I’ve been hearing how easy it is to develop filesystems with the Objective C interface for MacFUSE (Amit Singh’s OS X port of FUSE, the “Filesystem in USEr space”). I’ve been looking for a reason to learn ObjC for a while, so I figured I’d check it out. The result was TuneDrawer.
I’m not sure why I’m such a big fan of iTunes. I’ve heard plenty of people complain about how locked down and slow it is. I tend to shy away from proprietary systems (excepting OS X itself) and there’s no reason for the real-time “search” to be as slow as people say it is. But at this point, I think my reason for using iTunes is mostly the comfort of (now that I think about it) the only piece of software I’ve used continuously for the last 4 years. As a result, I frequently find myself starting projects that have to do with addressing iTunes shortcomings. It’s starting to feel like (though it’s certainly not true) I’m more familiar with the Applescript interface than whoever actually specced it.
This particular project is a filesystem view of all your tracks in iTunes. As of right now, when you run the program, it mounts TuneFS, which badly needs to be renamed, at /Volumes/tunefs. In the root, there are two folders: Artists and Playlists. The Artists folder contains folders for all current artists in your iTunes library, which, in turn, lead to their respective albums and tracks. The Playlists folder in TuneFS contains folders representing all your playlists and the corresponding songs.
The artists hierarchy can also be accomplished by selecting the “Keep iTunes Music Folder organized” preference in iTunes itself. The playlists folders could be used to share an entire playlist’s files with a friend, but you could also just select all the songs in iTunes and drag them to the Finder. However, I’m confident this is useful for something. The first thing that comes to mind is using the TuneFS mount point as a share (think web server or NFS). I’ve even got some other features in mind for future revisions.
This first version is being released as a public alpha, which will hopefully inspire me to continue working on it. The next release will consist of some heavy refactoring and fixing the plentiful memory leaks. Once those are done, I’ll put up the source code as well, in case anyone is interested.
You can download TuneDrawer at its project page.
From the Dine Around Seattle Website
Dine Around Seattle is an opportunity to enjoy Seattle’s finest restaurants for an unbeatable price…
Whether you live in the Seattle area, or specially plan your trip, Dine Around Seattle (formerly “25 for $25”) is a bi-annual promotion that no one wants to miss. Now in its sixth year, Dine Around Seattle has become so woven into the culinary culture of our area that locals - as well as visitors - eagerly await its arrival.
Each March and November, on Sundays through Thursdays, restaurants offer a 3-course meal. This includes selections for a dinner appetizer, entrée and dessert for a mere $30. Many restaurants also offer lunch for $15. This season’s promotion will take place from November 1-29th.
I couldn’t find a map where all the locations were viewable at once. So, I put them on Google Maps. Each pin lists where it has lunch and dinner, or just dinner, links to the menu, the address, and the phone number.
- Programming
- The bread and butter of CS. This is what most people outside of CS think of when they hear “computer science”.
- Software Engineering
- Probably the most overlooked of the three parts, at least at my university. Software engineering is making architectural decisions: designing APIs, choosing languages, organizing components, and which technologies to use.
- Algorithmics
- This is a term that a friend of mine introduced me to a few years ago and I’ve picked up. Algorithmics is the math of computer science.
I’ve bounced this off of a few friends of mine that are in Computer Science, and they all seem to agree. This post obviously needs to be fleshed out a bit, but I wanted to get it up (mostly so that I’d have something to link ‘algorithmist’; to on my sidebar. I originally submitted a definition to Urban Dictionary, but it was rejected.)
Hi, my name is Dan.
I’ve attended RPI for the last 3 years, where I’ve mostly studied Computer Science and have started to specialize in Data Mining. Tomorrow I leave for Seattle, where I’ll be working for Amazon.com for between 5 and 7 months. This fall, I’ll be applying to graduate school for a master’s.
This site is mainly a place for me to document projects I’m working on. I also intend to put up articles about interesting things I run across, though not so much a link blog as original content. I’ve been putting off making this site, because I haven’t had anything worthwhile to put up, but then I’ll avoid writing something up because I have nowhere to put it. So, I’ve decided to end the cycle.
There probably won’t be much else up for a few weeks, but when there is, enjoy!
