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Work is going on pretty well, but I have to say that it is most probably, that CDDB submission will not be in 0.8beta.
I am sorry for that, but if I would implement it right now, the release date will move at least a month… So I decided to put it back until 0.9beta.
All other features are implemented in time, at least I hope so. There will be plenty of new features in version 0.8beta, also some that are not named in the list above 🙂
But furthermore there will be some annoying bugs removed, at first the bug, that the last sector of a CD is not read in any case. So the last track will be one sector too short always. This was a really silly bug and I am sorry for that. Moreover there are error poping up like Assign Range at Utils.2593 and that the system slows down totally when starting EAC. So please do not mail me if you encounter any of these bugs, I know them already and I work on their removal. I don’t know if I am able to remove them all completly, but I will try so.
I have to say, that NOBODY mailed me regarding my last news entry (a few lines down) from the 5-November. 🙁 If you are not getting pops, you probably made a CDDB database by yourself…
There is one more favour, I would like to ask. If you encounter any new link of a really big shareware site to my page, please tell me. And moreover if you find any review of EAC (or something similar) in a computer magazin, I really would like to have a copy of it (or at least the according pages, or if postage is too expansive, also a scan of that page would be sufficient)… Thanks in forward!

I am already working on the next version, and for that I want to ask everybody who often got pops on extraction to send these to me to test my routines… I am in need of some real pops! 😉
Furthermore I will start a EAC database project now. If you have build up your own database (perhaps also some with lyrics), please send it to me. I will build one huge database of all your CDs and put it somewhere in the web. This will help those, who don’t have internet access (or not always).
Please send me a short mail if you want to send me WAV files or databases that are over 10 kb in size… Thanks in forward!
Don’t expect any program updates until christmas, only if big bugs have to be removed 🙂

Release Date of version 0.7beta
This version mainly bugfixes many small and some bigger problems, also the hanging on some systems and some CDDB problems…
The new version includes

• CRC checksum calculation for tracks
• Test read function, allowing to calculate CRC checksums without using disk space
• Disabling CD Autostart feature for runtime of EAC
• Lyrics support (first try 😉
• External MP3 compression support (including long filenames and ID3 tagging)
• Automatic CUE Sheet creation of CD’s (including all track indices!)
• Time format could be changed from hundredth seconds to frames
• Leaving out WAV header (optional) for true MP3 files or raw audio data
• Batch CDDB queries
• Lots of bug fixes, and as always some new bugs
  (drive reset, speed selection and CDDB bugs should be fixed now)

One of the main bugs still in EAC reported by my beta testers is that after extraction the system is not really stable anymore at least on some systems. I don’t know why yet, because on my system everything seems to be ok. But to be on the safe side you should reboot if you need a real stable system. Sorry!
By the way, my Plextor came back like new after a week of repair… But I decided to sell that one and bought a new Plextor 32TSI already. Furthermore today I bought a Soundblaster Live! 🙂

I already removed many bugs of version 0.6beta, but there is still the main bug in it… On some systems (until now only SCSI systems are affected) the system hangs after starting extraction. The drive LEDs are flashing like the drives doing a reset. The flashing LEDs bug is already removed, but on these systems there is another bug on it (perhaps very similar to that other bug), that will read now the first part of the track only zero samples and the rest correctly. I will go debugging it on a friends computer next week.
Because of that many bugs, I decided to bring out a new version earlier than planned. If everything works fine and I will find that bug, version 0.7beta is planned to come out end of next week. It will not have all features described above, to be honest the main features (Submission, Pop Removal and Secure Mode for Caching Drives) will miss. But I think bug fixing should be done first.

There seems some problems with EAC v0.6beta on some systems. There was one report of extracting too slow (possibly only Plextor 32TSI) and one report of not ripping of second or third drives. Only the first drive was used for extraction even if another one was selected…
If you also think you have found a bug, please test it also with older versions (like 0.5beta and 0.4beta). If both are not working, it is an old bug not found yet, otherwise it is one that is new in 0.6beta (What is interesting for me to know…)

Release Date of version 0.6beta
I hope this is a pretty stable version and that the main feature, the CDDB support will work properly.
The new version includes

• Remote CDDB database support
• Listen to suspicious positions
• Glitch removal
• Fix of speed detection and selection
• Browse and edit of the local database
• Spindown on errors and fallback afterwards
• Some bug fixes, some new bugs
• Update of almost all my webpages, but still no real private homepage… It will be done as soon I find time next week… 😉
• Moved old versions to a subdirectory, because some web pages still points to these old versions like 0.1beta or 0.2beta…

Development will slow down a little bit, because at the moment there is lot of other work to do at the university (that start again next week), preperations for examinations and seminars, furthermore I still have to work besides to earn some money.
But really bad is that yesterday my nice Plextor TSI 12/20 cdrom drive killed itself somehow. The drive will not accept any CDs anymore and sometimes the red LED flashes five times, over and over again. This will delay development at least some weeks, I hope I find my guarantee billet, I don’t want to buy a new drive… 🙁

I am back from holidays… The holidays at home were nice (of course not as nice as REAL holidays…), I did a lot of cycling and relaxing.
I just got informed that there is a bug when using the Fraunhofer Codec and selecting 48 kHz samplerate… You shouldn’t use it until 48 kHz mode is fixed (or removed)…
The expected release date is still 1.10.98… Only smaller things to do and some bugs to fix.

Now I have completed nearly all new features, only some more fixes to ‘Listen to possible Errors’. There is still some work to do, e.g. in this ‘Listen’ dialog it will be possible to remove glitches from the wave (only if uncompressed). Of course this will remove only glitches, that means if only one sample is out of the stream and create by this a pop, it will be removed by the routine. I plan to also add a routine to remove pops that are bigger and burried in the sound… But not in this version. Expected release date for version 0.6beta is 1.10.98, because I want wait for the people at CDDB to check the CDDB support to be bug-free…
Important:
I will go on holidays tomorrow (only some holidays at home (where I come from, not here at the university) :(, that means I am not able to respond to mail until 27.9.98… Please be patient.

I am still working on CDDB routines, but I already finished CDDBP support (hopefully), still lacking HTTP support. I hope to finish the rest of it in a week, so I could send the admins of CDDB a pre-beta version to get an ok for public release. Meanwhile I will work on the rest of the new features, that also should be finished until end of september, that will be a release date of the next version. Of course it could be a week more or less… If I know an exact date, I will publish it here.
I need more informations on Offset Sample feature, so please help me to improve it. If you own a Plextor drive (12x or more) then test all CDs you own in the list on the Technology page. Get the sample offset of each CD (should(!) be 0 on all Plextors) and send it to me together with the code written on the inner ring on the back of the CD (e.g. 532 618-2 02) and the title of the CD. Thanks…

Release Date of version 0.5beta
A few days ago I saw that the program crashes on some systems, even the version 0.4beta. Damn. Why didn’t anyone told me that this happened? Now it is too late for this version to fix it. I will have some tests if I can get hold of such a computer. I have to install my complete programming environment and then debug the whole thing… It still seems to be a problem with the ASPI interface.
The new version includes

• Local CDDB database
• Import/Export of cdplayer.ini entries
• Filename construction and ID3 Tags
• Sample Offset detection and correction
• Speed detection and selection. This feature was made in a hurry and will work or not. It should show up the possible speeds in the selection box. If you think, that the values are not correct or the speed actually read is faster than the selected, please tell me!
• Beep or eject CD after task finished
• Some more safety checks and other stuff
• Two more extraction methods
• Still old bugs
• Update of almost all my webpages
• Making all old versions available for download

I am not able to read or answer mails until next monday, so please be patient…