What happened to my iTunes -> amarok script?

Hm, I've got a couple of comments on a post about a script I made a couple of years ago that converts all of your iTunes data into the Linux amarok db format. Unfortunately I have no idea where it went. I must have accidentally deleted it at some point.

Oh well. I got several emails back in the day telling me people found it useful, but doing a quick google suggests that somebody else has made a much better solution than my quickly hacked together perl script did. Plus I'm sure both have changed their data formats slightly enough to break my script.

Ah, to be breifly fameous to 10 people.

Cheers!

Scheduling Software for a Small Brewery

In the past few months I've been contemplating and working on a wee software solution to a problem that I've seen at many small craft breweries that I've visited:
Scheduling

A lot of breweries I've been to have scheduling methods that work for them just fine... but usually involve a pencil and some paper. Maybe and excel spreadsheet if they're lucky. Existing production management software can be too expensive for a small business, and there is no guarantee that the investment will pay itself off. These software packages are bloated with more features than are needed for a brewery, since they are for "any" production environment. As well, they often require the software be installed on a Windows computer... ONE Windows computer per license.

What I'm working on is a schedule helper for the small brewery. The schedule is to run off a webserver, with a database back end. This has the advantage in that no additional software needs to be installed by the client, and it doesn't matter weather the client is on Mac, Windows, Linux, etc. In theory, the software could be accessed from anywhere in the world (of course, significant security measures would have to be employed!)
This also means that schedule information can be viewed and modified on, say, an iPhone :).

I have broken it down into several separate modules:
1. Scheduler - Books batches of beer on resources (fermenters, conditioning tanks, humans, etc). Displays output in a graphical format, so that the schedule can be visualized for any conflicts or problems. An example schedule ought to look something like this (click for larger view):








The basic scheduler has no data for recipe, volumes, etc etc. I'd also like to have it possible to enter a matrix of dependencies, and provide an "auto schedule" algorithm. But thats way off in the future.

2. Recipe data - As a separate module that can be added in if needed. Basically, this module can handle what goes into each batch of beer, as well as record volumes throughout the process. I've designed it is such a way that the client can add almost an infinite number of ingredients.

3. Consumables management - of course, if you have ingredients, you ought to be able to manage them. This should be able to keep track of ingredients and help plan when to order more supply. This isn't limited to ingredients, this can include bottles... cleaning supplies... boxes... etc.

4. Quality control - This is very important to the brewer. This module can handle data from quality control checks, as defined by the client.

5. Sales & Customer Database - I've not programmed or planned anything around this section. However, it would definitely be useful if this software is ever to be a complete solution for the small brewer (for now its just a helper!).

Timeline: when do I see this being produced? Since I'm working a full time job, I'll be doing it on my own time, don't expect anything public for quite some time! In theory, I'll using it to help with my job at a small craft brewery (more on that news later)... it could be years before I feel comfortable releasing it.

Of course, for now I should be finishing my MSc thesis...

Cheers!

Macbook

Just a quick post to say that I've ordered myself a macbook :)
Intel Core Duo 2.0 GHz, 1 GB ram, 60 gb harddrive (which I will quickly replace with a 120gb drive that is waaaay cheaper than is available on the site).
Hell yeah.

Importing iTunes stats into Amarok, Part II

So, after all that work to import my iTunes stats to Amarok I found a bug... iTunes was lazy about keeping the casing on filenames synced with the casing in its database (as windows is case insensitive, afterall). Anyway, that caused some trouble but I fixed it with a new script. Both my old script and the new script to fix the casing bug are posted on a page here. Check them out, and enjoy!


Cheers!

Importing iTunes Statistics into amaroK

So I finally have a nice gentoo system up and running. Of course, I love my music, and I also love my statistics on my music. Seems that nobody had actually written a full script for importing iTunes info into amaroK (which is a pretty awesome media player that runs on Linux). So anyway, I found this link on the amarok forums, and decided to expand on it. I haven't done any programming for like 2 years, and I'm a brewer not a programmer really, so if the programming sucks... well too bad, it still worked (for me...)

Here is a link to the script I created: http://www.jobeus.net/~brian/convert_itunes.txt (rename from txt to pl... obviously)

This script will

• Import user ratings from iTunes
  
• Import play counts from iTunes
  
• Create a percentage score for the tracks based on user rating and play count
• Import date added to iTunes
• Import date last played on iTunes

All that is needed is an exported XML file from iTunes.
So yeah, I'm glad I got this working... enjoy... if anybody else even needs it (I imagine it will be used).
Cheers!

Gentoo Install, Day 1

Ya, so maybe this week my blog
won't be as much of a beer blog as a life blog.
But whatever... I don't really blog that much
about beer anymore it seems. Although I am
drinking a Maudite from Unibroue, which is
owned by Sleeman, which was just bought out by
Sapporo of Japan, where John Sleeman sold all
of his shares, rendering Sleeman as a Canadian brewery to be forfit.
Its all corporate, dorks with MBAs run the big breweries just like any
other company, to make money. Don't expect good beer. That costs too much to produce. I hope Unibroue remains unchanged though.


ANYWAY, so I started installing Gentoo Linux on my computer today. I've done this many a time before...
but that was about 2 years ago. A few glitches, but nothing too bad. I figure that I'm already on
'emerge gnome' which should take all night to compile, so thats a good sign.

For those of you not aware, Gentoo is my favorite Linux distro where you compile pretty much everything
from scratch specifically for your computer to be optimized. Speed gain? Yes, in theory.
Its certainly for the more advanced user though, and there were a few times today where I had to rack my brains for the command I needed.
Oh well. I think this is going ok. If I get pissed off tomorrow for whatever reason I can always just go back to my windows install... btw, I'm posting this with the lynx text browser... as gnome isn't installed yet ;)
cheers!

IE Sucks

Just a quick note that you should use Mozilla Firefox. Internet explorer makes blogs look like crap.

Bloody 'ell

Ok, so my personal email address (not available on the net) and my photos aren't working due to my service provider (Shaw Cable) being retarted.

I transferred my account from FSJ to Calgary and apparently that just means CANCEL it even though I said transfer the email and web content.

Mom-assing goat bastards. Anyway, that means some of the pics below aren't available. Bah.

I needs me email.