Homepage of Dipl. Inf. Siegfried Wagner

Projects

Software

Most code I produced over the years was just because it was somehow needed. Software development is a tool: you have something in mind (or somebody else has in case you’re working for money or for getting credits, e.g. the diploma) and to achieve the goal you’re using a computer. But there are many ways to do so. And that’s the creative part of it that I really love. It’s not only engineering, it’s more an art. Well, not always, but…

Unfortunately, the result of the development for my diploma theses is not available publically (that was an online multimedia archive with the ability to create automatic playlists by taking into account user ratings and song relations definitions). But some other private projects I published as open source:
> > farsync.gz (it’s gzip compressed, just unpack and open it with a text editor!)
This is a little tool written in Perl for synchronizing file archives based on md5 sums (e.g. it detects when a file has just been renamed or moved to a new location inside of the archive). The two machines to be synchronized don’t have to be connected. It is best suited to synchronize archives of e.g. mp3 files on several machines at different places without transferring everything over the net.
> > mixplayd – a mp3/ogg mixing player daemon
Of all parts of my webradio system this one is the most basic and therefore most generic one, so this is currently the only part that I made available: it is a linux playback engine (daemon) to play and mix mp3/ogg files and can be controlled via tcp connection and simple text commands. It is written in C and doesn’t need a graphical user interface but instead can be run on a distant server (where the files reside on).

On top of mixplayd I developed a whole radio automation system that was especially for running my webradio station HappyRadio (see below). Although I always intended to also put that into open source it never was ready for it.

My work at the Forschungszentrum Telekommunikation Wien (ftw.) in Vienna resulted in two Open Source projects related to Mobile TV research:
> > MiViBES – Mobile interactive Video Browser Extended Software
> > LIMBOS – LInux setup for accessing Mobile Broadcast through Online Streaming

Webradio

During my studies of computer science in 1998 I found a way to start up my own radio station – not on the air (this is very very difficult in germany…) but on the net!

First there was the chatroom and then there came sound to it…
There were a lot of people in this chatroom who gave feedback to the music I played for them, and I talked to them through the webradio. They also requested songs and we had a lot of fun together…
If you’re interested in reading the whole story or want to hear how it sounded you can still do it on
> > www.happyradio.de (it’s all in german!)

Amongst the different people contributing to this project (mainly by doing live shows) there was also one very prominent radio moderator: Jo Lüders who was one of the early radio pioneers of commercial radio in germany.

In the final state of HappyRadio there were no radio jockeys any more but just a software system (developed by me) that played automatically a 24 hours music program with songs that could be requested online. The audience really liked this kind of online jukebox system, but it wasn’t so much fun any more (especially for me).
You can also read an article on Heise Telepolis about HappyRadio and other webradios…

That’s now a long time ago. After HappyRadio I started a few tries to do other webradio projects, like > > munichwebradio.com – where also two shows can be listened to (all in german!)

But it was never the same again, and it all took so much time (and money!) which I didn’t have any more…
So today I’m just listening to other webradio stations that also play music I really like. And there are quite a lot! Have a look at my STREAMING AUDIO link list on the right.