djpretzel

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http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00214/ http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00030/

I saw this thread the morning I was dealing with spambots on the forums, which isn't fun. Timing was excellent - in the midst of dealing with crap, you reminded me why it was worth it

The first option occurred. There were two spambots working in tandem. I don't think they got past the CAPTCHA registration themselves; it's likely a human registered the accounts then scripted the spamming. vB seems to be a little weak on protecting from PM spam. Cleaning this up was a hassle. 3.7 supposedly helps w/ spam, but we may add a usergroup that users are automatically promoted to after posting once and being regged for at least two days that allows PMing, and remove PMing from users with no posts, if it's ever a problem again.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

I can handle all the database integration and backend stuff. Let's assume at least initially we're talking about 4 or 5 parameters... username, real name, remixer name (can be null), user title(s) (appears beneath usename on forum posts)... that should get us started. I'm assuming you have your own dev environment... it'd be best to code for PHP5 and GD2 in a linux environment, but my local ocremix dev environment is actually Apache under Windows, so do whatever you can. The idea of starting with a generic template works.... final output should probably be 24-bit PNG, so we can handle transparency. Since you won't need to be talking to a database yourself, you could easily just test with sample data for different types of users (if remixer name is null, assume normal member... if user titles contains judge, moderator, etc. assume staff... if username is djpretzel, assume administrator)... need anything else to get started? Eventually you'll need to figure out the true type font angle, and how to ensure GD2 has access to those, etc., but that can probably wait.

I'm really digging José's design, and might be open to doing something official. It'd really only work if we could generate the images programmatically and cache them, though, using TTF and GD2 or ImageMagick or what not. Are there any intrepid PHP coders out there that want to work with getting template graphics from José and trying to code something basic that I could then take and work from myself? I'd love to do it myself - it's really rather sexy compared to the work I've been doing cleaning up OCR's code - but right now isn't the best time. If no one's up to it, José please save whatever templates, fonts, etc. are involved, and maybe we can do something down the road....

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Not to bump my own appreciation thread or anything, but the list class hierarchy is now 100% complete, and furthermore (wait for it).... there's also a list factory class that abstracts away list construction! If that doesn't get your blood pumpin' I don't know what will! The code on http://www.ocremix.org/browse/ used to be 20 or 30 lines of conditional wonkery (before the list classes, it was longer)... now it's: echo ListFactory::getListXMLTotals("albums"); echo ListFactory::getListXMLTotals("composers"); echo ListFactory::getListXMLTotals("emulators"); echo ListFactory::getListXMLTotals("games"); echo ListFactory::getListXMLTotals("organizations"); echo ListFactory::getListXMLTotals("remixers"); echo ListFactory::getListXMLTotals("remixes"); echo ListFactory::getListXMLTotals("songs"); echo ListFactory::getListXMLTotals("systems"); I do believe that's some of the first code I've posted here, but - although it appears ridiculously simple - it's also some of the best, in terms of design patterns, etc.

imo you can pin SOME (not all - some) of the multiplayer issue on Nintendo... PSN and XBL have commonalities that, I'd guess, make their programming/support a bit easier. I know this argument has been hashed out a hundred times, but to me, Wii friend codes are a ridiculous implementation of online gaming, and ties lack of 720p+ support as the console's biggest weakness. I don't think EA are actively trying to stick it to Wii users... I'm guessing there are technical issues that make the ROI problematic. It'd be interesting to find this sort of thing out, 100%...

Except that: If I thought the meaning of what I coded would be transparent and easy to convey, I would have done so. Having to explain it, especially when it's likely to mean nothing to most visitors, is basically a waste of my time, which the initial post should have indicated is in rather short supply. Furthermore, I don't give two fucks whether I've earned the respect of "Pezman" or not. The only thing he's earned, in my book, is an opinion of him as being a self-important asshole who's deluded into thinking everyone should explain themselves so as to earn his respect, which I'm guessing he's probably the highest assessor of. If you want to be ungrateful, rude, and self-important, do it somewhere else. The point of the thread was that I spend a shitload of time working on the site, and often it's on stuff you don't see. In this case, switching from mysql to mysqli and refactoring datalists into a class hierarchy. There, hope that satisfies you. Maybe someday, when you pour your heart into something and experience such degrees of ego combined with dismissive attitude, you'll learn to understand that whether the "basis" of a such a comment is "justified" really isn't the point...

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

For the record, I'm definitely interested in offering a torrent or something at some point in the future, but I'm working on 7,837,231 diff. things for OCR right now, and this isn't one of them, so in the meantime, any efforts to aggregate are appreciated. I don't think an actual permanent website geared towards collecting and hosting FLAC versions of mixes long term is a particularly grand idea, but building a site to help gather what's out there for the ultimate purpose of hosting torrents on OCR or elsewhere seem like it has value.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Garageband and Trackers seem like good adds to me, I'll look into it. One note, though: the list DOES need to be somewhat limited, for usability purposes, maintenance purposes, etc., so there will likely be things that will need to remain in "Other" territory...

