Neat, if I slap the XML feed up on my own server it basically works in iTunes, modulo track length and a few other tweaks. Guys, a little help?

On the server, and privately, I have been using id3tag. This does not seem to have a method to get the duration, so I calculate that from the bitrate and the filesize.

mp3info looks promising, we should certainly install that. Thanks for the tip.


Done that.
Although, knowing sod all about RSS, I really have no clue what it is you are doing ! Yes, create an xml-file, but what next ?

I downloaded mp3info, and it's as good as useless.... because it supports only ID3V1.x tags, and all our tags (created by iTunes or other software) are ID3V2.x.
That is a shame as it would make my life a lot easier. I have a terrible time with spurious crashes in the C++ id3lib library, and the documentation of that API really sucks.

Hmmmm... isn't IT fun

OK, so we need a tool like mp3info but a little more modern. I'll see what I can rustle up.

XML-schmecksML, as far as I'm concerned, except the end result is this case is worthwhile: someone can go into iTunes and provide the URL to this XML file once, and iTunes will notify him when there's a new recording (and give him the option to download it then and there). That's all a podcast is: an RSS feed where articles have multimedia content. So iTunes is just an example: any feed reader suffices to get notifications of newly published pieces. I already do most of my internet reading via RSS, so I think that's pretty cool, but if you haven't got the feed religion, you might not.

(RSS for forum posts would be great too, if it can be arranged, but that's a separate problem.)

I tried a few other tools, and it looks like we can't yank duration out of the ID3 tag data because it isn't stored there (!). So the next idea would be a command-line MP3 player that can spit out the duration without actually trying to play anything...

Nope, I don't think it is stored in the mp3. The Id3Lib API does not have a method or property for it and that is a sure sign. I can calculate it if it's a CBR recording but if it's VBR then I guess you have to play the file before you know the length. This why I really only want CBR recordings.
The calculation is easy enough in C but I would not quite know how to script it.

BTW schmontz, you'll have to teach me the basics od RSS feeds as I don't really understand what it is you have been doing. It would be nice if people can subscribe to the new recordings list.

Okay, the latest mp3splt spits out track length to stderr as it works, and I've got a sed expression to convert that to the format iTunes wants. For the time being, it has to do a useless split to /dev/null, but that's quick enough for automation purposes, and I've put in a request for a command-line argument to just print the duration of the input and exit. Could you install mp3splt? Probably handy to have on the server anyway, for quick-trimming submissions that need it.

The easiest way to start with RSS and Atom, assuming you have a Gmail account, is Google Reader. It should give you the idea pretty quickly, and some folks like it well enough to use as their primary feed reader.

Pleeeeeeease? Thanks

Argh... this is no fun It wants the jdk1.4 to be installed, and the libmp3splt, which in turn wants libid3tag, lobigg0, libvorbis, etc.....

Isn't there some "apt-get" command which downloads and installs all the dependencies ? I am not too good at this stuff really, and too lazy to download and install dozens of packages manually.

JDK? Yikes. I didn't need that on my NetBSD or Mac OS X systems when I was packaging mp3splt for pkgsrc. I'm pretty ignorant about other package systems, but judging from this page, looks like the command to try is "apt-get install mp3splt":

http://www.debian.org/doc/FAQ/ch-pkgtools.en.html

Yeah if only that would work ! Throws me some blurb, then says

Unmet dependencies. Try 'apt-get -f install' with no packages (or specify a solution).

So I do that, and then it can't get the packages, throwing 404 HTTP errors:

...
Failed to fetch http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/ ... 2_i386.deb 404 Not Found
E: Unable to fetch some archives, maybe run apt-get update or try with --fix-missing?

So I do 'apt-get -f install --fix-missing' and , after throwing the 404 errors again, apt-get proceeds to just sit there eating up all the cpu.

Lastly, I do 'apt-get update' and it throws me a lot of blurb, 404 error, and lastly the message

E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Seems like apt-get update did not help any as the original install command still thros the same errors. Cripes, this hairy-fairy stuff does get on my nerves. So much for Linux saving the world... give me Windows anytime

I think I'll give up on trying to install anything. Earlier attempts to install the JDK 1.4 ended in a similar quagmire.

Yuck. Tell you what, I'll try build mp3splt into my home dir using pkgsrc (and then get rid of pkgsrc). In order to bootstrap pkgsrc the system needs to have libncurses-dev and/or libtermcap -- can apt-get at least do those for us?

I have not made friends with apt-get yet. It keeps throwing HTTP 404 errors at me whatever I try. Maybe I should try and use another repository URL but I am not sure what to choose.

But why would mp3slt, which I assume to be a commandline utility, need termcap or even curses

It's the pkgsrc tools themselves that need some terminal awareness -- at least tnftp, which has a nice interactive mode. (Then again, I'm still amazed that apt-get wanted to pull in Java for mp3splt. Something in the middle obviously thinks it needs it, I just have no idea what that could possibly be...)

According to /etc/lsb-release, the OS is Ubuntu 6.10. That's pretty old, right? Maybe too old for the repositories to be around anymore? https://help.ubuntu.com/6.10/ubuntu/ser ... t-get.html is the most specific apt-get documentation I can find about that version, and maybe the apt-get update will help with the 404's. (In the long run I'd guess we'd want to keep a little closer to the latest Ubuntu, though of course that requires someone to do the work.)

I am not not sure if we really want to keep up with Ubuntu patches, as long as we have no problems. It would perhaps make sense to do so, but we have not got a dedicated sysadmin. Personally I want to stay away from this quicksand as much as possible, and I am not sure if the issue at hand is worth all the trouble.

But, if you think mp3splt is something we must have I can ask the Swedish admin guy to see if he can install it.