Creating a Waveform image with PHP

Computing, Website 6 Responses »
Sep 282011

For my new website I have been working on for a while I want to generate an image of the waveform of all audio files uploaded on the server. A trip down google avenue quickly led me to this post on andrewfreiday.com. He describes his search for the very same and comes up with a solution using lame to convert the mp3 file to a wave file and a php script to generate the image. I’m going to use his approach and couldn’t resist rewriting the script.

You can download my script for generating a waveform. It is licensed under the Apache License v2.0 because the original script was (I usually don’t bother with a license).

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Posted by ronald at 10:00 Tagged with: , ,

VirtualDJ Radio update: (the 2011 mix and more)

deejay, Personal No Responses »
Aug 012011

In case you didn’t know: I play every Friday from 15:00 to 17:00 (GMT+1) on VirtualDJ Radio channel 3. A great way to listen to some of the latest Drum and Bass releases (I always play my latest purchases and I buy new stuff at least once a week) and get some energy needed for the last hours of work before the weekend kicks in.

Since uploading every radio set is becoming less fun and more tedious every time I think I’m just gonna stop doing it. Also it’s not needed anymore because the folks at VirtualDJ Radio have build an awesome automatic system to listen back to every single set played on all three channels. So, if you’ve missed my  show or just want to listen to it again all you have to do is:

Visit my DJ profile page

The last two weeks were dedicated to a three hour mix of tracks released this year! I know, it’s a lot, I was surprised myself. And since two hours a week time two weeks minus a three hour set equals one hour left there must be more, right? Right! The final hour was hard to mix because of all the broken rhythms, but also very cool because of the same broken rhythms. I like tracks with complicated drums and basslines.

Do not expect more posts here the coming weeks, because I’m working hard on a totally new website with a cool backend to make life easier for me and a equally cool fontend because cool people need cool websites. And I need a playground for web-related stuff.

Posted by ronald at 00:00 Tagged with: , , , ,

Integrating Wordpress with Facebook

Computing, Website No Responses »
Nov 142010

Update: I now use a different plugin because I want people to be able to write something on their wall when liking a post.

I just installed a plugin that adds open graph data and a like box to each page on this site. I like to have it configured this way; specifying meta data in the header my pages, it all feels semantic web-ish.

Of course I needed to make some changes in the code to make it all work.
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Posted by ronald at 14:34 Tagged with: , ,

Some nice layout changes

Computing, Website No Responses »
Apr 052010

Source codeMy WordPress powered website has been running for quite some time now, and today I finally replaced the default theme with something I like better,  Suffusion, and customized it to my needs.

I had installed some syntax highlighting plugins before but disabled them because I couldn’t get it to work properly. Now with the pretty new layout all posts with snippets of unhighlighted source code were a real eye-sore, so that needed to be fixed as wel.

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Posted by ronald at 20:27 Tagged with: , , , ,

PDO: Configuring Apache, MySQL and PHP on OSX 10.5.7

Computing, General, Website No Responses »
Sep 292009

I’d like to use PDO in conjunction with MySQL, but in the PHP installation shipped with OS X by default only pdo_sqlite is enabled. I do not want to compile my own Apache or PHP so the way to go is to simply add the pdo_mysql module. I followed these instructions but after running phpize there were some warings on my screen and no makefile to be found. My current PHP version is 5.2.8 and I used the source of 5.3.0, so I tried again with 5.2.10 (since no other version was available at the PHP download page). Both yield the same result, namely that it compiles, installs and won’t start.

PHP Warning:  PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library '/usr/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/pdo_mysql.so' - (null) in Unknown on line 0

Following instructions in the comment to remove all architectures but the x86_64 have no effect. I think I have to compile my own PHP installation and have apache use that. Which sucks so much I decided to just wait for Snow Leopard and pray that either pdo_mysql is installed or dynamicly loading libraries is allowed there. I am happy to inform you all that the first is the case. Hurray!

Posted by ronald at 13:00 Tagged with: , , ,

OS X, Apache and symbolic links

Computing No Responses »
Sep 292009

I use my laptop a lot for web developement, and for some projects I have more files than just the web documents that Apache needs to see. For those I have a directory in my ~/Documents with (amongst other things) a httpdocs directory. I’d like to just see that in my browser by creating a symbolic link in my ~/Sites directory. This proved to be somewhat difficult in OS X 10.5 and also in my fresh installation of 10.6.

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Posted by ronald at 12:55 Tagged with: , , ,

Hello world!

Website Comments Off
May 022009

This is my first post on the third reincarnation of my weblog. It all started years ago when all of a sudden many people around me started with their Livejournals. I was socially forced to start one of my own, not in the least to keep up with their lives and be able to follow the conversations in my own house. As I felt the need to keep control of my blog in my own hands grow I purged my livejournal and created a blog on my own website.

Now as a proud web developer I like to think I can create anything, and thus can write custom software which fits exactly to my personal needs. But as a lazy-ass blogger I don’t want to spend all that time reinventing the wheel, I want everything, and I want it now! Installing WordPress comes close enough :).

Now I have a way simpler way to write blogposts, and I hope I am going to because it’s fun, and even more fun reading back those posts later (I know this because I am importing old posts into this blog and really enjoy reading and formatting them). I also installed a livejournal crossposter, because the LJ people don’t do RSS or reading other blogs a lot. Lets see what happens.

Posted by ronald at 19:34 Tagged with: ,

On (in)dependence

Computing, General No Responses »
Apr 222008

I enjoy doing a lot with e-mail and having everything in mij own control. No hotmail, gmail or a students email account but a dedicated server (which I rent with a group of friends) and my own domain. To bad that when that server went down for a full day I had to notice it myself, change the MX records to send the e-mall temporarily to gmail (which I normaly use as an off-site backup).

Now for some sleep, and in the morning see off how many mailinglist I have been bounched.

[edit] I seem to have everything, but it is still possible I’ve missed some e-mails. Sorry about that[/edit]

Posted by ronald at 02:13 Tagged with:
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