I'll second both Neuromancer and Snow Crash as being fantastic novels, written way ahead of their time with grace, style, and a scary amount of accurate foresight. Mona Lisa Overdrive was alright, as was The Diamond Age. It's sometimes called "steampunk," which I suppose is *close* to cyberpunk, but China Mieville's writing ability exceeds the above authors, and his stuff is amazing. Read Perdido Street Station then The Scar. Yes, I'm pimping our aStore shamelessly, BUT I'm also being helpful

$274 a month for the dedicated server, which may need to become $304 a month if we need another gig of RAM + $24 a month, give or take, for two dedicated mirrors at dreamhost and aplus. total traffic, I'd need to aggregate stats from all the mirrors, and I'm too lazy. A lot? Mascots are looking good for sometime before this summer or this summer at the latest, from what I know. We're still sorting of learning what MediaWiki is capable of and may want to tweak things before we go live, but a lot of the data is in there...

Awesome, man - congrats! shameless plug: don't forget to pimp OCR to appropriate connections when you can

Well, we're interested in expanding the amount of info we have for games AND composers, and eventually integrating OCR albums, more links, etc. I agree with both of you that right now, the remixes tab is the more likely primary target for visitors, but given the plans to add more resources, I'd rather not have to change it down the road. It's also consistent (I like consistency) with the revised composer, organization, and system pages.

Well, for developers, only certain, large companies would make sense. Ditto for games, although I have an idea of how to do that in a way that makes a bit more sense... I do see the value and def. wanna do it, but from a scalability resource perspective, I'm gonna limit it to things that make sense. For instance, a Vic Tokai feed, or a feed specifically for Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom... probably wouldn't make much sense

We noticed this recently as well, since last.fm won't allow these to be uploaded. There's no way to reencode the MP3s without further loss; ideally the original artist would do the encode. I'll compile a list of the 48Khz mixes and hopefully Larry and I can track down as many as possible.

Nah, that just needs to go... no real point in sorting songs by system. Unsticking this for now... the more things we have like this, however, the most I think a dedicated forum for site feedback, comments, & suggestions might be useful...

Well, now we've got something FYI, individual linked skills will eventually be added to ReMixer profiles. Unsticking this thread in favor of a new one.

OC ReMix Unveils ReMixer Skills/Collaboration Database! For Immediate Release March 17th, 2008 Contact: David W. Lloyd, dlloyd@ocremix.org FAIRFAX,VA--OverClocked ReMix today unveiled a new area of its website, www.ocremix.org, which allows registered artists to see who else uses a specific piece of music software, plays a particular instrument, or possesses other musical skills such as singing, audio engineering, and writing lyrics. The feature is designed to help aspiring artists see who uses what, to aid in evaluation of potential purchases, and to facilitate collaboration between all musicians registered on the site's forums. The entrance to the skills/collaboration database is online at: http://www.ocremix.org/remixing/ Registration on the site' forums is free; during and after registration, users are allowed to select the musical skills and tools they possess, and also indicate their willingness/availability to collaborate. These selections are reflected on the skills/collaboration interface, allowing ReMixers to find prospective collaborators more easily. Andrew Aversa, judge, ReMixer, and Project Director for Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream (http://ff7.ocremix.org/) writes: "I've been collaborating with other mixers for years, but it's always been a bit tricky to find people with specific skills. The ability to see who is using what tools, and actually get more info and even BUY those tools, is also just incredibly cool. I wish I had access to this stuff when I first got to OCR!" Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation, preservation, and interpretation of video game music. Its primary focus is www.ocremix.org, a website featuring hundreds of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans. --

We just went live with extensive revisions to game detail pages. Example: http://www.ocremix.org/game/final-fantasy-x-ps2/ As always, please report any issues/comments on this thread only. The Good: Composer list now includes composer icons, so from any game detail page you can easily put a face with a name All songs are listed beneath a list of the five most recent ReMixes ReMixes are listed on a separate tab, ala systems, organizations, etc. Reference links to mobygames are provided for most games; we'll be expanding our list of references in the future, but for now, this should help visitors access additional information about games Chiptunes tab is conditional and only linked when chiptune files are available (big whoop, I know, but it's nevertheless helpful) Game detail page titles (what shows up in bookmarks and google results) now include year and publisher in addition to system Last but certainly not least, we've integrated our aStore into a dedicated "store" tab for each game that either brings back the specific game record on Amazon or runs a search, with a sidebar of affiliate options as well. The Bad: Game detail pages are now on a 12-hour cache and won't update immediately after a mix being posted unless I do so manually. I'm looking into ways of making that easier, but at least initially, there will be a half-day delay. In general, we REALLY need as many of you as possible to buy games through our store, because Google ads aren't covering hosting costs any more. We're trying to make it (far) more convenient for you to do so with some of these changes. While I believe this is a substantial improvement over the previous game detail page, I still view it as something of a WIP; I'm working my ass off to make numerous improvements to the site, and have been for the last several months, and I'm not 100% finished with game pages, I just think they're at a point where it made sense to go live with what I had. Hope you like! Thanks, -djp