James Harris | Songwriting

SongFactory Launched!

2009-11-13T10:42:00.005Z

After 2 long years of work, my songwriting software, Songfactory is launched! It seems a lifetime ago that I started to think about this project, so it's fantastic to finally get to launch day.

I'm really pleased with the result - it's certainly something that I'd buy, and I hope other people feel the same way! There's a free trial available on the website, so why not give it a spin and let me know what you think?

.net vorbis ogg encoder (Part 1)

2009-10-10T19:33:00.004+01:00

Quick post for all you techies out there - I've just spent the last two days working on a managed .Net library for Vorbis OGG encoding/decoding. There was one .net example I found out there (http://www.codeproject.com/KB/audio-video/OggPlayer.aspx) which didn't do the job well (it loaded the whole ogg file into memory before playing it) and didn't do encoding.

I'll post more info in a bit...

Add DirectX as prerequisite for Visual Studio installer

2009-08-28T12:33:00.003+01:00

I've just spend a couple of days building installers with Visual Studio, and I thought I'd blog about what I've learned...

Prerequisites

Visual Studio allows you to define Prerequisites, which are components required for your software - for example, if you're writing anything in the .Net Framework, you'll need to include the correct version of the Framework as a prerequisite in your installer.

To set prerequisites, right-click the install package you've created, click properties and then click the Prerequisite button. You can also set prerequisites on a project BUT this doesn't seem to affect the installer so always set them on the installer - this caught me out for a while!!

My Prerequisite isn't in the list!

The list of prerequisites for Visual Studio 2008 comes from "Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper\Packages" (the location is different for VS 2005). There you'll find a bunch of folders ("Bootstrappers") for each prerequisite. Each folder contains the install files for the prerequisite, a product.xml file (which details the files and how to handle them), and some language specific folders (e.g. "en" which contain language specific licence files and a package.xml file).

If your prerequisite isn't on the list then you can make your own. I've explained this process below for DirectX.

Download or Distribute

When setting your prerequisites, you can specify whether they should be included in your install folder, or whether the installer should download them if they're needed. This can be good because, for example, it's probable that your user already has the .Net Framework installed and so you don't want to include all those files in your installer - simply get them to download it if they need it.

You set this option by choosing either "...from the component vendor's web site" or "...from the same location as my application" on the VS prerequisites window.

This works by setting a url download link in either the product.xml file or the package.xml file which is then integrated into the installer. Have a flick through the .Net Framework ones to see it in action.

.Net Framework 3.5 SP1

If you need the .Net Framework Service Pack 1 as a prerequisite, and it's not in your list, don't panic like I did. You don't have to make your own - installing VS 2008 SP 1 will create this bootstrapper for you... BUT it's got a big bug - it doesn't include the install files! Again, don't panic - there is a fix as described here.

Creating a DirectX prerequisite.

I needed to install DirectX as part of my installer. Frustratingly, I couldn't find a bootstrapper anywhere. I'm a bit surprised - this seems like the kinda thing that Microsoft should produce with each version...?

In the end I wrote my own. Rather than hand coding the xml, I used the Bootstrapper Manifest Generator to do it for me. You'll need to download the installer package for you, find the correct download url for the same package's web installer, and have a correct version check to make sure it's not already installed. After a quick check on Wikipedia, I put in a registry check for DirectX version 4.09.00.0904.

Once you've created all your files and put them into the correct place, VS finds them and offers you your new prerequisite option.

Music on demand

2009-02-27T13:36:00.005Z

I've been using Spotify today. It's not a treatment for acne; it is in fact a "free" music on demand service. Like itunes, it allows you to choose music from it's online library but, unlike itunes, you can stream it for free. In return you have to sit through a short advert every 20 mins. You can pay a monthly or daily subscription to avoid the adverts.

I like the idea and I like their interface - it's quick and easy to use and seems to have a lot of music available. The monthly subscription price is £9.99 which would translate into probably about 1 CD, but with this service you can listen to a whole load of new releases every month. I guess it's a weigh-up of how much music you currently buy and how you like to listen to it. I listen to most of my music whilst I'm working, so it makes me a happier man!

Money

2008-11-27T08:52:00.002Z

How to get to sleep

2008-10-06T09:44:00.001+01:00

Sorry for posting so many videos - couldn't resist this one...

