Welcome! This is the official website for Rooter: Web-Based Compact Disc Cataloger.
Rooter's SourceForge project page can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/rooter
Q: What is "Rooter: Web-Based Compact Disc Cataloger"?
A: Rooter is an open source PHP/MySQL project I've started, which, as the title suggests, will help those interested in organizing their CD/LP/DVD collection. Instead of keeping flat files of music on a local hard drive, one will store and edit the data in an online database through HTML forms and PHP function calls. Presumably, this has the following advantages:
- Your data is accessible from anywhere.
- You can add new albums, etc., where ever you are - you don't have to be in front of your computer.
- It's a nice way to organize thoughts/notes/descriptions on a particular album. The ability to rate albums is included.
- Your friends and family can view your collection and request to borrow items (this may not be an advantage).
- You can associate and display artwork for an album.
- Most professional web servers that would host Rooter are backed-up far more frequently than the average personal computer.
Rooter has a minimalist design (the focus should be on the music, not Rooter) and uses CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to partition the overall look from the data. Without much experience, people can modify the default CSS to reflect their site's unique design and personality.
Q: Will this software change my life?
A: No.
Q: Many successful open source projects have some sort of mascot. Does Rooter have a mascot?
A: I'm glad you asked. Yes, Rooter has a mascot. His name is Skiff and he is a golden retriever. He lives life in the slow lane. Here is the official picture:
Q: The full name of the software sounds kind of retarded, yet at the same time, so intriguing.
A: Technically, that's not really a question, but I will elaborate. It's called Rooter after the influential paper, "Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy" by Jeremy Stribling, et al. They live academic life on the edge - they break all the rules. If you haven't heard of this infamous paper, perhaps you would enjoy reading about it here.
I also use "Compact Disc" instead of "CD", because it's straight out of the 80s, and "Compact Disc Cataloger" sounds super retarded. The compact disc logo is used out of respect for Aphex Twin.
Q: I own five albums, the best one is The Spin Doctors, "Pocket Full of Kryptonite".
A: Again, not a question. Regardless, Rooter is not for you. This software, much like SoulSeek, was written for elitist music listeners typically found on the IDM mailing list in the late 1990s. I do not consider myself one of these people; for one, I have a girlfriend, I also bath on a regular basis and I'm a fairly social person who's not angry at the world. That having been said, I pretty much listen to all the same music as said "elitists". It is not a requirement that you listen to experimental music, but you should at least listen to 80s music on a regular basis.
Requirements/Dependencies:
Rooter has been tested using apache/mysql with the appropriate installed php modules. I don't know of any features in Rooter that require particularly recent versions of any of th software.Installation:
I'll provide instructions with more detail in the future, but for now, this is the basic idea:
- Download rooter-1.0.1.tar.gz from SourceForge mirrors, where 1.0.1 is the latest Rooter release.
- Untar:
tar xzvf rooter-1.0.1.tar.gz
- Create mysql database with tables specified in supplied rooter.sql.
- Grant permissions on this database for a specific user/password that you'll need to supply in db.php.
- Edit db.php with specific database information. Also specify your website URL and your name.
Inspirational message to the Developers of Rooter from the Original Creator Himself:
Rooter is an extremely complex web-based project (as you probably already know), and working on the forefront of software engineering can become difficult at times. It's easy to become frustrated, but if it were easy, software like "Rooter: Web-Based Compact Disc Cataloger" would already exist. When I find myself in a difficult situation, it helps to remember that 80s sitcom "Laverne and Shirley". In particular, the opening theme song which I leave you with:
We're gonna do it!
Give us any chance, we'll take it.
Give us any rule, we'll NOT break it.*
We're gonna make our dreams come true.
Doin' it our way.
Nothin's gonna turn us back now,
Straight ahead and on the track now.
We're gonna make our dreams come true,
Doin' it our way.
There is nothing we won't try,
Never heard the word impossible.
This time there's no stopping us.
We're gonna do it.
On your mark, get set, and go now,
Got a dream and we just know now,
We're gonna make our dream come true.
And we'll do it our way, yes our way.
Make all our dreams come true,
And do it our way, yes our way,
Make all our dreams come true
For me and you.
We're gonna do it!**
* The word NOT inserted by Chuck.
** Extra "We're gonna do it!" appended by Chuck for emphasis.
"They invaded our homes, and stole our hearts."