AppJacked 2

Once again, we've been AppJacked (where a software program injects itself into other applications to change behaviour, often resulting in problems). Recently, a few users reported PandoraJam and iRecordMusic mysteriously crashing. Having examined the crash reports, it seems the culprit is an audio plug-in called Hear, which has also caused problems with other applications such as Skype and EyeTV.

If you have been suffering from mysterious crashes, and you have Hear installed, check your crash logs (use Console.app in your Utilities folder), and look for tell-tale signs such as:

Thread 3 Crashed:
0 com.joesoft.hal 0x0d7a373d AudioDeviceIOProcOverride...

0xd781000 - 0xd7a9ff2 +com.joesoft.hal ??? (1.0.2.294) /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/HAL/Hear.plugin/Contents/MacOS/Hear

The solution in such a case is to uninstall Hear, or if possible, tell it not affect the application which is crashing.

iRecordMusic Update: 1.6 (build 464)

A new version of iRecordMusic is now available for download. It is recommended all users upgrade.

iRecordMusic 1.6 (build 464)

Link:
http://www.bitcartel.com/downloads/irecordmusic.zip

Changes:

• Improved silence detection and added options to suspend and split recording after detecting silence for a period of time.

The new options are found in Preferences, as shown above. By adjusting the settings you can tailor recording to various Flash based web music players, making it easier for you to auto-split long recordings, where silence is padded between different audio tracks or segments.

PandoraJam Update: 1.3 (build 250)

PandoraJam 1.3 (build 250) is now available for download.

[Direct Link]
http://www.bitcartel.com/downloads/pandorajam.zip

Summary of changes:
- Fixed a bug where a recording would fail based upon certain characters in the artist or song name, resulting in thousands of small files being generated.

iRecordMusic Update: 1.6 (build 462)

A new version of iRecordMusic is now available for download. It is recommended all users upgrade.

iRecordMusic 1.6 (build 462)

Link:
http://www.bitcartel.com/downloads/irecordmusic.zip

Changes:

• Fixed issue where RealPlayer 11 had no sound in Leopard.
• Fixed issue where BBC iPlayer was not operating correctly.
• Fixed issue with QuickTime movie plug-in not working in Leopard.

Mac Mix Promo Launched!

The Mac Mix Promo is now live! You can purchase a wide variety of software applications, including ComicBookLover, at a discount. Simply pick'n'mix. More info in this TUAW post. Happy shopping (while paper money is still worth something! :-)

The iLiad says hello to book loving Blighty

The iRex iLiad ebook reader seems to be on general sale here in the UK, as pictured here in Borders (the Angel / Islington branch). 

It's quite expensive though, at a penny short of £400, but could be suitable for viewing comics, especially black and white manga.  It has a resolution of 768 x 1024, and 160 DPI, and can display Jpeg images.

Regarding external device support for ComicBookLover, the priority is the iPhone, but other devices which have a reasonable user base and have a good form factor for viewing comics would also be considered.

Firewire audio + Leopard = ?

A few users have contacted me over the past few months regarding issues when using their Firewire based audio devices with iRecordMusic and PandoraJam, ranging from glitches when listening to audio, or a regular beeping noise.

Well it seems that there have been ongoing issues with device manufacturers ensuring their drivers are compatible with Leopard, or perhaps with Apple breaking things.

So today I borrowed some equipment (M-Audio 410 Firewire) from London's finest alt-funk band (ok, a band my friend helped manage a while back) called Bussetti*.

With OS X 10.5.3 and the latest M-Audio drivers, things worked well, apart from the 176,400Hz and 192,000Hz 8ch-24bit output settings - thankfully, this was also the case with RealPlayer, which makes me feel slightly better. I will of course investigate further... in the meantime, update your drivers!

*Yes, that's superglue, a tin of baked beans, and an empty bottle of alcohol...