Genius

2008-09-25T10:27:00.000+01:00

Guitar Hero Traffic

2008-05-12T15:15:00.000+01:00

Month Review - April

2008-05-01T11:41:00.005+01:00

The months are disappearing this year! Classic blog apology - sorry for the lack of activity on this blog - I've been quite busy!

It's been a good few months. Songsmith's really starting to take shape - most of the functionality is there, so I'm tidying things up and getting some feedback before I start to finalise things. The closer it gets, the more excited I am that it'll be a great product!

This month, I've also paid myself for the first time! It's the first pay I've received since I left my job in December. I've done a bit of work on the side, building a website and playing at an event which has meant I've had the funds coming into the company to allow a salary. It's a step of faith that things will continue to progress.

I incorporated (became a limited company) back at the start of April, so I'm now officially a company Director. I thought about putting it on my email signature, but I think it sounds a bit pretentious still! Perhaps when I start selling units I might do that...

Wedding plans are coming along well. The invitations went out over the last couple of weeks, and these have been hard work to do! My wonderful fiance has worked her socks off to create them, and we've both spent many long nights cutting, sticking and writing them.

Lessons

One of my big lessons from the last few months is to set good deadlines. I've given myself a few tough but realistic deadlines, and have pretty much met them all, but the best thing about this was that it made me focus my work. It's so easy to be distracted by fiddling with stuff, but when you know you need something done by the end of the week, it helps to clear the mind! I've obviously worked with deadlines before, but when you don't have anyone over you, telling you what to do, I've found it quite a steep learning curve to figure out how best to make me work!

Welcome to May!

Invisible drum kit

2008-02-15T10:26:00.001Z

Turning a cliché into a long wait

2008-02-03T09:47:00.000Z

Have you ever heard something so many times that it doesn’t make sense any more? Clichés sometimes seem to rob things of their meaning, making powerful things impotent.

Last week I was wittering on to someone about how important it was to “Wait on God”. “It’s all over the bible,” I think I said, “so it must be important”. The person graciously listened to me and then asked me how to “wait on God”, and I suddenly realised that all I could come up with was generalisations and vague waffle. I was a walking, talking, hypocritical cliché!

So I’ve spent the last few days digging around, trying to start learning what God means when asks us to “wait” on Him. I’m sure that this is the start of the journey rather than the end, so if this feels incomplete to you, then my apologies are given!

The Hebrew word we’re interested in is qavah which means "'to wait hopefully' or 'to look eagerly' for something" (Strongs). I guess it might be a bit like the way Apple fans waited for the iPhone; camping in the street to ensure they got a phone.

Qavah is the word we find in the well used passage from Isaiah:

“...but those who qavah for the Lord will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

they will run and not grow weary,

they will walk and not faint” (Isaiah 40:31)

Some of the Psalmists anchor their songs on the idea of waiting for God – Psalm 27, which is about looking to God for help when everything seems to be going wrong, ends with the verses:

“I am still confident of this:

I will see the goodness of the Lord

In the land of the living.

Wait for the Lord;

Be strong and take heart

And wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:13-14)

There have been times in the past when I’ve been waiting on God, expecting and hoping for Him to move in situations. I guess my waiting during those times very much depended on the situation – sometimes things are so tough that hoping on God seems too hard. Sometimes, in the middle of tough situations, it hasn’t even occurred to me to ask, hope or expect God to do anything.

Looking back, I can see resolved situations that I’ve prayed about, which have encouraged me to hope and expect more from Him. I guess it’s easy to say that God can do anything, but much harder to believe it! Jesus called the Holy Spirit “Teacher”, and I can certainly see me learning more about what God’s like through the last few years – I can also see that I’m a slow learner!!

I like the way that Eugene Peterson (The Message) translates the ending of Psalm 27:

“I’m sure now I’ll see God’s goodness

In the exuberant earth.

Stay with God!

Take heart. Don’t quit.

I’ll say it again:Stay with God.” (Psalm 27:13-14 The Message)

It manages to capture, for me, the mixture of persevering in hope and also remembering the past, which we sometimes need in order to “wait hopefully” and “look eagerly” for God to bring His goodness to bad situations.

I guess that if we’re really serious about wanting to see His freedom, justice, and healing in situations then sometimes God calls us to be sacrificially passionate with our waiting like those Apple fans camping on the streets of New York.

None of the stuff here is ground breaking - sorry if you were after a difinitive answer! Your thoughts and comments are very welcome!!

