Re:Streaming MJ Music - MJ Robo Radio
Sunday, June 06 2010 @ 09:40 AM CDT

Way cool. I love it. Can you make an app out of this for the iPhone and iPad?

Re:Streaming MJ Music - MJ Robo Radio
Sunday, June 06 2010 @ 09:49 AM CDT

THANK YOU MARK for devising the PC user version of this!

Re:Streaming MJ Music - MJ Robo Radio
Sunday, June 06 2010 @ 10:33 AM CDT

Quote by: TobinMueller Way cool. I love it. Can you make an app out of this for the iPhone and iPad?

I am planning an iPhone version, iPad too. This version is sort of a trial bed for me. Bill (Smokey) beat me to the punch with his amazing player...

I actually started developing mine for my own use on the idea that I love discovering new music so the random idea was appealing. Bill's player (MJ radio) blew me away... I use both now. I use his player when I want more control over what I listen to. I use mine to build lists of songs to go back and hit for comments and favs.

I have new versions of both the Mac and Win version of my player. The primary improvements are a little more stability. I think the Windows version is a little better stability wise. Try it and let me know guys. I strongly suggest replacing any previous version you have with this windows version. Just download the zip and overwrite what you have.

The big feature in this version that was requested by Bryn (particledots) was to have a way to select Genre. This is tougher than it looks for me because there are so many Genres supported on MJ. So I kind of did the cheater way... I gave you a list where you have to type in the names of the genres you want and I do a sub match on it.

So if you type in rock its gonna give you hard rock, rock, folk rock, alternative rock etc. Basically any genre with "rock" in the genre name will satisfy the search. So the burden is on you to specify the genre accurately. You can save and restore the genre files too..

Anyway have fun:

Mac version:

http://web.me.com/mrh77/filechute/MJ%20Song%20Player.zip

Windows version:

http://web.me.com/mrh77/filechute/MJ%20Song%20Player%20Win.zip

Just a final disclaimer... While I've tested both of these on my Mac and on my WinXP machine and they seem to work, they are likely to hang, crash, etc. I would not expect any damage to your machine from a crash. Its no different than any other program crashing. Just be aware this is early development software and likely to not perform up to a high standard.

I'm open to ideas and suggestions. Obviously bug reports too. On the Windows side it is a struggle because Windows Media player which does the work is turning out to be a bear to control. Often it just thumbs its nose and me and refuses to play by the rules. So I had to get crazy and figure out ways to detect when it was being sketchy... On the contrary the Mac player is rock solid and simply runs... The bugs in that side were of my own creation.

One last think I will say is this:

Bill's player is a ton of fun. I have learned how to control it to give me the music I like and it just works. I run that one when I just want to be entertained.

My player has amazed me by discovering music I didn't know existed. The randomness is cool. Currently I'm testing it with genres of Folk, indie rock, alternative rock and I've had to "like" at least 5 songs I've never heard before. So my suggestion to those of you that use my player, use it to discover new music... It's kind of like Tobins "mining the database" effort. That is what this program does.

Enjoy... PM me with questions or concerns!

Re:Streaming MJ Music - MJ Robo Radio
Sunday, June 06 2010 @ 08:12 PM CDT

Quote by: TobinMueller Way cool. I love it. Can you make an app out of this for the iPhone and iPad?

it's on my list to explore how to port it to iPhone. no idea about iPad at this point...

thanks!

Re:Streaming MJ Music - MJ Robo Radio
Monday, June 07 2010 @ 09:38 AM CDT

Another minor update:

Windows version:

http://web.me.com/mrh77/filechute/MJ%20Song%20Player%20WIN.zip

Mac version:

http://web.me.com/mrh77/filechute/MJ%20Song%20Player.zip

Changes:

1) Does not start playing music automatically. This gives you a chance to setup your genre and song selection stuff prior to starting play. To start play just click the "Enable" checkbox.

2) Added song ranges. On the music selection tab you can now specify numerical song range selection. This allows you to kind of select more current or less current songs.

3) Added a small statistics line that tells you how many songs you've played, skipped, liked and disliked.

Windows stability very much improved. In my test last night the Windows player ran all night long

Re:Streaming MJ Music - MJ Robo Radio
Monday, June 07 2010 @ 01:49 PM CDT

MJ Robo Radio update

Completed the song duration controls. Now you can block songs that are too long or too short. If you select unusual settings, there might be long delays between songs.

Fixed the problem where sometimes a song got cut short.

MJ_Robo_Radio (Apple only)

I'm essentially done with it for now. I'll be learning about iPhone apps for a while I suspect.

Re:Streaming MJ Music - MJ Robo Radio
Monday, June 14 2010 @ 08:38 AM CDT

Quote by: SmokeyVW MJ Robo Radio update Completed the song duration controls. Now you can block songs that are too long or too short. If you select unusual settings, there might be long delays between songs. Fixed the problem where sometimes a song got cut short. MJ_Robo_Radio (Apple only) I'm essentially done with it for now. I'll be learning about iPhone apps for a while I suspect.

I backed out part of the last change. It was way too easy to overconstrain song lengths to the point where dozens of songs were being fetched, but never played.

The unfortunate thing is that there's no way to know how long a song is without actually getting the song and measuring it before playing it. A similar problem exists for explicit songs: without actually opening the song page, you can't tell if it's explicit or not. I'm hesitant to change MJ Robo Radio to directly access the song pages, since that would inflate the hit counts artificially. Oh well...

Re:Streaming MJ Music - MJ Robo Radio
Monday, June 14 2010 @ 09:37 AM CDT

Quote by: SmokeyVW Quote by: SmokeyVW MJ Robo Radio update Completed the song duration controls. Now you can block songs that are too long or too short. If you select unusual settings, there might be long delays between songs. Fixed the problem where sometimes a song got cut short. MJ_Robo_Radio (Apple only) I'm essentially done with it for now. I'll be learning about iPhone apps for a while I suspect. I backed out part of the last change. It was way too easy to overconstrain song lengths to the point where dozens of songs were being fetched, but never played. The unfortunate thing is that there's no way to know how long a song is without actually getting the song and measuring it before playing it. A similar problem exists for explicit songs: without actually opening the song page, you can't tell if it's explicit or not. I'm hesitant to change MJ Robo Radio to directly access the song pages, since that would inflate the hit counts artificially. Oh well...

...still using as originally set up and still working fine here VW....still love alex as well lol

Re:Streaming MJ Music - MJ Robo Radio
Tuesday, August 17 2010 @ 12:52 PM CDT

Not sure if this was mentioned, but accidentally click twice on the program opens two versions that play in competition with each other. Maybe there should be a way of knowing if the program is already open and avoiding this?

After uploading a new version, does it start over from scratch learning preferences, or is that a stable database between versions?

Re:Streaming MJ Music - MJ Robo Radio
Tuesday, August 17 2010 @ 02:40 PM CDT

Quote by: TobinMueller Not sure if this was mentioned, but accidentally click twice on the program opens two versions that play in competition with each other. Maybe there should be a way of knowing if the program is already open and avoiding this? After uploading a new version, does it start over from scratch learning preferences, or is that a stable database between versions?

it maintains a stable database in your Library/MJ_Robo_Radio folder.

after a while it accumulates the entire MacJams songbase (it slowly works its way back in time) so you'll notice old songs appearing after a few hours of listening. it doesn't store the mp3 files, only the text about the songs. mp3 files are cached on your computer only long enough to be played and then immediately deleted.

EDIT:
oops forgot to reply to your first concern. that is a bug. thanks for finding it, i'll fix that soon. meanwhile, just killing one will do.