SOPA/PIPA can kiss my ass! (:-*)

Unless you have been (somehow) living under a rock, you MUST have heard/read about SOPA/PIPA. Some evil laws which US is considering to pass that will censor the web and are equally bad for everyone (US citizen or not). All the big sites are going haywire against it and i just wanted to write this quick post to put my and Achshar’s stance on the bills. I oppose them. I would even black out my site (like Wikipedia, WordPress, Reddit, etc) but i am too lazy to write the code plus my site does not receive nearly as much visitors as some of the other ones so it wont make that much of a difference. But that does not, in any way what-so-ever, change my stance against the bills. Although i am not a US citizen but i have the right to, uhm.. write and that i will.

You can always Google SOPA to know more about the bills, but dont try the wikipedia page for SOPA. (blackout, remember?) (pretty ironic, haha!)

Achshar Player 1.3!

I released the next iteration of Achshar Player yesterday.

The highlights of the update include a completely redesigned player interface and notifications plus a faster and more reliable songs adding process with support for adding folders.

You can read more about this update on the app’s wiki site.

RIP Steve Jobs

I (along with countless other people) am very sad at the death of a true visionary and a fantastic person, Steve Jobs. I never met him, nor have i ever used any of his products but he still inspired me more than anyone in the industry. He was a great person and will always be remembered as the one who made a dent in the universe.  This one is for you Steve. Respect.

Minor Update: uTorrent Plause 1.0 and uTorrent Plause wiki

This time its all things uTorrent Plause! I have two updates to the plause project. First is a minor update to the extension itself. It adds Google Analytics and some options page updates. Head for the extension’s wiki page for more. The extension was updated to 1.0 stable with this release as i don’t have any plans for new features and the extension, in its current state, is quiet stable.

Second is that the wiki for uTorrent Plause is also ready! The wiki also has a couple of templates now!

Achshar Player 1.2!

Well well it was a rather long wait this time. But i am now ready with the next version of the Achshar Player. A ton of new features and capabilities packed with a lot of UI and UX improvements. From now on i will be ‘outsourcing’ the details of changes to the site’s wiki.

So at a glance this update adds much needed albums and artists capabilities, a new search interface, full on css animations, a new settings page, an offline/online mode (that allows you to share current song on twitter) and new colors for popups, buttons and a ton of code improvements. The detailed wiki page listing all the changes is here.

And on the bad side of things the edit/rename functionality is not there (for now). It was excessively difficult for me but i should manage something in next few days.

All other stuff: begone! New: Achshar wiki!

I have today decided to delete the portions of the site that are of no use. So i will be removing movies, articles, newsletter and resources sections of the site. They are only adding to the things to be maintained. SMS however see some traffic so they will stay I ill start rolling out the changes after i finish writing this post.

But there are also some additions. Well ‘addition’ to be specific. I have installed a mediawiki for the site and its projects. The wiki will serve as the main source for support articles for the Achshar projects and the site itself. I will be documenting everything Achshar, but the process will be rather slow. Also since it is a wiki, the documentation can be updated by everyone who is logged in. (other than protected pages of course) The wiki is available at wiki.achshar.com.

Achshar Player: Minor release

This is not the big update guys. Its just a minor update with a few changes. Here is the list:

• The app will be renamed from ‘Music Player’ to ‘Achshar Player’ with this iteration
• Added a link to site wiki on the about page.
• Added app’s (new) name along with it’s version number.
• Added Google Analytics! Read on for more on this.

If it was only for the app rename i would have waited for a major release. But just a few minutes ago a found an official doc on adding google analytics to the app. I was looking for thing for a long time but wasn’t sure what would be  the apt way. But as soon as i found it, i knew that the app will be renamed sooner that i had previously thought

So go and update the app now! Extension Page (drag to empty tab strip!) > Developer Mode > Update Extension Now.

Whoops..! said too soon..

Yesterday i announced that all of the Achshar projects will be using a version control system. I also announced the new bug reporting site for the (newly renamed) Achshar Player. but as it turns out there is a change of plan. The bug tracking system, i have decided, will be private because it will have some sensitive information and alot of stuff that is yet to come. So you will have to report bugs to the Achshar Player’s Google Group. Achshar Player’s wiki however is still public. (At least that’s the plan for now)

Welcome BitBucket version control!

I am glad to announce that all of Achshar’s projects will be using a version control system. For those of you who don’t know what it is, you probably shouldn’t care. There won’t be any change to the any of the projects. I just thought that i should let it be known.

All of the projects will get it but i am beginning with Music Player. None of my projects are open source (yet) so my repositories will be private. But this change gives a new and custom bug reporting and a wiki environment for all the projects. Music Player’s new official bug reporting page will be code.achshar.com/achshar-player/issues.

Also i have decided to rename Music Player to ‘Achshar Player’. The change will be rolled out with the next iteration of the app.

Next Music Player in the making.

I have been working on the next version of the Music Player for Chrome for some time now and it is, you can say, 80% done Although i have not yet decided what version number it will be but i have a list of the key features it will have.

• First of all, it will have the all important mp3 tag reading, i.e read a songs’s artists and albums.**
• Apart from reading song albums and artists, it will allow you to sort songs by their albums/artists.
• You will be able to edit a song’s details (like name, album and artist).
• The animations will be alot smoother as app uses even more of the new CSS3 and HTML5.
• Enhanced search function (as promised).

That’s all for now but these are just the key updates/features. A bunch of other small but significant updates will be included. I also plan to have twitter and Facebook integration but not sure if i will be able to manage them in the immediate next update. But you can sure hope to see them some time soon. BTW i cannot give any ETA as there is still some work left before i can even start the final testing.

If you have any small suggestion, idea or request, hit me up! If it is small enough, maybe i can squeeze it in the coming update. Milestone X. (to quote people over at Chromium :O)

**Although i have to say the tag reading is not the smoothest one out there. It has some problems and cannot read tags of all the songs if you add multiple songs at once. The fact that there is no pattern as to what fails makes it even harder to fix it. But i expect it to be fixed in future updates