Guitar Hero Roadies

2008-02-02T15:54:00.000Z

Month Review - January

2008-01-31T12:04:00.000Z

January's been a challenging month! I started working full time on my software at the start of the year, so here's look back at the month:

Achievements

I've got quite a bit done, but a lot of it has been "under the hood" stuff which isn't that visible. I've been tidying up some fundamental things that I'd left earlier in the project - things are a lot better now, but it's quite frustrating to not be able to see any dramatic change!! I'm happy with what I've got done, but I'm not quite as far on as I hoped I'd be.

Lessons

I've learned that it's important to have a life! I cleared all of my spare time at the start of this project, cancelling commitments and activities, in order to focus on what I'm doing. This has given me more space, which was great, but I've been struggling to switch off from the work, which is bad! I've been amazed at how much this kind of thing has affected me. The solution so far is to make time for some evening stuff to try and balance me out a bit. (...well, as balanced as it's possible for me to be...!)

Looking forward to...

Getting married!! The wedding plans are coming along slowly, and Laura and I are very much looking forward to having a break on honeymoon! I'm also looking forward to getting the software sounding better - there's some tweaks I need to make, but once it's sounding good, it'll feel like I'm getting somewhere!!

Roll on February...

Expression Blend and Visual Studio 2008

2008-01-17T09:37:00.000Z

Expression Blend seems to have been coded to work with Visual Studio 2005, so after installing Visual Studio 2008 some stuff went a bit crankey for me.

After a quick search, I found a "Configurator" tool, which looks like it was a hack put out there whilst VS2008 was still called "Orcas" during beta testing...

I was just about to download it when I found there's a Service Pack 1 for Expression Blend that should fix all of the problems - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=a07196d1-971b-4710-99c8-d3d9603ccfcb&displaylang=en. Good stuff - hopefully it'll fix some of the other weird things that Expression does - I like it as a tool but, as with any new product, there are a few things that don't seem to be 100% right!

The start of a company year

2007-12-31T12:15:00.000Z

The company project starts in ernest today! I've been working on the software now since August, and it's starting to take shape. From today, I'm working on it full time which should help me to work much faster in putting the finishing touches to the software.

We're hoping to launch by March/April, so there's a tight project plan in process at the moment! Exciting stuff...

Counterslip website goes live

2007-11-26T18:30:00.000Z

The new Counterslip website (http://www.counterslip.co.uk/) has gone live! There's been a great team of people helping to get it up and running, but it's taken us a while to get a first version ready. I think we initially aimed a bit too high with our grand designs for all singing and dancing site, but we've had to cut down the plans a bit in order to get a first version live.

It might not look much at the moment, but we've got basic news and events functionality built in, and a whole lot of ideas half ready to put live soon. Any comments greatly appreciated!

Out the door and turn left

2007-11-22T09:39:00.000Z

My mate Steve has just started a second epic journey which he is chronicling at http://www.overlandtales.com/. It's a great read (as was his first round-the-world trip) and full respect to him for the journey - that's certainly dedication to Hobo principles! If you get a chance, check out his diary - he's got a fantastic way with words.

xaml context menu not showing

2007-10-04T09:52:00.001+01:00

Context menus in xaml are great, because it's to easy to customise their look and feel, however I've just spent a couple of hours trying to debug a silly problem.

I'd set up a Canvas holder with some nested Canvas items, and I was trying to add context menus to each of the nested Canvas items. The menu appeared for the holder but not for the nested items, and so I assumed there was a problem with the ordering of the controls - perhaps somehow the z-order of the holder was higher than it's nested items?

After a lot of googling and frustration I found, by chance, that a control needs to have a Background Brush set before the context menu will show for the item... so you can have a correctly setup context menu wired up, but if the control doesn't have a brush, it ain't gonna show.

I'm not sure why this is - I'm sure there must be a logical design reason for it (perhaps someone thought people would need to see the control to click on it) but I found it a bit limiting!

I hope that saves someone, somewhere and hour or two.

One ring to rule them all...

2007-09-27T17:46:00.000+01:00

...only joking. I'm now an engaged man! It all happened a couple of weeks ago, but things have been so busy recently that I've only just got around to putting it up here.

True to romantic form, I wrote a song to sing to Laura and talked some friends into forming a small band for the occasion. Anyone who's heard me sing will tell you that I need a very good band behind me to make me sound good, so much cudos to them. She said yes, which was fantastic - and then we spent the rest of the weekend rushing around and telling everyone the good news.

I promise to post an update on business soon!

