ipod-lastfm-bridge

Command line program which extracts statistics from iPods and sends them to last.fm

Note

It's been a few years since my cat threw my iPod into water, so I don't really know if this script still works, or not.

Installation

This is a set of command line scripts for taking information on what you played from an iPod, and sending it to last.fm.

Short instruction:

Grab sources (from https://github.com/taw/ipod-lastfm-bridge)
Unpack them. [If you're reading this file, you probably already got that far]
Install Ruby, 1.8.3 or newer. The script doesn't work with 1.8.2.
Edit config.rb You must input the following information: $user_name - your user name on last.fm $password - your password on last.fm

You may also want to edit: $ipod_paths - if your iPod is mounted somewhere nonstandard, fix it

There are some more options, but you probably won't need them. Each one of them is commented in config.rb
Mount your iPod. Depending on your configuration it might happen automatically when you connect it, or you might have to do it by hand. Typical paths where it is mounted are /media/sda2 /media/sdb2 etc. If it's a nonstandard place, add it to $ipod_paths in config.rb
Try running: ./get_play_counts.rb

It will read list of songs you played from iPod, and write it to standard output. This script will not send anything to last.fm.

The format is simply one entry per line, so you can use any command line tool like grep to manage this list.

For example you can remove songs that you don't want to submit to last.fm (like audiobooks, or things that you don't want people to know that you listen to). The same effect can also be achieved by adding artists to $artists_ignore list in config.rb.

If everything worked, go to the next step. If it didn't, check that:
- Your iPod is mounted
- The right path is in $ipod_paths in config.rb
Send it to last.fm: ./get_play_counts.rb | ./as_sumbit.rb

The script will inform you whether it succeeded or not. It aborts on the first error.

If everything was well, your songs should be on your user page on last.fm.

If you get error on the first song, check whether you have correct user name and password in config.rb and network connection works.

Sometimes you won't get errors, but some songs are not on the list. This is because of last.fm filters. Common reasons:
- Title is on the list of known bad titles (like Track 5)
- Artist is on the list of known bad artists (like Unknown)
- You're trying to submit the same entry multiple times (like running the script and then running it again, with the same songs)
Congratulations

Cleaning up play counts

A few more things - the script does not clean up the list of played songs. It's not a major problem, as if you try to resubmit the same songs, last.fm is simply going to filter them out.

If you modify anything on your iPod (like upload a new song), it will clean play counts automatically. Some iPod programs (like iTunes) do that every time you sync your iPod too.

If you don't use any such program, and want to manage this by hand, you can set $last_old in config.rb to the date of the last song you don't want to care about.

Ratings

There's one more script in the set, for getting ratings from iPod. Just run it like this:

./get_ratings.rb

And it will print list of all rated (1-5 stars, those with 0 stars are considered "not rated", and are not printed) songs on the standard out.

Unfortunately iPod cleans ratings together with play counts, so it's not terribly useful.

iPod compatibility

I only tested the script with metal-backed iPod nano, but other users reported it running successfully with many other types of iPods.

Unfortunetaly according to one user report, iPod shuffle does not keep track of play counts, so the script won't work with iPod shuffle. I don't know if it applies to all or only some iPod shuffles.

Contact

If you have any problems, questions, or praise ;-), don't hesitate to mail me at Tomasz.Wegrzanowski@gmail.com or ask at my blog http://t-a-w.blogspot.com/

Copyright

All code was created by Tomasz Wegrzanowski.

It can be used, modified, distributed etc. for any purpose (including commercial use), as long as attribution is preserved.

The full legal code follows.

Legalese

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

taw/ipod-lastfm-bridge