My First foobar2000 Theme

Here it is my first foobar2000 theme. It's pretty basic. Nothing fancy. It's aimed at people who like to keep the interface simple and clean and who spend time listening to their music rather than looking at their media player.

Some things you would need to set it up:

1. the latest beta version of foobar2000 (currently v0.9.5 beta 2) available here
2. foo_facets.dll available here
3. my theme file available here
4. (optional) the windows xp theme used in the screenshot is available here

After you have the foobar beta installed, copy the facets dll file into the foobar component directory. Run foobar then in preferences, go to default user preferences and click import theme. You just then need to select my theme file.

Ipod Classic Battery Drain

It's been a while since my last post about my new Ipod Classic. Honestly I'm just tired of it. Last time I mentioned the little annoyances like slow syncing with Itunes and how it handles albums by various artists in cover flow.

Apparently that's not the worst of it. The damned thing's battery gets drained after around 2-3 hours of listening. Sometimes it get's drained even while it's off and not in use for days. It looks like the culprit is the hard drive failing to stop spinning. Now Apple, I think that is a BIG problem you need to solve quick. And this is happening to a lot of people. Check these links:

Mobile Magazine, Engadget, Ilounge, Apple Support

Bye Winamp, Hello Foobar2000

I've been using Winamp since I first started listening to MP3s. I think that was 2001. I'm not sure though because it has been a long time. I've tried every other media player back there but I keep coming back to good old Winamp. It's light on resources, not bad looking and it just plain works.

With the new Winamp 5.5 and it's great looking Bento skin and album art support, I thought it just became perfect. But I've been getting a lot of crashes with this version and I can't wait for the next one.

Luckily I found the latest beta of foobar2000. I've been using this for months now as a ripper but never as a ripper because it just looks ugly. And I don't have the time and knowhow to configure it to look decent.

That was then. Now with the new version I was able to come up with this layout in minutes. It finally looks decent to me and usable. I'll continue tweaking this and see what I come up with.

Ipod Classic Firmware 1.0.2--Nothing New

Finally an update. But still no fixes to the problems I've been experiencing. Itunes still freezes. Albums with various artists are still displayed multiple times in Cover Flow. Albums with the same title still have their songs grouped together.

And now another bug I've noticed: the Classic sometimes displays the wrong album art. Itunes displays the right album art but the Ipod does not.

Geez.

I wonder what problems I'll find if I used this for stuff other than music.

A Classic Experience Ep. 3--Bugs

It's my third week with my Ipod Classic. While I love its looks, capacity and ease of use, I've been noticing more and more bugs as I go along. A lot of users have been experiencing the same things at Ilounge.

Have mentioned previously that Itunes freezes randomly with the Classic connected? I have to mention it again. Whether adding or deleting songs, editing tags or just plain searching through the Ipod's contents or scrolling through the song list, I guarantee you, Itunes will freeze.

Also there are more bugs about Cover Flow than the Various Artists problem. Different albums with the same album title appear together under one album art. To illustrate: I have an Alice in Chains album titled Unplugged and an 10,000 Maniacs album also titled Unplugged. In Cover Flow I select the first album. The Ipod then lists the songs from both albums.

WTF?

There's an easy enough solution though: I rename both albums and include the artist name in the album title.

One more thing. I play a Tori Amos song. The Ipod displays the song info along with the album art but it does not play. I hit pause then play. It still does not play. I check with the original file on my PC and it plays. Argh.

A Classic Experience Ep. 2-- Cover Flow

The Cover Flow browsing mode is one of the major selling points of the Ipod Classic over other MP3 players. It is however painfully slow if your music library is composed of hundreds of albums--which is why most people would get an 80gb MP3 player in the first place.

While I don't have any benchmarks to show any speed difference, I do recommend resizing your album art to around 300 to 350 pixels. There's no point to high res album art on that small screen. Naturally it would take longer to the load high res pics.

One more thing to note: albums with various artists will be displayed multiple times in cover flow, once for every artist. It can be very annoying to see a soundtrack cover appear over and over again.

I've heard a lot of complaints about this in the Ilounge forums. Hopefully Apple gets to fix these problems soon.

