We’re back from Macworld 2010, and it was a resounding success! Of course, being at Macworld put us in front of plenty of media types. If you missed us at the show, you may be interested in some links. Today we’ve got several short video links.

First up, I did two interviews with MacBreak, with my friends Andy Ihnatko and Merlin Mann. Andy and I discussed Radioshift 1.5, which we were featuring at our booth. Hear all about it, then check out Radioshift. Merlin and I had a goofier overview of all Rogue Amoeba does.

I also spoke with Ryan from The Digital Lifestyle, discussing Airfoil and Radioshift, as well as the iPad and what it means for us. You can see that video here.

Finally, Chuck Joiner from MacVoices stopped by, and we too discussed Radioshift (it’s sort of been our marketing focus).

I’d also be remiss if I didn’t point you to a link for free Macworld 2011 registration. 2010 was a great show, and 2011 should grow and mature, in the post-Apple era. 2010 made it clear that Macworld still has tremendous value – you should be there in 2011.

Recently, we received a letter here at Rogue Amoeba HQ from a very satisfied customer:

Dear Paul, I have been using your Radioshift software for quite some time now, and recently purchased Fission in order to edit some of the audio I have stored in Radioshift. I wanted to write to say a heartfelt thank you for both products.

I’ve been using software packages for over two decades, but rarely have I come across anything that is so brilliantly designed and so pleasurable to use. The love and attention to detail that has gone into Radioshift in particular, is clear for anyone to see, and the speed and usability of Fission is a work of pure genius.

I use the two packages for recording the plays from BBC Radio 4. They go out in the middle of the afternoon here in the UK, which is when I’m dashing in and out of meetings, etc. Using Radioshift I can grab them when they are broadcast, and the use Fission to top-and-tail the audio, which takes less than a minute, and then sync them straight to my Blackberry via iTunes. So easy!

I just spent a week on business over in Egypt. On the flight over I caught up on several business recordings and each night I was there I enjoyed one of the radio plays I’d previously recorded. All of that was down to the brilliance of your two packages. They kept me informed and entertained.

So, please pass on my thanks and appreciation to your colleagues and tell them to keep up the great work. Sincerely, Paul Smithson

Though this was addressed to me, the whole team of course deserves credit for our work. Everyone at Rogue Amoeba contributes to our products, and we all enjoy hearing about how our customers use our products. As such, we make sure to share all manner of feedback we receive throughout the company.

We’re always looking to hear more from our customers, both praise and problems. Our contact form is geared towards support, but that’s not all you can email us about.

If you have a feature request, a problem you’re looking to solve with our software, or just want to tell us what you like and what you hate, please, let us know! We listen to everything, and that feedback helps shape our future products. So step right up, and don’t be shy!

Macworld 2010

Do it in person – come visit Rogue Amoeba at Macworld!

The recent release of Pulsar 1.5.6 added support for XM Radio’s new Canadian “XM online+” service. While Canadian XM users previously used the normal “XM Online Radio” service, XM/Canada appears to have gone out on their own and created a custom player.

When this new XM online+ first appeared, back in December, we were rather alarmed by it. Previous SIRIUS and XM players were mostly HTML/JavaScript-based, but this new service is entirely Flash-based. Concerns about iPod Touch/iPhone/iPad support aside, this meant our typical methods of web scraping would not work. We needed an entirely new approach to get it working in Pulsar.

Upon further investigation, we saw that the site was using Adobe’s RPC system known as Action Message Format (AMF) for transferring data (such as station info, track titles, and more) between the Flash client and XM’s servers. This was discouraging as well. Rather than having easy access to data in simple plain text or JSON, getting it out of AMF would entail spending weeks implementing and debugging an AMF decoder/encoder in Objective-C.

Two things came to our aide though. The first is that although Pulsar has a user interface implemented in Cocoa/Objective-C, the backend that talks to SIRIUS and XM’s servers is implemented entirely in Python. The second is a lovely little Python library called PyAMF.

As you might gather from the name, PyAMF implements full support for Action Message Format in Python, including RPC. And thus getting the necessary data from XM online+, a task we thought would take us weeks to do, was up and running in under a day. Adding complete support for XM Online+ took us under a week in total, from start to finish.

We’d like to give our thanks to the PyAMF team for making their wonderful little library available. We’ve made a small donation, of 0×100 hex bucks (that’s $256 USD) to PyAMF, and we’d like to publicize them as well. For anyone that ever runs into an AMF problem like ours, we can say look no further than PyAMF.

Macworld 2010 is fast approaching, so I thought I’d post one more reminder for our readers. Come join us at Macworld! We’ll be demoing the newest versions of our internet radio player/recorder Radioshift and our audio streamer Airfoil. Even if you already use all of our software, we’d love to chat about how you use it, so stop by!

In addition, I’ll be doing a couple events on Friday the 12th which should be fun. They’ll also be open to all attendees, so come check them out on the Main Stage, booth 1848 in North Hall!

First up, at 10:30 AM I’ll be participating in the Mac Pundit Showdown. This is usually done in podcast form (search for Mac Pundit Showdown), but we’ll be doing it live, on-stage. It’s sure to be amusing, or at the very least, embarrassing.

Later that day at 2:15 PM, I’ll be presenting with Crazy Apple Rumor’s John Moltz and Associate Editor at Macworld Dan Moren. Our presentation is entitled Apple and the 21st and a Half Century – A comedic journey through Apple’s history. We’ll talk Apple, we’ll use the word ‘beleaguered’, and we’ll make stuff up! It should be a fun time.

So, come by our booth, come see the presentations, or just come enjoy Macworld!

Macworld Details
Dates: February 11th – February 13th, 2010
Times: 12 PM – 6 PM (Thursday), 10 AM – 6 PM (Friday, Saturday)
Location: Moscone Center, San Francisco

Do you still need an Exhibit Hall pass? Register now and use Priority Code RAMW2010 (type it in then hit the Return key) to get your free Exhibit Hall pass.