At 11:54 PM +0000 3/9/08, escalation746 wrote:
>A few random notes from a one-time database programmer.
>
>First, I would never install iTunes or Quicktime or any other Apple
>product on a Windows PC. These are far too monolithic and invasive,
>being more than impolite to your system and other applications. (This
>is not Mac-bashing... in this category I also include Real Media
>products, for example.) Install one of these and you might have other
>media programmes randomly crash or permanently stop working. I have
>seen an entire Windows install get irrevocably corrupted simply by
>installing an Apple product... this after the person did not believe
>me when I warned them it could happen!
Hi Robin--
And its probably important to remind folks again that setting the
preferences in one's OS to specify the default applications for
certain file types helps Mac and PC users alike. If one doesn't feel
comfortable pursuing this ideal ad infinitum, using FireFox as one's
web browser instead of Internet Explorer or Safari will defeat a good
number of the likely conflicts.
QuickTime Pro is used by as many PC as Mac users. I've taught
classes with 120+ students where all of the those with PC and Mac
platforms installed and regularly used QuickTime. We were not
experiencing problems like you describe.
>
>I would also not recommend anything that requires one to use Access,
>since this programme is proprietary and poor. In early days the
>database was famous for spontaneously corrupting, and though I have
>heard that problem is now less likely to happen, there are still
>better solutions.
>
>Microsoft's own FoxPro is a far superior technology that they
>essentially buried in favour of Abscess (as we called it back in the day).
Are you suggesting that folks with PC's use "FoxPro" as their main
search tool? There seem to be a number of "FoxPro" products and
references. Can you direct us to the one(s) you are recommending?
>Likewise I would not recommend Word, a programme that is not even
>compatible with its own files over different versions. This creates an
>enormous headache that every business must contend with. Instead grab
>the open source OpenOffice.org, an equally capable office suite that
>is quite compatible with DOC files, even more so than Word itself.
>
>Good cataloging programmes are always so difficult to find.... because
>everyone has different needs. UNIX freaks (positive term, BTW) roll
>their own with sed, grep and a handful of pipes doing the dirty work.
>Nowadays the same is still possible -- and much handier and
>cross-platform to boot -- using a language like Python. (This is far
>easier to learn than embedded database languages, more powerful, and
>more likely to be leveraged in other contexts.)
That's great that you have experience with Python. Are there any
application or projects underway that address audio cataloguing needs
nature recordists have been discussing? Any of these on line?
>I would recommend not using a database at all, but rather utilising
>the file system by implementing a system with sidecar files. One plain
>text file per folder can list each piece of media in that location,
>together with a series of tags. Utilities can be written to populate
>these from embedded metadata, update them with new files, and search
>them for required terms.
I agree that a powerful search engine and OpenOffice (or similar)
will suffice for most recordists needs. A number of recordists would
like to use meta tags on their .wav files. We have apps that will
batch write tags, we're looking for an application that can "strip"
the meta tags from a folder of .wav files and output a single text or
spreadsheet chunk that can be easily pasted into a master record
sheet. Rob D.
>
>This would be totally open, cross-platform and database agnostic.
>
>I am sure many people have already hacked together just such a solution.
>
>-- robin
>
--
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