Yep, proxy/firewall support is on the list of things "to do". We just wanted to get this thing out there. I'll probably be adding that sometime next week. :)

Sweet. Let me know, eh?

By the way, when you do get the proxy support in there, make sure it supports authenticated proxies: i.e., ones where you have to enter your username and password. Most apps I've seen go through the following development growth:

- First release: No firewall support.
- Three months later: Firewall support, but only for simple proxies.
- Three months later: Support for authenticating firewalls.

I can never use the app until it reaches the third stage.

By the way, does it use a non-HTTP port for its communication? My firewall has all the ports blocked except for 80 and 81. For instance, when using the CDDB, I have to tell it to use the HTTP protocol to get the job done or it won't work.

___________
Tony Fabris

I used to have getright a long time ago, but I found out it had spyware built into it, so I deleted it. You can read about it at www.grc.com. Netscape smartdownload also sends info on everything you download.

Sean

I used to have getright a long time ago, but I found out it had spyware built into it, so I deleted it. You can read about it at www.grc.com.

Odd, I just read Steve's page there, and the name GetRight isn't even mentioned. He lists three other download utilities, but GetRight wasn't one of them.

For a second, you had me really panicked.



___________
Tony Fabris

>> I used to have getright a long time ago, but I found out
>> it had spyware built into it

> Odd, I just read Steve's page there, and the name
> GetRight isn't even mentioned

Apparently it contains Aureate according to Aureate's product list.

Paul

Apparently it contains Aureate according to Aureate's product list.

Oh, if that's all, then I don't care. Aureate is just ad-banner software (slightly unsecure ad-banner software I'll grant). The thing that scared me from Steve's page is the idea that GetRight might be sending my download habits back to Headlight Software. Apparently, it's not doing that, so I'm not worried now.

And Steve gives pretty good instructions on which Aurate file is insecure, and I can't find it on my system anywhere, so everything's cool.

___________
Tony Fabris

This is exactly the type of thing we were hoping the open source community could help us out with :)

Download and run the optout program he has on his website - it will look for certain files and let you know if you have spyware installed. I thought getright's ad engine was powered by aureate, but im not sure. Its been a while - I didnt mean to freak you out.

Sean

I thought getright's ad engine was powered by aureate, but im not sure.

I think the reason it's not a problem for me might possibly be that I've been a registered GetRight user since before they had the Aureate adware included with it. So every time I install a new version, it just skips the adware part.

___________
Tony Fabris

Cool! I might have to check into that then. I thought it just came with the program, and there was no way to get rid of it except to uninstall it, and go through and find the evil files on my hard drive. -nice run on sentence-

Sean

Guys@eTantrum,

I might be wrong, but you seem to have succumbed to temptation very often succumbed to, that is to default your configure templates to configuration you had (including the very latest versions of rather generic libraries), when older versions would probably do (since we are talking about char-mode application).

Could you either relax your build requirements (so that the program builds with, say RH 5.0 up and equivalent other distribs - if that is indeed possible), or provide statically built Linux binaries.

Your program seems great, but I was still not able to try it...

Cheers!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

I might be wrong, but you seem to have succumbed to temptation very often succumbed to, that is to default your configure templates to configuration you had (including the very latest versions of rather generic libraries), when older versions would probably do (since we are talking about char-mode application).

Could you either relax your build requirements (so that the program builds with, say RH 5.0 up and equivalent other distribs - if that is indeed possible), or provide statically built Linux binaries.

What requirement that the SDK contains are you having trouble with? We use pretty standard build requirements, except for glib-1.2 (which has been around for at least a few years) and the fftw libraries (which our algorithm relies on). Other than that you shouldn't have any problems building it.

Or are you talking about getting the PMA running? Because that does require more recent libraries.

Let me know exactly what the problem is.

(O|||||O)

We use pretty standard build requirements, except for glib-1.2 (which has been around for at least a few years) and the fftw libraries (which our algorithm relies on). Other than that you shouldn't have any problems building it.

You are right, of course. I have some mixup between glib 1.0.6 and 1.2.3 (with both versions in /usr/lib, older one being default), with some apps requiring each (and without development version of 1.2.3 installed, apparently, so no glib-config). I extracted glib-config from 1.2.3 dev manually, but now of course glib test program does not run due to old includes. I will try installing 1.2.3 dev somehere else and tell config manually where are libs and includes.

It seems I will not be able to postpone that upgrade much longer....

UPDATE: I am a complete idiot, of course. All it took was to force-install glib-dev-1.2.3 (and the only other package that depended on earlier version, gtk). Now I am playing with sndref.

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Edited by bonzi on 13/9/00 10:01 PM.

