Day 38 - Stalled, but slogging on

9 07 2008

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Today was just one of those days where you set out to achieve one thing and somehow get carried away doing something you should never have started in the first place.

I was supposed to get the installer done today. As it turns out half of it got done. Enough to test in some VM’s. Couple of issues will need tweaking in the app’s configuration (requiring a few source lines being changed in MixAction itself) but otherwise OK. However I thought I’d check out another installer rather than what I usually use.

Big mistake! Lots of time divested interpreting what is implied in the interface from documentation that is spottier than a Quoll.

The fellow above looks like he’s in the same mood I was in.

OK. Lesson learned and hopefully more progress tomorrow.

One of the things I wanted MixAction to be was relatively unique without truly breaking totally new territory (which in turn becomes harder to market). There’s competition out there for it, not a lot, but the idea in terms of application is not new, though the implementation presently seems to be unique.

I mention this so that I can briefly talk about a great product marketed by fellow ISV Ryan Smyth owner of Renegade Minds Software. Ryan’s Guitar and Drum Trainer is an Audio application that has competition but still manages to do some nice things pretty much unique to the application. If you’re a musician and particularly addicted to guitar playing I recommend checking it out!

I was very impressed with his 62 Band Stereo Equalizer. It’s actually a pretty neat implementation.

One of the problems with EQ’s across so many octaves on a computer is that they eat CPU cycles like there is no tomorrow. Not sure how Ryan achieved his results but his EQ is actually quite lenient in this regard. Well done!

MixAction had it’s EQ “upgrade” to 10 bands last weekend. This was done to accommodate cleaner “presets”. My own approach is to limit the number of octaves for basic Direct-X effects and later implement my own VST effects (and at the users option other peoples) - but that’s for the pro version, concentrating on getting this iteration out the door first.