Wish I Was a Pencil

Here's me wishing I was a piece of wood with graphite insides and rubber ass. I thought I was a crazed fan but reading the last 2 Hikki blog posts make my heart skip. Here's a quote:

"Awww Hikaru-chan You dun lounge around only in your underwear"

'That doesn't matter, I just took a bath you know~. It's the season where you can enjoy fanning yourself while cooling down, only with your shorts on~.'

"Then me worry u can't marry again"

A Classic Experience

It's been a long time since my last post. Blame it on the Ipod Classic. At $250, I got 80gb of storage--enough to store all the MP3s I've managed to collect in 5 years and video playback too.

First impressions first. It looks slim and feels handy. It still however feels like a hard-drive-based MP3 player so there's always the constant fear that dropping it means saying goodbye not only to the backup of my music collection but the $250 as well. Until Apple produces an 80gb, flash-based Ipod for under 300 bucks, this thing will stay only at home, while my Shuffle comes with me wherever I go.

Once turned on, there's the familiar Ipod interface that even newbies can quickly navigate. The only added feature over the 5th Gen model is the constantly present album art (provided your music is properly tagged with it). Looking for music either using Cover Flow or browsing through artists, albums or genres feels like browsing through actual CDs. And seeing random album art scrolling by the main menu can remind you to listen to an old favorite.

The sound quality, to my ears, using the stock earbuds is top notch. If there's anyone claiming that it sucks, he's probably just high on placebo.

Really the only bad thing about this Ipod is... Itunes. The newest version which is a requirement is as slow as watching paint dry on a rainy day. This on a Athlon X2 3600+ with 2gb of ram. (And no, I don't have any spyware.) The only relief to me is that once I have my music properly tagged with MP3tag and transferred using Itunes I can uninstall it finally.

That's My Father Up There!

I just finished watching half of Armageddon on TV. I vaguely remember how much I detested it the first time I saw it. It was your typical overblown, cheesy Hollywood summer blockbuster.

I still remember most of the plot and it was obvious then and permanently embedded in my mind that America and Bruce Willis saved the day. Nearly 10 years later, at the climax of the movie, a few seconds before all of mankind was lost, as if I had no clue what was to happen next, I was going mad trying to stop myself from screaming, "Push the damn button already!"

It's still cheesy but fun. Yay.

Patience is a Virtue

After years, of drooling over a hard drive based Ipod, it is finally time to buy one. Why just now? Well I have roughly 40gb worth of MP3s in my PC and 80gb is the sweet spot, I think, that has enough storage even for my future needs. And now it is only $250. I can't wait for these babies to available here in the third world.

Now if there was an alternative to Itunes in loading video to the Ipod, they would be perfect.

Dharma Not Greg

Only recently have I realized that some of the best music ever made is played in the Philippines. Like the people, geography and history, the music is eclectic and dynamic, emotional but smart, loud at the same time soulful. Finally the world is noticing as documented in this recent Time Magazine article.

Read it. Go ahead and doubt it. But give the music a chance. Just a quick search through Youtube and you'll see and hear what the fuss is about.



The West does not have a monopoly of the best music. Play it loud and listen.

Hikki's Blog in English

Geez, I adore Utada Hikaru so much, it sometimes creeps me out. I have all her albums, nearly all her singles, some of her music videos and 2 concerts.

There's something magical about her songs. And no, it's not because she's featured in some video game or anime soundtrack or because of some sci-fi, fantasy music video. It's just the voice and the songs. Art and music are the only things magical left in the world and Hikki makes great music.

After I thought I had read everything in English on the internet about her, I find this translation of her Japanese blog. Whoever is translating this--you have my eternal gratitude.

Now I have 7 years worth of blog posts I have to start reading.

New AMD Phenom Logo

I just saw the new logo for Phenom--AMD's sucessor to the Athlon. I've been hearing a lot of mixed reactions on it. While I do like the new logo, I couldn't care less if it was the shape of a turd as long as it was faster than Intel's Penryn and available.

Winamp with Album Art

If you read my foobar2000 ripping guide, you probably have an inkling that I love foobar2000. I do... but only as a ripper and not as a music player. Here are the features I have to have:

1. free
2. low system resource usage
3. support for mp3, wma, aac and ogg
4. active playlist edit window, like that of winamp
5. support for album art

Features 2 and 3 throw Itunes and WMP out the window. The fourth one is the killer. I have to see the entire active playlist and I have yet to see a player aside from winamp that does this. Others just have a list of playlists that you have to highlight or double-click to see their contents. There may be an option or plugin to do this in foobar2000 or musikcube but the solution eludes me.