Okay, I'm not afraid to sound unkowledgable here. How the hell do I get this to work?

I downloaded that PMA program which is fairly interesting. I want to know how to do the ID tag thing. I tried clicking the "more info" or whatever, but it gave me a message saying something like "can't get info for user-defined song" or something. The help file doesn't help much in this area either.

I downloaded the songprint files but I don't have a compiler.

I'd really like to know how to do this.

Thanks

DiGNAN

I am not sure I can help here, since I haven't tried PMA, but only Linux version of 'song-fingerprinting' library (which does include a fully functional command-line demo program). The building process is completely straightforward (one also needs a fancy Fourier transform library available separately installed - see eTantrum's pages). My only problem was a mess my Linux machine is in. Once I got it somewhat in order (by force-installing development libraries (glib 1.2.3 and such) around for a year or two), it only took standard './configure; make; make install'. I made a fool of myself slightly by complaining they insist on using the most recent libraries before realizing this.

Do you have problems on Win or Linux?

The demo program fingerprints your WAV, MP3 or OggVorbis tune and contacts their server to try and identify it. If succesfull, it shows a list of possible matches (it guessed the tune correctly every time it found it, but there were different albums and sometimes genres). If not, it prints a long URL by which one can add a tune to their database. This, a little piece of Perl and a ID3 maintaining utility is all it takes to fill in one's missing tags (provided somebody already added the tune in question to eTantrum's database). However, since they don't take 'last submission is valid' approach like CDDB, but rather present you with all possibilities (as they should), the process is interactive.

BTW, I am now playing with different versions of the same tune (different albums, different encodings) to see how good are they in recognising them. So far, quite impressive.

Well, I don't think this really helped.....

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Edited by bonzi on 17/9/00 10:58 AM.

Well, I guess you could say I'm having problems in Windows, but not really problems. As I said, I have no idea what you guys are talking about! I'm not a programmer, and I don't know why heck don't supply the program in a finished form! I just want something to do what it says it will do, and I'm not interested in compiling and all that stuff.

Also, you said you needed an "ID3 maintaining utility"? What is that? Does that mean you have to fill in the tags yourself even after they've been identified? Heck, I can do that myself! I know where all my songs are from, I'm just looking for an easy way to fill them out!

Again, correct any of my misguided assumptions if they are incorrect. I'm a little confused here...

DiGNAN

I'm not a programmer, and I don't know why heck don't supply the program in a finished form!

I thought they did. Isn't that what the Personal Media Agent is? I don't know because I can't get the PMA to function from behind my firewall.

Also, you said you needed an "ID3 maintaining utility"? What is that? Does that mean you have to fill in the tags yourself even after they've been identified?

I think that's only if you're using it in command-line mode under Linux or if you're integrating their code into your own. Isn't the Personal Media Agent supposed to handle that?

___________
Tony Fabris

Well, I guess you could say I'm having problems in Windows, but not really problems. As I said, I have no idea what you guys are talking about! I'm not a programmer, and I don't know why heck don't supply the program in a finished form! I just want something to do what it says it will do, and I'm not interested in compiling and all that stuff.

As Tony already answered (is this guy ever away from the keyboard for more than ten minutes :), PMA is supposed to be a fully functional demo GUI application. If you have problems with it, perhaps eTantrum's and our ClemsonJeep could help. I am playing on Linux at the moment, with their 'bare' library, so no help from me, I am affraid.

Also, you said you needed an "ID3 maintaining utility"? What is that? Does that mean you have to fill in the tags yourself even after they've been identified? Heck, I can do that myself! I know where all my songs are from, I'm just looking for an easy way to fill them out!

Again, PMA is supposed to do that (if I read description correctly). Command-line demo, on the other hand, is written in Unix tradition: it provides what guys@eTantrum do best - it identifies the tune, queries their database and prints results. There are numerous command-line utilities to modify ID3 tags (as are for ripping, for mp3 encoding, for cddb querying, for maintaining jour mp3 database etc). The user is expected to glue them together using shell/Perl/awk/Python/bubblegum/duct-tape/whatever, with or without GUI. If someone comes with particularly nice and usefull leashup and decides to publish it, it becomes more or less a standard. For example, grip, one of most popular all-in-one Linux rippers/encoders, is actually just a GUI shell for variety of rippers, encoders and taggers, and user can add their own. That is (original) Unix philosophy: write small tools that do one job, but do it right, and provide an easy way to combine them. However, nowadays Unix is also full of bloatware in Widows style.

Cheers, and keep us informed about advances with PMA!

Dragi "Bonzi" Raos
Zagreb, Croatia
Q#5196, MkII#80000376, 18GB green

Okay, then it goes back to what I said earlier. I thought PMA was supposed to do all this, but it just plain doesn't!