Shop till you drop

2007-08-18T15:26:00.000+01:00

I'm not really a shopping man, and the thought of spending more than a few minutes trawling the shops gives me a cold sweat. Laura, who knows me a little too well it seems, discovered a shoal of vouchers in my room recently and has been looking for a cunning way to overcome my spendaphobia.

We'd arranged to meet up with some friends for coffee this morning, after which time Laura was off to Cardiff and I was intending to come home and work. She casually mentioned that she'd had some shoes put aside for me in a shop which I could buy with my vouchers if I wanted. Sounded good... I looked up after coffee to find that the gate to the shopping cage was firmly closed and that the chain was around my neck. "Cornered", I thought, "and in such a simple way!"

It was actually (I quietly admit) a fantastic shopping trip which didn't last anywhere near as long as I had feared. We hardly spent any money because of all the vouchers and there was no procrastinating over colours in the women's underwear section. I'm now safely back at home with a new pair of shoes and a warm glow from getting something for nothing.

Gentlemen, there is life after shopping.

The first day

2007-08-02T08:16:00.000+01:00

Today's my first day off from work to develop my software idea. The great thing about this first day at work is that I don't have to spend the morning meeting loads of new people (who's names I'd immediately forget), and I don't feel like I have to impress anyone!

I think that the toughest thing today will be knowing where to start - there are so many things to do, and the temptation will be to run around frantically trying to do bits of everything and not getting anything done.

The only way is up

2007-06-21T18:40:00.001+01:00

I've finally taken the plunge. After almost a year of research, advice seeking and general thinking I've given my notice at work to drop to a 3 day week. My company have been fantastic and they've allowed me to reduce my hours so that I work 3 days for them and then 3 days for myself each week. This means that from the beginning of August I'm going to be at WPC from Mon-Weds and then slogging it out at home Thu-Sat.

The general response I've been getting back from the songwriting idea has been really positive and I reached the point where I realised that I had to make a decision. I'm looking forward to the challenge, but I am a little nervous. The biggest challenge might be getting out of bed on a Thursday morning, but I'm sure I can work around that. Perhaps I just won't go to bed on Wednesday evening?!

No domes but one big arch

2007-06-18T21:50:00.000+01:00

Laura and I spent the weekend in London culminating in a trip to the new Wembley to see Muse. I may be biased, but Muse surely must be one of the best live bands ever. Perhaps for crowd pleasing stadium anthems, Queen might win the crown, but for sheer musical awesomeness and the ability to sound forever tight and CD-like, Muse win hands down. I've heard that Matt Bellamy is supposed to be a bit arrogant, but maybe he's just heard himself play a few times.

Wembley was everything that it's cracked up to be - very big, difficult to get lost in, and full of people serving everything you could ever need for a Muse gig. Laura and I went to get some food to discover that the burger, chips and drink combo was £7:50 each. The surprise at the price was eclipsed, though, by the quality of the food. It was a gourmet burger! I didn't have to queue at all - not for the food, the bar or even the loo! After having seen Wembley I've got high hopes for Liverpool's new Stanley Park Stadium - don't let me down guys...

It all could have got nasty at the end as most of the 90,000 odd fans all tried to catch the same tube, but the police were great, letting the crowd through gradually to keep us safe. Unfortunately, though, it still took us 2 hours to get from the stadium to Dan's car which was parked 5 stops along the tube, and there was a lot of love on the tube with everyone pressed against windows and doors. When the doors opened, people kind of popped out onto the platform!

All in all, it was fantastic. Laura got the tickets back in December for my Christmas present - I love her more every day. (Particularly the days when she's brandishing tickets...)

What's that coming over the hill? Is it a concept?

2007-06-09T19:40:00.000+01:00

So here's the concept. Ever tried writing a song? It can be quite a painful experience. You're walking down the street humming when suddenly an idea drops into your head. You rush home, grab your guitar, strum some rough chords and write down a couple of lines. You can kinda hear what it should sound like, but you can't think of a good rhyme for life (wife, knife, strife...) and as the song slowly progresses, you forget the rhythm for the first bit. Soon the best bit of the song (your original idea) is forgotten amidst a see of scribbles and all you can think of is the annoying bit that you don't like.

