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A month with Quod Libet

For the last month I’ve been runnign Quod Libet instead of Banshee. I had run in to two critical problems with Banshee about a month ago:

  • Banshee was taking 80 minutes to start. (Since fixed, I think it was something with Foresight, as Banshee hasn’t had a release in a while).
  • Banshee’s Last.fm reporting plugin hasn’t reported songs correctly to Last.fm for a long time. This is a known bug in the plugin, without a known fix that I’m aware of.

Banshee’s Last.Fm integration may sound like something trivial, but I really enjoy browsing my profile to see what I’ve listened to. Unfortunately, my profile isn’t close to accurate as all the music I listen to at night via Banshee isn’t being reported. Between that, the old data that is still in my Last.fm profile from my wife listening to music via the Xbox (yes, the James Taylor in my profile isn’t from me listening to it), and the Last.fm radio streams, it’s not really an accurate reflection of my music tastes.

Quod Libet is a GTK+ music player, that also includes Ex Falso, a tag editor. Quod Libet is a favorite of a couple of Foresight users, so I thought I’d give that a try. A simple:

<br /> sudo conary update quodlibet

And it’s installed in Foresight!

My first impressions of Quod Libet, is that it comes across with a basic view, but once you start digging, it’s quite the powerful player. The default view includes a search box, People (artist) Album, and then the song list. Search is fast, feels a touch faster than Banshee.

Other views you can choose from include Playlists, Search, File System, Album, Internet Radio and Media Devices.

I tend to listen to full albums at a time, and not create playlists or listen to random songs, so Quod Libet has worked well for me. I’ve been impressed with it’s simplicity, and as I’ve dug deeper, even more impressed with the number of features and advanced funtionality it has. While it doesn’t have the visual appeal of Banshee, it just works, and that’s all I’ve asked it to do.

The only minor complaint I had, was that due to a DDOS attach, the Quod Libet team lost some it’s website, and the documentation on plugins is non-existent. While there is a nice list of plugins available, I had to get some help to figure out how to setup the sub-directories on where to put the plugins, and only one or two have worked out of the five or six I’ve attempted to install. Granted I haven’t spent that much time trying to configure the plugins, but it was just a small disappointment.

If you’re looking for an alternative to Rhythmbox or Banshee on a GNOME desktop, give Quod Libet a chance, the best thing I can say about it is that it “just works”. And works well.

Packers vs. Bears (10/7/07)

I was at Lambeau Field this past Sunday to watch the Packers eventually beat themselves and lose to the Bears on national TV.

Having grown up in Wisconsin, and now living in Minnesota, the residents of Minnesota think they have a rivalry with the Bears, but any true Packer fan will tell you the only rivalry we have is with the Bears. It was my first Bears game, and the normally nice crowd was just mean when it came to the Bears.

It didn’t help that the Packers had almost 100 yards of penalties, 6 turnovers, and didn’t rush the ball in the second half to eventually let a 10 point lead slip through their fingers.

I’ve added two sets of pictures from the game to my Flickr pages. I’m still having issues with focus on my DSLR when using my zoom lens in sports mode, I apologize if any are still blurry.

If you’re a Packer fan, join the Packer group on Flickr.

We were graced with the University of Wisconsin Marching Band before the game, during halftime, and during the second half doing their routine they also do at Camp Randall.

Here’s my favorite picture from the evening:

IMG_0950.JPG

Foresight Website Maintenance

The Foresight website, including the home page, wiki and issue tracker are under going some much needed maintenance this weekend. We are getting Confluence, our wiki, upgraded to handle more users and have the latest version among other things.

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

A bug-hunting we will go

We had a really good Foresight developer meeting a few weeks ago, and one of the outcomes is to start scheduling week long sprints to accomplish some tasks.

First up, is Bug Hunting Week.

Foresight Bug Hunting Week

With 2.0 on the horizon, it’s time to get JIRA, our issue tracker, cleaned up, and tackle all the outstanding issues in 1.4 (and older) and make sure that if the issue hasn’t been resolved, it’s at least assigned to a developer.

Want to help? Join us in #foresight-qa on Freenode or visit the wiki pages to learn more.