Blog Entry
May 20

New XM Landing Pages

Posted in Development, Gadget Stuff, News & Updates

It’s been a while since our last update but be assured that we aren’t sleeping on the job.  We’ve recently revamped our XM landing pages and we’re including more stuff than what was there previously.  The new design is cleaner, more to the point and hopefully more useful with the additions of the What’s On and XM-Sync pages.

The What’s On page is similar to the channel view of the gadget, it gives you a real-time listing of the currently playing track and information on a per channel basis.  Think of it like watching the weather channel, but for music instead. 

XM-Sync is something new we’re working on for our various XM gadgets and players.  The idea is to be able to back up your favorites and settings so they can be retrieved and / or updated from the players themselves.  We’re still working out the kinks, but it will be available on the next platform we release an XM player for and we’ll retrofit the rest of the gadgets.

The service is privacy friendly, we go over the details on the landing page, which when it’s finished, will allow you to log in and modify favorites and settings at will (all authentication is off from XM’s servers).

We’ll try to keep the details coming as we move ahead with our next projects.

XM Landing Pages


This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
and is filed under Development, Gadget Stuff, News & Updates.



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36 Responses to “New XM Landing Pages”

  1. Steve Says:
    June 1st, 2008 at 3:53 pm

    Why no sports channels on your XM Side bar gadget? I like to listen to major league baseball games. I can’t tune into those stations. Is there some sort of restriction? I am a registered XM listener in both my car and on line.

  2. The Staff Says:
    June 1st, 2008 at 4:50 pm

    Steve, XM Online has Major League Baseball under the XM Exclusives. Aside form that, not many sports channels have crossed over from the radio to the online. Probably due to licensing issues.

    MLB Home Plate should be able to play for you, it’s the 4rth channel in, #175. Let us know if the station isn’t streaming out for you and we’ll take a look at it.

  3. Death Says:
    June 12th, 2008 at 7:26 pm

    My account doesn’t work after I download XM radio budget although the website said my username and password are all right.

  4. The Staff Says:
    June 12th, 2008 at 7:52 pm

    Death, make sure your account is activated for the online radio. Double check the login on XM’s website, just click the “Listen Online” button and try logging in.

  5. Cindy Says:
    June 14th, 2008 at 10:55 am

    I installed this gadget when I first got my laptop. I set up my favorites and was happy for a while…then found I lost my favorites. I posted a message here and was told it was a glitch and that I had to reselect my favorites. I haven’t used the gadget since then, and now when I try it, I don’t get anything, not in the favorites and not in the channel listing…it’s all blank. I went online and verified my online account is active. I am logging in okay, but nothing is showing up. I tried refreshing the channels, I tried checking for updates (I’m current) and I tried resetting to the defaults. XMRadio Online works fine but the gadget isn’t working at all. Any suggestions?

  6. The Staff Says:
    June 16th, 2008 at 9:53 am

    Cindy, try restarting the sidebar application.

  7. Geoff Says:
    June 22nd, 2008 at 9:45 pm

    Hey Staff, here’s an idea I’ve been thinking about and I’ll kick it off with a “start small” request.
    You know how the gadget sees all the songs/artists that pass by while you’re listening to a channel? Well, what happens sometimes is I want to know who I’m listening to, but I don’t have the gadget on top and by the time I make it visible the song’s over or the display is already showing the next song that’s about to start. So… how about a way to show me the artist/title of the last x number of songs that have played? And if you think about how you have visibility into all the metadata passing on by, you can start to think of some really interesting things you could do with it. But for now, a start small letting me see the last 3 or 4 songs would be great, and then I’ll hit you with a bunch more ideas for all that metadata later. (Not that you can’t think of them too!)

    Thanks as usual for a great gadget.

    Geoff

  8. ian Says:
    June 30th, 2008 at 5:17 pm

    hey so i got the it up and running ande for some reason now i have no songs in my list. there are no channels. what do i do?

  9. The Staff Says:
    June 30th, 2008 at 6:02 pm

    Ian, try re-building the channel list from the menu by clicking the XM logo on the top of the gadget. Other than that, try restarting the sidebar program.

  10. scarlettbama Says:
    July 5th, 2008 at 2:35 am

    July 5, 2008

    (urgent reply requested)

    Hi!

    Downloaded the free gadget. After that, it’s very confusing what to do from there.

    a) is the gadget service free to receive XM?
    b) where to fgo to get the chioose my username/password?
    c) if I have an XM account in mhy car, does that affect anything?

    Please help. New to Vista and love it.

    Thanks, and eagerly awaiting your reply.

    *Sara Ann*
    scarlettbama@charter.net

  11. The Staff Says:
    July 5th, 2008 at 4:16 am

    Sara Ann, The gadget is a player for the XM online service which is free if you already have a radio. To activate the account, login to XM’s website (username and password registration is on their end, if you need help, contact XM), then activate the online side off the account in XM’s control panel.

    Then just install the gadget, login using the same username and password used to login to XM Radio Online and the gadget should be working.

    Sounds like an awful lot, but it should be pretty quick to do once you get the XM account stuff squared away.

  12. Jake Says:
    July 29th, 2008 at 9:42 am

    No Shoes Radio that is online on Channel 18 does not show up in the gadget. Is there some way to refresh the channel list on the gadget when XM Online changes their channels?

