So anyway, after writing a diary of sorts in the Forum,we have now been provided with a brand new blog feature to use. So I will use this to continue our adventures in the maddening world of tech that keeps Revolution Radio Online broadcasting. So yes, expect rants at Microsoft, Google, Apple and most definitely Facebook. :)
But also expect a look at the outcomes from our recent BLUE SKIES thinking meeting, where we threw in the Futures Pot any ideas we had, no matter how far fetched they seem in relation to where we are now.
To give you an idea of what to expect... portable recording studio, bricks and mortar broadcast and recording studio, ALEXA, Dee Jap V 3.0 (oh my, she's already a handful!), festivals and video channels.
I am going to need more coffee.
July 26th 2020. Lots of New Stuff! New Library! New DeePlay!
Well, we may have been quiet on the old tech news stuff here, but we've not been quiet on the actual tech work. Primarily we've been hard at work rebuilding and relocating our central library (now will 100,000 tracks- legally acquired tracks, unlike those lying, cheating and stealing pirate djs who damage everything with their attitude!).
We still have around 100 albums to add as well as around 100 albums or eps from brand new bands and artists- we're getting there!
But amongst all that we had to delete DeePlay and start again because all the songs in it were relocated. You see our player, Mixxx, points to a…
May 10th 2020. MICROSOFT? WHAT MICROSOFT?
So we did the deletion and resizing etc etc. The whole thing (using Ubuntu) took 10 minutes. TEN MINUTES. We lost no data or songs, no functionality, no NOTHING. We've waited a week or so just to make sure there would be no issues. There are no issues.
Ditch Windows 10. Move to Ubuntu.
End of sermon.
April 26th 2020. Sayōnara Microsoft.
When we moved the DeePlay server over to Ubuntu, we took a punt really. At the time, running Windows 10, we were losing our stream at least once a week. So feeling brave (and more than a little frustrated!) we decided to install Ubuntu and see what happened.
Well, 9 months later, we've lost the stream only 5 times, and 2 of those were human error and twice was a power cut! So Ubuntu has proved itself to be remarkably more stable and reliable than Windows 10 and its unrelenting number of updates, many of which are bug-ridden and, often, disastrous (the latest one is especially bad for millions of computers around the world!).
Because…
MARCH 15TH 2020: ALEXA, WHO'S YOUR FAVOURITE ROCK RADIO STATION???
Well, we only went and did it! Your favourite rock radio station (that's us by the way- look, don't fight it, resistance is futile, you know you love us!) is now available on your ALEXA devices- whether the Amazon hardware systems like ECHO, or via the Alexa app on your phone, computer and tablet.
All you need to do is go enable the Revolution Radio Online "skill" from within your Amazon account and then you can say "Alexa, play Revolution One!", and hey presto we are playing on your device.
I'll talk more on this over the week, but today is supposed to be my day off, and Miss Bonnie…
March 8th 2020. WHAT A WEEK!!
Well, at the start of the week we started to lose our Player. In the past, before we moved to shoutca.st, our main issue was keeping the stream up (L2MR were proving to be increasingly unreliable broadcast wise, and constant Microsoft updates and resource hijacking was causing Mixxx to crash). Since shoutca.st and the move to a Ubuntu based server, we have rarely lost the stream- once was when MS crashed the internet, once was a power cut!!!
And we didn't lose the stream this time. Alternate means of listening to the station were unaffected, it was just our player. The player is an embedded code app, in that we have to develop it…