Here's the message I get when I highlight "Would?" by Alice In Chains:

In reply to:

---

"Would" is a user-defined song.
eTantrum.com cannot give detailed information about user-defined songs.

---

This is exactly what it gives me for EVERY SINGLE SONG I TRY!! Now, I might be mistaken about which button does what, so the "More Info" button may not be what I'm supposed to press for this function. However, the help file says this:

In reply to:

---

The More Info Button

This is where you can find out all the information on the song that you are currently listening to. Artist, Track name, Album it was released on, and Lyrics (if available). This will also be where you can use the "sounds like" feature to find similar sounding music.

---

That sure sounds like it to me. Although it doesn't say anything about filling out the tags it'self. It looks more like this program is informational. Like it will tell you the information and make you go change it. I don't know, it may be just me, but I think this program is trying to be too many things.

DiGNAN

I had the same problem you describe. Every time I hit more info, I got the exact same error. Then one time, I was on-line, and ran PMA. I did nothing with it because my cell phone rang, and I answered the call. As I was talking on my cell, I watched PMA slowly (one every five seconds or so) go through my MP3s, and change the Album from the correct one (Aqualung) to something else (I forget what) that was still the correct song, but not the album I ripped the CD from.

I assume it takes a while of inactivity to activate this feature?

I also know what Dignan was saying about the finished form. I would like to use the command line version of the program (not the full-blown player), just the identifier. I am away from my compilers, etc. so I can't compile the source.

It would be nice if they (someone) could supply a pre-compiled binary of just the command line version (sndref.)

-Trevor

-----
Mk 2, Green 12GB 080000349

I also experienced this. However, I still had some problems. Here's what I did.

I loaded one song, the Beatles' "Across the Universe". I knew it had absolutely no tag info in it. To my suprise, it filled out some info on it. I appologize for my earlier confusion, but there was no information saying the program did this.

Anyway, it only filled out the artist and track name fields. Of course, I wanted all the fields. So I tried something else. I removed the song from the playlist and closed the program. I then renamed the song from "Beatles - Across the Universe.mp3" to "song.mp3". Then I removed all tag info. Then I opened PMA and loaded the song. This time it just sat there, with the word "song" sitting in the track name field. I played the entire song about 3 times. Nothing.

What's up?

I also have yet to see a song get all it's fields completed. That's including "Loser" by Beck which, I assume, xml was able to get.

WHAT'S UP?

ps-honestly, I don't want another MP3 player. You should stick to making a program the just tags songs at first. After that works, you should expand.

DiGNAN

I was trying this program tonight and up pops a virus warning from Norton Antivirus.

This is the only place I can figure it came from.

Anyways it had infected my notepad.exe file with the W32.HLLW.Qaz.A virus.
Anybody else seen this or know if it can be transmitted by email?

Win98, IE4 Outlook Express 4.

Thanks all!

P.S. I was playing a song on the PMAs player when it happened.

#170... I got SN: 080000101 12 gig Blue!

I was trying this program tonight and up pops a virus warning from Norton Antivirus.

This is the only place I can figure it came from.

Er, if you downloaded the PMA from our website, it is impossible for it to have a virus inside of it. It must have been infected when you installed it, which means you contracted the virus from somewhere else.

I'd recommend booting from a clean floppy and running a virus check on every file in your system.

Let me know if you find any problems or anything.

(O|||||O)

Just a quick note, more info about that virus can be found here.


Donato

Sorry for any scare... I have just dug up some info and this is a fairly new worm... which was only detected recently due to my DAT update. Sorry to cause any confusion.

Though I can't remember installing anything else in the last couple of months on that particular computer... oh well.

Later, and sorry for any confusion ClemonJeep.

#170... I got SN: 080000101 12 gig Blue!

I agree with DiGNAN17. This is a really cool concept and I'm very encouraged that it is working so well in identifying the songs. You don't need extra bells and whistles to make people want to use this tool. And you certainly don't want to make it unneccissarily difficult to use for its primary purpose by adding more features. And you really don't want to be doing things in the background without the user asking for it and without telling the user what you are doing and why. The sndref command line version for Linux sounds like exacly what I want. No more no less. How about a Windows version like that? And post some binaries. ClemsonJeep, I know you are reading this thread, but you haven't addressed any of the recent comments.

I'll third list. I installed it, and the first thing it did was ask for demographic information including pay rate. For someone who doesn't live in the USA this is relatively meaningless, and I always suspect anything that tries to get this kind of information from me - it smells too much like targetted advertising. I quit it and deinstalled it immediately.