Feature 5 has been dodgy on winamp... until now.

Doesn't this add to winamp's supposed bloat? Well, the great thing about winamp is that you can trim it down by uninstalling the plugins you don't need. With the lovely config I have on the left, it only uses 5-6 megs when minimized. I'll tell you how to do that once this beta of winamp I'm using goes final.

foobar2000 Secure Ripping Guide FAQ

Q1 - Why are the MP3s I'm getting slightly bigger than the ones I get from Itunes or WMP?

A1 - That's because the MP3s from LAME and foobar2000 are at a higher quality setting. If you can't hear an audible improvement and would like to have the smaller files you're used to, go to File then Preferences in foobar. Double click Tools then Converter. From the selection Encoding Presets, highlight MP3 (LAME) then click Edit. You'll get to the Commandline Encoder Settings window, where you need to move the slider to the left to get ~130kbps (*), V5. Click OK then Close and you're done.

Q2 - I've heard that MP3 quality sucks and that it's never as good as the original CD.

A2 - That depends mainly on your hearing ability and the listening environment and to a lesser degree the audio equipment you're using. The only way to tell is for you to do an ABX test where you blindly identify whether a sample is either the original or the MP3. A huge majority fail to do so at LAME's V2 setting for a huge majority of music at even the best listening conditions. If you want to give it a shot, you can start here.

Q3 - How about other formats like Itunes's M4A (also known as AAC) and WMP's WMA?

A3 - See this on choosing the best format. Just remember that should you choose another format, you will lose the compatibility guaranteed by MP3. And if you choose a lossless format, you lose lots and lots of hard drive space. If you can't hear the difference between an MP3 and the original CD then why bother with something else?

Q4 - I really do want to use another format. How?

A4 - Most encoders (like LAME) will be available at Rarewares. Nero AAC is available here. Unzip the files into C:\Program Files\foobar2000. Next time you rip, when you get to the Converter Setup window, you just need to pick your desired encoder. No other settings need to be changed as foobar2000 defaults to the recommended setting for all encoders.


Q5 - What are CD drive offsets and can I use them with foobar2000?

A5 - What they are HERE. To use them with foobar2000, you have to locate your CD drive in the list and take note of the corresponding Correction Offset. In foobar2000 pick File>Open Audio CD. Click Drive Settings and enter the Correction Offset you took note of in the Offset Correction Samples box. Click OK to save.

Q7 - Is it true foobar2000 is also a music player like winamp?

A7 - No shit?

foobar2000 Secure Ripping Guide

UPDATE
I no longer recommend foobar2000 as a ripper due to a few of my rips not being verified by Accuraterip through fooaccrip. Also my testing documented here had unfavorable results for foobar2000.

I have gone back to using EAC and I recommend everyone to use it instead (unless you can afford dBpoweramp).

The only EAC guide that is up to date and with correct information is the HydrogenAudio EAC guide.

Do not let the number of pages fool you. Setting EAC up is just a matter of following its configuration wizard, changing a maximum of 3 settings from their defaults and disabling C2 or using C2 with Test & Copy.

If you must use foobar2000 to rip, watch the console. If it reports minor errors, then there is a possibility of a non-secure rip.

-------------------------------------------

Let's take care of the obvious questions first.

Why rip with something other than Itunes or Windows Media Player (WMP)?

Ripping CDs is not as reliable as copying files from a CDROM. Sometimes the audio data retrieved will not be an exact copy of the original. This can be in the form of pops, clicks and skips on MP3s. This is most evident on CDs with scratches. Itunes and WMP are known to ignore such errors in ripping. In most cases these programs will tell you that your rip was successful, when in fact, it was not.

Are there alternatives that will tell when errors and unexact rips occur?

Yes. This is called secure ripping. For Windows, there are only 3 that are free: DMC, Exact Audio Copy (EAC) and foobar2000. EAC is the most established and popular, but its wealth of options may be daunting to a first-timer. (UPDATE: only a few options need to be changed from their defaults.) Here is a guide for anyone interested. In my opinion foobar2000 is the easiest to use among the 3. My guide follows and you be the judge.

