We almost bought “The Bunny Suicides” on the way out to Thailand at Melbourne airport as it was pretty hilarious, but then forgot to pick it up on the way home. What’s awesome is that I’ve just stumbled across it online!

Check it out at http://people.freenet.de/schnubelken/bunnys/!

Looking for some album covers landed me at a post titled the “10 worst album covers of all time” from a blog called Pork Tornado. Whilst some of the side comments are a bit lame, the covers are hilarious.

In the comments for that previous link, there is a link to Diesel Greatest Hips: Worst Album Cover Gallery which has a 100 or so more dodgy covers.

Following up on my previous post Graphing Your Taste In Music, I’ve since found “Audioscrobbler” an open source system which is supported by various plugins for all sorts of audio players. Quoting from the site:

Audioscrobbler builds a profile of your musical taste using a plugin for your media player (Winamp, iTunes, XMMS etc..). Plugins send the name of every song you play to the Audioscrobbler server, which updates your musical profile with the new song. Every person with a plugin has their own page on this site which shows their listening statistics. The system automatically matches you to people with a similar music taste, and generates personalised recommendations.

Now my first concern was privacy, but they ask for very little information to register, and the plugin works seamlessly in the background. Before too long the system makes recommendations for music you like and also creates a personalised radio stream of music you might like! Download a plugin for your audio player here.

I’ve got the iTunes plugin working perfectly but I’ve since discovered the iPod plugin… The premise is that every time you sync your iPod, it can also sync the recently played list with the Audioscrobbler server. The only thing it’s a little difficult to use with regards to setting up a suitable sync, but more information on this unofficial plugin titled AudioPod is available here. I have it working, but it’s only a partial solution as if you play a single track twice it seems to record the most recent play time only.

Finally, for all you WordPress nuts that wish to integrate Audioscrobbler into your blog, visit Violets are Red > WP-Scrobbler for a really tidy Wordpress plugin.

Now what I really want is an Audioscrobbler plugin for mt-daapd; and if I can sharpen up my C++ skills and get some time, I might write one!

For those unfamiliar with the term, daap is the protocol iTunes uses to share music over your private network such that you can share your music. If you haven’t used it before, fire up iTunes on your Windows/Mac and choose Edit > Preferences > Sharing > Share My Music. Now when you open iTunes on another computer on the local network, you’ll be able to listen to any of the shared music. While the concept isn’t all that special, combined with an awesome device such as the Roku - SoundBridge there is some obvious potential for an awesome home media setup.

Unfortunately iTunes is fairly proprietry, so what happens when you have a decent collection of mp3s and want to be able to share them to a device like the Roku or a PC in the house, but don’t want the hassle of firing up iTunes and logging in when you want to use it? Enter mt-daapd, a Linux DAAP server which runs neatly as a daemon, has an inbuilt webserver for configuration, and supports smart playlists! The following tutorial outlines my install on Debian; if you use Fedora you might want to head along to Setup iTunes server in linux which discusses a Fedora install.

1. Firstly, head on over to SourceForge and download the latest mt-daapd deb file.
2. Switch over to the root account and issue the command:

   dpkg -i mt-daapd_0.2.1.1-1_sarge_i386.deb

3. The configuration file for mt-daapd is stored in /etc/mt-daapd.conf. The settings I’m using are fairly close to the original; but I’m posting it here for reference.

   web_root        /usr/share/mt-daapd/admin-root
   port            3689
   admin_pw        password
   db_dir          /var/cache/mt-daapd
   mp3_dir         /var/hd2/media/mp3   # Your mp3 dir here!
   servername      Fuji
   runas   nobody
   playlist        /etc/mt-daapd.playlist
   extensions .mp3,.m4a,.m4p
   process_m3u 1
   compress 1
   

   Note the “process_m3u” tag. Only set this to 1 if you are sure your playlist files have Unix paths! Otherwise, set it to 0 or convert your playlist files manually in a text editor.

4. The next thing you’ll want to edit is the Smart Playlist file which is located at /etc/mt-daapd.playlist. My Smart Playlist file has the following entries, but use the comments as a guide to develop any sort of Smart Playlist you might want! Some samples below…

   "Recently Added" {
       Date after 2 weeks ago
   }
   
   "Chillout" {
       genre is "Chillout"
   }
   
   "Dance" {
     genre includes "Dance" ||
     genre includes "Club" ||
     genre includes "R&B"
   }
   
   ...
   

5. Restart mt-daapd.

   /etc/init.d/mt-daapd restart

6. Fire up iTunes and you should have the name of your server visible on the left pane ready for playing your music. The SoundBridge will also be able to access your server for a seamless home media experience. Awesome!

The only other point worth mentioning is the inbuilt mt-daapd webserver. Visit http://yourserver:3689 in a web browser and you’ll be greated with a screen similar to the screenshot below!

From the interface you’re able to refresh your music cache (for when you add new music), and see the status of the server. If you make your /etc/mt-daapd.conf file writeable, you’ll be able to edit it from the web interface as well!