Therefore I haven't tried out the program at all. I don't think it's unreasonable for the program to continue working if I try to cancel that dialog, albeit without whatever benefit that information might provide to it. I also want to know why it needs to know that information before I'll fill it in.

Suspiciously yours,

Paul

Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.

I'll third list. I installed it, and the first thing it did was ask for demographic information including pay rate. For someone who doesn't live in the USA this is relatively meaningless, and I always suspect anything that tries to get this kind of information from me - it smells too much like targetted advertising. I quit it and deinstalled it immediately.

I assume you are now talking about the PMA. The demographic information for one is optional, and for two is simply gathered for use with our algorithms for song recommendation. To be completely honest, most of that stuff isn't even used; the PMA was technology that was already WELL under development when I started working for eTantrum, so I can't say I know a lot about what that info was for.

I *do* know that the ZIP code *IS* used with our Concert recommendation engine, but that really doesn't apply to overseas people as we only provide concert information for US clients.

Therefore I haven't tried out the program at all. I don't think it's unreasonable for the program to continue working if I try to cancel that dialog, albeit without whatever benefit that information might provide to it. I also want to know why it needs to know that information before I'll fill it in.

All of that information *should* be optional. If it is not, then that is a bug which I'll look into. I'll do a fresh install tomorrow and see if this is the case.

Either way, this thread was began with discussion of the SongPrint SDK that was released. The PMA is an application that was created months before we even decided to release an opensource version of our client.

Okay. Any more questions, feel free to ask. :) I'll be sure to look into that bug.

Thanks!

(O|||||O)

Okay first off, I think we have some confusion as to what we are discussing here.

We have two *totally* different products at the moment available for download.

We have the PMA, which is a very large application used for media organization, identification, and recommendation.

We have the SongPrint SDK, which is simply the identification part from above.

That being said, I will try to respond to your message as best I can. :)

You don't need extra bells and whistles to make people want to use this tool. And you certainly don't want to make it unneccissarily difficult to use for its primary purpose by adding more features.

I assume you are talking about the PMA. The PMA is *not* designed to simply be an identification tool. It is a very large application that provides what I said above - a VERY smart media "Jukebox" (although I hate to use that term)... it just also happens to identify music. :)

The sndref command line version for Linux sounds like exacly what I want. No more no less.

Okay, now to clear up some other points.

The sndref "utility" really isn't a utility. It is simply a linux program created to USE the SongPrint SDK and demonstrate its ability, in a nice easy command line interface. It's meant for people to compile and run and say "Wow, this kicks ass! I want to add this SDK into my YYY media program!" (Insert the media application they are working on in place of YYY)

So this brings me to my next reply..

How about a Windows version like that? And post some binaries.

There *is* a windows test program included in the archive. It performs the exact same thing as the linux "sndref" command line utility, except it has a simple GUI. Since we aimed the SDK at developers, we decided to just give the source and the project files for the test programs, to let the developer compile it themselves.

I can understand why you would want a windows binary, though... especially if "Average Joe User" just wants to see the technology in action.

I will compile up the latest version along with all the files you need for the Win32 "sndref" and post it on this board tomorrow. Sound good? :)

Whew. Okay. I'm going to bed now. I have to wake up early. :)

Seriously, thanks for the comments. I definitely appreciate all feedback, especially from you fellow empeg guys. :)

(O|||||O)

All of that information *should* be optional. If it is not, then that is a bug which I'll look into. I'll do a fresh install tomorrow and see if this is the case.

Whenever a piece of software or a web site asks me for demographic data, e-mail addresses, or personal address/phone information, I always fill out the fields with filthy garbage. The PMA was no exception. They can't invade your privacy if you don't let them.

(Of course, this doesn't apply if they need my e-mail address to verify an online purchase, etc., but most programs/sites that prompt for this data don't require it to be accurate.)

___________
Tony Fabris

I assume you are talking about the PMA. The PMA is *not* designed to simply be an identification tool. It is a very large application that provides what I said above - a VERY smart media "Jukebox" (although I hate to use that term)... it just also happens to identify music. :)

Okay, a few things. I knew PMA had extra stuff in addition. My complaint was two-fold: if I can't have an identification-only program, why do I have to have all that additional stuff? The SongPrint thing is NOT for the average user and you don't say much to that fact.

What's the problem sith developing a simple utility that identifies songs and fills out the tags? And remember, simple means simple setup, too (no compiling or libraries nonsense seen anywhere). In other words, for "Average Joe Consumer".

And please read all our troubles with identifying songs using PMA, since you say that it can and we have found that it can't.

I don't mean to sound irritated, I just think this is an incredible idea from what I've read! But for some reason, I am completely unable to see it!

anxiously awaiting your post tomorrow...

DiGNAN