Software Review: Amarok
I have been an Ubuntu convert for almost 7 months now. I really like the OS. But before today, I had been using the same XMMS software to play audio files on my FreeBSD/Enlightenment setup. XMMS is an OK app; it plays audio and doesn't get in the way while doing so - nothing fancy. I've been trying to find a substitute that is a bit more feature rich, but have not found anything that isn't clunky. A friend of mine has recently been talking up Amarok on a mailing list I subscribe to - so I decided to download it and give it a whirl today.

I have only been playing with it for about an hour, but my first impressions are very good. The selling point for me is a built-in integration with the Magnatune store ("we are not evil"). Since I discovered Magnatune a little over two years ago, it has become one of my favorite haunting grounds. I can browse and listen to the Magnatune collection quickly since the entire collection is displayed as if it were a collection of albums on my own computer. This is a very nice surprise.

Another thing I love about Amarok is that it does not force me to flatten my music heirarchy into a unmanageable view showing all of my music on a single page (like iTunes does). Amarok instead "does the right thing" and builds a "tree-like" view of my music with each artist and album represented as collapsible branches. Since I have my music CDs ripped and stored by album this approach is perfectly suited to how I store my music. When I built an Amarok "collection" out of my "albums" music directory, Amarok quickly indexed my collection (using the built-in SQLite) and displayed it sorted by album using an obvious collapsible tree/branch view. Amarok also downloaded the album covers off of amazon (the ones it could find anyway) with just the click of a button (yes, I know iTunes does this too). In just a matter of about a half an hour, I had the remaining covers located (using wikipedia) and saved. Nice.

My one grievance right now is the single-click-to-open behavior in the file manager. Everything in a GNOME file manager is double-click-to-open... so there is an adjustment I'll need to make here (do all KDE-based apps behave this way?).

I have not explored the script extensions and media device support in Amarok just yet. But I'm out of time for tonight. More later I'm sure.

Summary: Fantastic stuff. I'm very pleased with Amarok.

(Update Mon Dec 24 20:13:10 PST 2007 // select -> click)

Home Renovation Project: Attic Conversion: Stain
The hardwood flooring crew applied the stain today. I've been carefully watching them work. I don't want a repeat of our previous experience with hardwood flooring. I can't say I'm overwhelmed by the results so far. There are lots of swirl marks showing up after the stain has been applied up in the attic. After I expressed my concerns, the crew tried to "buff" the stain into the wood in the kid's study. The swirl marks are gone, but the buffing locked the grain and as a result the wood did not get very dark at all. It almost seems like we will have to live with some scratches if we want our light ash to get as dark as we would like it. The crew will be back tomorrow and try to get better results.