Hi all,

I use my empeg mainly in the house with a laptop running emplode to control playback. This is great for me because I know my way around the software.

Problem comes when I teach friends how to use the system, they often inadvertently make changes (drag'n'drop accidents, deletions and the like). I am concerned that they will one-day "synchronise" & exit, leaving me with a fooked setup that I cannot easily put right.

Is there any way to launch emplode such that it operates in a "read only" style where changes CANNOT be saved, like a command line switch on launch perhaps? or even a setting in config.ini?

Help me stop my friends trashing my music, any advice happily received.

Cheers, Sim

As a workaround, you could use charcoalgray99's web interface.

Works great for me.

Fast reply man,

Yeh, I've used that a little and it's an excellent piece of work. If I can't find a way to limit emplodes saves it may well end up being my solution.

Cheers, Sim

A further thought on charcoalgray99's excellent web interface and "numpties" (idiots, see http://www.bigpawsrecords.com/notes_for_numpties.htm

If I remember rightly there are a couple of what I would call "non-intuitive behaviours" happening with the stylesheet.

One is that when you reach the bottom level of a playlist tree, the act of clicking any file at that level results in a download window. In my scenario (involving brain dead friends, out to trash my system) any kind of download action is a no-no.

Similarly there are other dangerous options available through the stylesheet, like editing config.ini that I really don't want anyone but me to mess with.

Bear in mind that I have absolutely no programming or XML editing experience to know how to disable all the redundant (again, in my scenario only) default actions.

Cheers, Sim

I'm not sure how you have your system set up at home, but another possible solution could be this:

You could hookup your laptop to your stereo and connect to your empeg through ether from your laptop - then you could download the m3u for your playlists via http (if you have hijack installed). Then, you can stream from your peg with Winamp. That way there's no way your friends can mess anything up on your empeg or your laptop if they're only interfacing with Winamp.

EDIT: You only have to d/l the m3u once. But any time you add new songs to the empeg you'll want to re-download it to have a current playlist for Winamp.

- trs

Another possible way of doing this is to modify the sequence number (seq_num in the [synchronise] section of config.ini) on the player after emplode has been opened. If I remember correctly, the sequence number mismatch would not allow a sync via emplode. The emplode software looks to see it has the right sequence number. If they do not match, emplode will fail to update the player.

It was originally put in as a protection for multiple copies of emplode being opened via the network at the same time. Apparently, the folks in Cambridge were hacking each others' players... This would effectively put emplode into "read only" mode. Crude, but it should work.

or just run the current version of emphatic which prevents sync while it's running... heheh.

Damn, forgot to add that to the feature list.

"Safeguards your empeg against unwanted synchroni[sz]ation attempts!"

(To be factual, emphatic itself has nothing to do with this.)

Thanx guys there's a couple in there I'd never have thought of.

trs - The winamp route is definitely foolproof, I'm already halfway there (ethernet set up / hijack installed) and it wouldn't bother me to set it up that way, unfortunately then I'd be reliant on the sound output from my laptop, not the best sounding thing on the planet - poor laptop. I am right in thinking that the empeg then just acts as a file server?

Paul - you definitely get the prize for most technically competent solution, investigating later and will report back.

Loren - leap of logic mate, leap of logic - you definitely get the prize for least likely to be thought of solution, but nevertheless still worth investigating

yn0t_ - I'm intrigued,...

To be factual, emphatic itself has nothing to do with this

- so what does (only simple answers please).

Everyone, once again thanx for helping out

Cheers, Sim

yn0t_ - I'm intrigued,...

To be factual, emphatic itself has nothing to do with this

- so what does (only simple answers please).

Empathic doesn't specificly prevent syncs. Running any application from the music drive will prevent syncs from happening.

yn0t_ - I'm intrigued,...

To be factual, emphatic itself has nothing to do with this
- so what does (only simple answers please).

Simple answer? Any application that runs from your music partition will cause this, becuase the synchroni[sz]ation cannot occur while files are open on the music drives. Besides, emphatic is now under 400k so it should fit easily on another non-music partiion.

So there. loren was just being silly.

Edit: Okay, we DEFINITELY need BBS mutexes.

Yep, that was simple enough even for me.

thinks..... "this may be not as odd a solution as me first thought".

Now, if only I wasn't at work - ho hum

Cheers, Sim

unfortunately then I'd be reliant on the sound output from my laptop

Yeah, that is the most unfortunate aspect of that setup. It really works better if you have a desktop computer with a nice sound card. But I used to listen to mp3's from my old laptop (powerbook 5300c) through the stereo and it wasn't THAT bad. Now, though - if I listened to that set-up I'm sure I'd feel different about it.

I am right in thinking that the empeg then just acts as a file server?

Pretty much, yeah. Mlord's http server does all the work for you. Basically Winamp just streams the songs via http from your empeg. It works QUITE well. I listen (along with all my co-workers) to my peg at work in this fashion.

Anyway, good luck!

- trs