request):
Screencap for the Rhythmbox EQ.
It feels good to finally have a project of my own out there to help the community. Ciao!
Ontology brief
Well, I've gotten myself a way to make money this year - I'm working on some research for one of my professors. We're designing a knowledge base/data mining tool for HIV research, and we'll be using a product called protege (http://protege.stanford.edu) to handle the similarities in the data and the operations on them. I've got a brief ontology ready up here, at This OWLDoc link. Let me know what you think.