The concept is a piece of software to ease the pain of writing songs. It'll allow you to stick down chords and words really easily as they come to you and play the whole thing back. I'm hoping to put a rhyming dictionary in for those difficult lines, and you'll be able to generate some great sounding accompaniments. In the space of half an hour, you'll have a completed song that you can print out (in lots of different forms (music score, guitar tab, just words etc...,) and burn to CD. That means that when you turn up at the band rehearsal, you won't spend an hour trying to explain how you imagined it would sound - you can show them. You could even email them an mp3 of the music before the rehearsal!

It all sounds great in theory but there are a few products on the market which do similar things. Market research here I come!

Songbird

2007-06-08T12:48:00.000+01:00

After a lot of thinking and research I've come up with a brand new software concept that I like even more than my previous idea! After thinking through the legal implications of the other product, I decided to go back to the drawing board and see if I could come up with anything better, and I started thinking about Songwriting Software. I've done a quick bit of research into the market and it all looks positive so far...

I'm going to run the idea past a few songwriters that I know in the next few weeks (if you're one of them and you're reading this then watch out!) and then I guess I'll have to make a final decision.

I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with this which is very exciting. Any thoughts and comments are very appreciated. More tomorrow...

Read me my rights

2007-05-29T12:28:00.000+01:00

I've spent the weekend mulling over a document which the nice people at http://www.own-it.org/ have sent me. They kindly had a look through my software concept and have set down their thoughts on the Intelectual Property (IP) implications of the idea.

Their basic summary is that they think my users could use my software to breech copyright, and that there's a possibility that I (as the software creator) could be held liable for "Secondary Infringement" as a result. They've noted that this kind of case hasn't been tried in a UK court since tape-to-tape copying machines back in the 1980's, but with Napster and Kazaa being found guilty in similar situations (within other duristictions), they think it possible that the court may decide differently this time.

Part of the issue hinges around reproducing music which is under copyright. Copyright expires 70 years after a composer's death and so most music used for learning a solo instrument are free from copyright because of their age.

My idea is much smaller than Kazaa and Napster and, having read the Own It document, I feel certain that the majority of my users will use the software legally. I guess that this could still potentially leave me open to lawsuits, but my hunch (without getting accredited personal IP advice) is that this is unlikely. For me, the big issue is whether I want to persue a piece of software that could be seen as "unjust". The IP laws are there for a reason (to protect the IP of creative people) and trying to get away with as much as I can just for my own ends doesn't seem right.

Dilemas all round! I'm having a think to see if I can come up with any other potential ideas. Anyone out there with a burning desire for some music software?!

"Lawyers have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent." Oscar Wilde

Too busy to be lonely

2007-05-24T19:59:00.000+01:00

Have you ever stopped being busy for a moment, and found things not as you left them? I sometimes realise how lonely and insecure I am, and how much my priorities have changed.

I suddenly realise how much my friends mean to me, and how careless I've been with our relationships. Then I realise what a great honour it is to have the friends that I have, and how grateful I am for their wisdom, humour and grace.

"When Christ said: "I was hungry and you fed me," he didn't mean only the hunger for bread and for food; he also meant the hunger to be loved. Jesus himself experienced this loneliness. He came amongst his own and his own received him not, and it hurt him then and it has kept on hurting him. The same hunger, the same loneliness, the same having no one to be accepted by and to be loved and wanted by. Every human being in that case resembles Christ in his loneliness; and that is the hardest part, that's real hunger." Mother Teresa

You'll never walk alone...

2007-05-23T23:27:00.001+01:00

I'm still in the denial stage of grieving following our (Liverpool's) failed attempt to win back the Champions League tonight.

"Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that." Bill Shankly, In Sunday Times (UK) Oct. 4 1981

Never the same

2007-05-22T12:54:00.000+01:00

The sunsets recently have been awesome! Apologies for the blobs on the shot - it's just dirt on my bedroom window.

How to take over the world

2007-05-21T15:13:00.000+01:00

Conventional wisdom dictates that success comes to those who wait (along with ketchup). Never being one for convention, I've spent the last few months doggedly pursuing one of my childhood dreams of running my own business. Some people have suggested to me that it might be more prudent to build up experience before I launch into this adventure, but whilst I value their advice, I like to do things the hard way!

I'm a musician and a software engineer, and after a lot of research into other software markets, I started wondering about combining the two together. I've now built up an idea for a product that I hope will be successful, and I'm going through the process of checking it out before I launch into writing it. I'm hoping to document the journey here, as it happens, so feel free to join the ride! Failure is a possibility, but that makes the adventure even more fun!

Your thoughts, advice, support and encouragement will be very much appreciated along the way.