What's Happening Again
I just uploaded a new version of happening, my perl script that can update iChat status with what program you are running, what you are listening to, etc.
This release makes one feature work better (setting iChat image) and adds a new feature (screen saver images).
I added one feature a little while ago, and made it work better this time: making your iChat icon match the album cover of the track you are listening to in iTunes. I just ripped my entire CD collection to lossless and put in album covers for all but a few of the CDs, so that's kinda nice to have.
And while on the subject of album covers, I added a related new feature. See, I have a laptop in my stereo closet, and it is hooked up to the amp and to the TV. When I press the "Music" button on my Harmony Remote, the TV shows the laptop screen and the amp switches to the USB digital output from the laptop.
Just looking at the iTunes interface gets boring, and while I can see the small album cover in the bottom of the screen, I wanted it big. So now the album cover not only gets set as the iChat icon, but it gets saved to a temp folder. Then I set my screen saver to come on in the shortest interval (3 minutes), and to randomly select a picture from that folder. Now the screen saver is showing the album cover of the song I am listening to.
There's probably better ways to do that, but I couldn't find any, and I figured this would be fun to play with.
So now if you see a big album cover on my TV or you see my iChat icon changing regularly to match what I am listening to, you know why.
Coming up next is a script I use to rip my entire iTunes collection to a new library at a lower bitrate, that I use to sync to my iPod. But it is running on a PowerBook G3/500, and so it is going to take about week to finish converting my 130+ GB of tunes, and then I have some more work to do on the script to clean it all up.
This release makes one feature work better (setting iChat image) and adds a new feature (screen saver images).
I added one feature a little while ago, and made it work better this time: making your iChat icon match the album cover of the track you are listening to in iTunes. I just ripped my entire CD collection to lossless and put in album covers for all but a few of the CDs, so that's kinda nice to have.
And while on the subject of album covers, I added a related new feature. See, I have a laptop in my stereo closet, and it is hooked up to the amp and to the TV. When I press the "Music" button on my Harmony Remote, the TV shows the laptop screen and the amp switches to the USB digital output from the laptop.
Just looking at the iTunes interface gets boring, and while I can see the small album cover in the bottom of the screen, I wanted it big. So now the album cover not only gets set as the iChat icon, but it gets saved to a temp folder. Then I set my screen saver to come on in the shortest interval (3 minutes), and to randomly select a picture from that folder. Now the screen saver is showing the album cover of the song I am listening to.
There's probably better ways to do that, but I couldn't find any, and I figured this would be fun to play with.
So now if you see a big album cover on my TV or you see my iChat icon changing regularly to match what I am listening to, you know why.
Coming up next is a script I use to rip my entire iTunes collection to a new library at a lower bitrate, that I use to sync to my iPod. But it is running on a PowerBook G3/500, and so it is going to take about week to finish converting my 130+ GB of tunes, and then I have some more work to do on the script to clean it all up.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
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