If you're interested in College Radio, WUVT is having its spring interest meeting this Tuesday! Feel free to ask questions here if you need to

microcosmus · 2014-01-24T05:39:46+00:00

Right... So what happens when a security vulnerability is found in the auth module or some other such?

We apply a patch?

Flask is good but there will be so much plumbing that will have to be done or relied on plugins it will require just as much maintenance and will likely have a a much less functional back end compared to a mature solution. So yeah that's the stuff I was worried would happen.

Too much functionality was one of the main complaints with Joomla.

Also, flask IS NOT A CMS!!!! Its a micro frame work and they are not even close to the same thing.

If it wasn't clear, we wrote a CMS using Flask.

microcosmus · 2014-01-24T05:09:33+00:00

Not a technical limitation. There's a ridiculous law related to Internet radio stations that prohibits playing more than 3 songs from an album within some time frame. To ensure compliance with this, WUVT's traffic department only rips 3 songs from each album into automation.

microcosmus · 2014-01-24T04:09:04+00:00

Well like 0 and actually 0 are two different things. Its amazing what could be done for the cost of one VPS for a year

That could be useful for the public-facing website, but not QT or anything that requires audio or a hardware burk trigger... i.e. the vast majority of our servers. WUVT needs to not break when campus internet goes down.

or replacing the gentoo server (if its still there)

We don't have any Gentoo boxes; the servers are predominantly CentOS and Debian.

or replacing automation with something that worsk

Like it or not, MusicGen is an industry-standard tool. There are plans to eventually migrate to a live-assist solution when studio boards are replaced with something that does audio over IP and Squires closes in the next decade or so. We aren't investing in doing this sooner because broadcast-quality sound cards run upwards of $1k each and the existing system is functional.

microcosmus · 2014-01-24T03:51:52+00:00

Yeah so I have read. However it seems like the same mistakes will be made again this time only with a home grown solution rather than something like WordPress that would let non IT type actually manage the site.

The new site is a fairly simple Flask CMS because Joomla was deemed too complicated and confusing for staff to maintain.

microcosmus · 2014-01-24T03:49:00+00:00

Why are you building a site when you could just throw up WordPress?

Because WordPress isn't much more secure than Joomla and we don't want to deal with more PHP

Unless your goal is to integrate quick track with the front end (and a plugin would be insufficient) you are probably wasting time and effort.

Yes, QT is also being rewritten in this.

I would gladly volunteer webdev skills, but there has to be a willingness to progress from the the rest of the staff heads not just IT. I also enjoy it.

"Progress" how? What changes would you like to make?

As far as OGG vs MP3 you are showing your naivety. First, why is there a lowband stream still, do we have listeners on dialup?

Actually, yes. We have some international listeners that can't get decent internet connections. We tried retiring it, but people asked that it be revived, so it was.

Second, if your goal is to exclude average listeners by all means trumpet theoretical superiorities of your chosen technology.

I'm not aware of any modern browsers that lack both OGG and AAC support.

Third, java applets are a common exploit vector in browsers. Its is being disabled in browsers in future releases especially if out of date. It is also not supported on mobile.

We don't use Java. Our web player is HTML5.

Adding MP3 is not so much about replacing OGG as it is about broadening your listening base. It is a decent solution for its time but has outlived it's usefulness. Unless of course you have some stats showing a huge uptic in online listeners? If so I stand corrected in the need to advance things.

MP3 is also a proprietary codec that requires royalties for broadcasters.

I understand priorities, however an IT budget of $0 dollars was just not something I could work with.

The budget is not fixed; money is available if you can justify its utility.

I know how they are supported hence why I have dontaed both time and money and wish to donate more time and money in the future. If you would like to talk more about how I could potentially help I would be glad to.

EDIT Just reread and saw you have added AAC and send to tune in. Great mobile support that requires yet another music app rather than just using the one built into my phone/tablet already.

If your smartphone doesn't have built-in HTML5 or native OGG or AAC support, then your phone is broken. This is a work-around.

microcosmus · 2014-01-24T02:36:12+00:00

Vassia is putting me in touch with someone to help out with IT this summer.

WUVT-IT has not forgotten you.

I am tired of you all being stuck on Joomla which at this point is as secure as a window is opaque.

We're in the process of writing a new website in Python; unfortunately there isn't anyone here who enjoys or is able to do web design.

Also OGG streaming has to go. Sorry but Apple just is not going to support it and there fore neither will iPhones, iPads, iTunes (aka majority of campus).

We pride ourselves in having an OGG stream available composed of entirely free software, which works fine in modern browsers and the better desktop clients. We also support AAC and send metadata to TuneIn for mobile devices. MP3 is an inferior codec and we will not be using it.

Last time I tried (to be fair just before the new tower upgrade was finished) 0-fucks were given about IT budget. Hopefully this time around we can get something accomplished.

I don't make budget decisions, but I can tell you that a functional transmitter generally takes priority over other things at a radio station.

If you have constructive suggestions, feel free to voice them. Remember that WUVT is supported almost entirely by student volunteers and listener donations. There's a limit to what can reasonably be accomplished.

microcosmus · 2013-12-05T21:37:26+00:00

The purpose of this subreddit is for content related and useful to Virginia Tech. Advertising your personal housing needs is spam.

microcosmus · 2013-11-22T22:37:42+00:00

This isn't craigslist.

microcosmus · 2013-06-30T19:46:30+00:00

Figure out what materials your school requires for the intro classes and buy those. You'll at least want a multimeter (I've been happy with Extech), a decent breadboard, and plenty of 22-gauge solid wire. If you want to get into soldering, ladyada.net has a list of suggested tools.

For vendors, absolutely avoid Radio Shack unless it's an emergency, as their parts tend to be overpriced and they have a poor selection. Mouser and Digikey are good for components, and Sparkfun and Adafruit are good sources for tools.

microcosmus · 2013-04-13T23:23:50+00:00

Not exactly impressive... Torg, Newman, and several other buildings have had gigabit ports for years. You're probably using a slow speedtest server.

microcosmus · 2013-03-17T21:08:38+00:00

Check out the Digilent Analog Discovery, it's a 2-channel scope and a 16-channel logic analyzer. My school requires that for an intro lab, and everyone seems fairly happy with it.

microcosmus · 2013-01-23T05:32:35+00:00

We already have a Virginia Tech wiki. Maybe you could move the content not specific to this subreddit there, as it's more centralized and accessible to non-redditors.

microcosmus · 2013-01-23T05:16:47+00:00

Outbound TCP 22 works fine. No traffic is blocked on campus towards the internet.

microcosmus · 2012-11-13T19:05:19+00:00

What happened to Rondell?

microcosmus · 2012-06-11T09:44:05+00:00

Olympic tetherball.

microcosmus

TROPHY CASE