1. Download foobar2000 and LAME. What is LAME? "LAME (Lame Ain't an MP3 Encoder) is the Hydrogenaudio recommended MP3 encoder. It has been developed by the open-source community since 1998, and has become the highest quality MP3 encoder for most purposes."

2. Run the foobar2000 installer. Pick Full at the Choose Components Screen. Keep on clicking next until you reach finish.

3. Extract the LAME zip file into foobar2000 folder "C:\Program Files\foobar2000".

4. Once you have a CD in your CDROM drive, click File then Open Audio CD.

5. This step is only necessary to configure your CDROM drive. In the Open Audio CD window, click Drive Settings. Pick standard from the Security pull down menu then click OK. You can skip this step for your succeeding rips.

6. Back in the Open Audio CD window, click Rip which will take you to the Rip Audio CD window. Click Lookup to retrieve the artist, album and song titles for the CD.

7. In the freedb tagger window, highlight the matching CD information then click Update files. Now back in the Rip Audio CD window, click Rip.

8. Like step 5, this step only needs to be done once. You'll be taken to the Converter Setup window, where you need to select MP3. Then click OK. Next you'll have to browse for LAME which should be in "C:\Program Files\foobar2000". Once there click OK.

9. The next window will ask you where to save your MP3s. Enjoy your music.

10. For further reading: FAQ, HydrogenAudio Wiki, foobar 0.9 vs EAC Secure Rip

It's the end of the world as we know it...

I can still remember the first time I thought about the end of the world. And no it wasn't because of the movie Armageddon. (That's my father up there!) but because of the book Countdown to Armageddon by Hal Lindsey. It's mainly about the book of Revelations interpreted to fit the 80's fear of a global nuclear war. It was a terrifying read for a 10-year-old. I really thought the world would end.

That fear subsided over the years. I lived through several earthquakes, arguably the biggest volcanic eruption of the 20th century and countless typhoons and floods. This is the 3rd world baby, and we've been through worse and we see worse on a yearly basis.

That sounds pretty catchy huh? Well it seems things might get worse on a monthly basis. I just saw an Inconvenient Truth and it was just as terrifying as a nuclear war. Most of you have probably heard of it. It's Mr. Almost Pres. Al Gore warning about global warming.

We've all heard about the issue since grade school and it's still here. Like AIDS. It's even worse than AIDS because there are people who've seen the evidence, gone through ever increasing droughts and ever strengthening hurricances and rising sea levels and say, "Nothing to worry about. This is all part of a cycle."

Well if the cycle involves my country and many others going the way of Atlantis then we've got to start doing something.

The first thing to do is watch An Inconvenient Truth. If you're too cheap to get a legit copy, here's the torrent. Burn the movie and share it with everyone you know.

Wild, Wild Web

If you're reading this (the blog of a person you don't know), you probably spend a lot of time on the internet. Most likely, you'll have an account with a social networking website like Friendster, Multiply or Myspace.

I don't. Or rather, I do but it's not my photo on there. Just a picture of some nameless Joe who's covering his face. I just use that account to spy on people. Social networking my ass.

Take the guys above for instance. See their happy smiles. Such good friends they are. Little do they know their photo has been randomly picked from Friendster and posted on an some asshole's blog.

Think that's mean? The information and photos you share can be used for worse things. A lot worse. Someone can impersonate you and sign up for blogger as you. Post your photos. Say the things you say, you don't want to be heard by other people. Or they could just jerk off at your pretty photo.

No sir. Not me. The only thing you'll get out of me are my thoughts, which don't mean squat.

(Thanks for reading though. I'm pouring my heart and soul here.)

Once More with Feeling

I like the word peach. I've liked it since 1997 when it hit me--it's cheap backwards. Now I don't think much about words anymore.

I think about work. I think about computers. I think about music and movies and sometimes books. (I hate that. I used to think a lot about books. Not anymore.) I think about the internet. But really I don't think that much about anything anymore.

I think I'm running out of thoughts.

Which is why I'm starting this blog. How very 21st century. How pedestrian. I don't care. The risk of Blogger going down is much less than that of my hard drive.

So once more, with feeling, I'll write my thoughts. Bring out the popcorn.