Monday, May 12, 2008

Python Winamp Control Module

As expected, I'm posting my iWC's Winamp control module here.

The module works without the need of installing a plugin in Winamp, hence it does alot of IPC (some of it is totally undocumented, and I think that even Winamp's developers didn't think of using their media library in such a way, but who cares).

All of the functions are documented beside of the three most complicated ones, because I'm just too lazy - so if you're really interested I can spread some lights on the ugly hacks I did too.

Get it from here.

Requirements: ctypes, win32 python modules (comes with ActiveState's python), Winamp 5+.

Feature request / comments - just leave a comment here.

Have fun!

Friday, May 9, 2008

The Semester is dead. Long live the Semester!

Semester 1A and its exams ended, and the new semester is beginning on Sunday.

This means I've got some spare time to do stuff beside sitting in my room and looking at some papers, so here are some updates on the upcoming projects I'm planning to work on:

iWC - I've decided to discontinue the project, because I've found out this application which allows you to control Winamp, Windows Media Player or iTunes using an iPhone web application. It seems that programming a web application specifically for the iPhone can replace most native applications, and you should give it a try.

However, I'm planning to release the Python Winamp module of iWC, which enables communication with Winamp 5+. I still need to document and refactor it a bit, so I hope I'll be able to release it this upcoming week.

iPhone Synchronization - I'm planning to enhance the currently available iTunes-iPhone synchronization. I know, there are some products which allow better synchronizing, but they cost money, and they are not modular and open-source.

Currently, the main features I'm planning are Facebook synchronization (fetch friends pictures, phone numbers, addresses, websites and so on) and better Outlook integration (such as notes and to-do synchronization). If you have any other ideas, please send me an email or leave a comment.

Smart-Home - I wonder if I shall start working on an embedded project to connect some switches / electronic devices to the wireless network at our apartment in Jerusalem. If you know a cheap wifi microcontroller, please leave a message.