    Thanks,
    Jake

  13. The Staff Says:
    July 29th, 2008 at 9:59 am

    Jake, Channel list has been updated, just re-add the gadget tot he sidebar and channel 18 should show up.

  14. steve N Says:
    August 4th, 2008 at 5:02 pm

    As of the last two days this gadget hasn’t worked. I have reinstalled, and reentered my security info, but to no avail. Is there something wrong with XM’s relationship with this gadget?

  15. The Staff Says:
    August 4th, 2008 at 8:21 pm

    Steve, can you elaborate on the problem? We’re working on fixing issues with the gadget for the next few days, any additional info helps.

  16. steve N Says:
    August 5th, 2008 at 9:46 am

    There is not much more that I can add, except when I go to the Get Account Online (which I already have) that page never loads for me. I just keep getting the “swirl” thing.

  17. steve N Says:
    August 7th, 2008 at 6:03 pm

    Still having no luck in getting this gadget to work. Is there some data file or executable I’m not getting, or some system block that’s occuring on my end? It used to work just fine.

  18. The Staff Says:
    August 7th, 2008 at 11:48 pm

    Steve, try restarting the sidebar application and see if that gets it going.

  19. steve N Says:
    August 8th, 2008 at 3:21 pm

    No that doesn’t do it either. I’m also having similar troubles with XM in Media Center, but there it logs in,I see song menu, but no sound. Could it be my server? If I use the XM page, and listen now, it works fine. I’d rather have the gadget, though. Thanks.

  20. steve N Says:
    August 9th, 2008 at 10:43 am

    I know it’s not the server, but could Vista have done something through its upgrades? Is anyone else experiencing this problem?

  21. steve N Says:
    August 9th, 2008 at 12:11 pm

    This page is the one that won’t load either:

    http://www.buildagadget.com/Landing/XM/index.php?Flag=Account

  22. steve N Says:
    August 10th, 2008 at 7:26 pm

    The xmradiodata.xml file is not coming across. I am perplexed by why the download is not working. Any help would be appreciaed.

  23. The Staff Says:
    August 11th, 2008 at 2:13 am

    Steve, we’ll take a look into the XM landing pages and see if we can fix some of the issues with the Amazon box.

    As for the XML file not getting created, try disabling or enabling the UAC on your system to see if that does anything.

  24. steve N Says:
    August 11th, 2008 at 11:46 am

    I have disabled the UAC, and my firewall, and basically all security during download and installation. None of this has helped. I am very confused because this gadget worked before. I also uninstalled all of July’s MS updates and tried the download, but that did not work either(they are reinstalled now).??!! Again, thanks for helping and continuing to help.

  25. steve N Says:
    August 13th, 2008 at 2:17 pm

    I figured out how to fix this on my computer. I went in IE Tools Advanced Security and had to check the “Enable native XMLHTTP support;” then everything worked. But again, thanks for taking the time to look into this. I must have reset my functions somewhere along the line. OOPs. But this may help someone else.

  26. JB Says:
    September 15th, 2008 at 9:46 am

    Channel 53 is changing to ACDC radio…do we get an updated channel list?

  27. The Staff Says:
    September 15th, 2008 at 10:32 am

    JB, yes, when the channel changes.

  28. JB Says:
    September 15th, 2008 at 5:08 pm

    OK it’s on :)

  29. Brian Says:
    November 12th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

    With the latest channel update (which include massive changes), it seems like the gadget is not working too well. Well we see an update soon?

  30. RedJ Says:
    November 12th, 2008 at 5:50 pm

    FYI to everyone who might be suddenly experiencing problems with the XM sidebar gadget…
    XM announced a ton of channel changes today due to merging a bunch of content with Sirius’ offerings.

    Maybe others have been luckier, but for me after the changes, a lot of the channels were incorrect or missing and I was receiving a “server lost error.” To fix this, I had to close the gadget from the sidebar and re-add it. After that, all the channel changes were correctly accounted for and the error message is gone.

  31. RedJ Says:
    November 12th, 2008 at 5:55 pm

    I spoke too soon… The “Server Lost” error is back

  32. BDW Says:
    November 16th, 2008 at 11:47 am

    Hi folks, love the gadget. Just wanted to let you know that it’s not working on Windows 7 currently. Gadget installs, and launches. But when you click on Login, the gadget flies out to the left temporarily, before collapsing once again on the gadget. The temporary window that pops-n-hides is white (meaning it didn’t display any controls or layout - just white). Obviously, I don’t ‘expect’ it to work on a Win7 build at this early stage - I’m just posting in-case others have the same experience, and to give you a heads up.

  33. The Staff Says:
    November 17th, 2008 at 11:07 am

    BDW, thanks for the report. It’s possible that Windows 7 is correcting some of the errors the sidebar in Vista had, so a flyout focus might now have the opposite effect. Either way, should push come to shove and the gadget doesn’t work when Windows 7 launches, we’ll be sure to release a modified version of the gadget. Thanks again.

  34. Scott Says:
    November 28th, 2008 at 3:53 pm

    I have a good suggestion for a feature. My car radio notifies me when Bands I like are playing on any channel, is this a possible addition to the player? If you can read the now playing list it seems doable. I think this would be an awesome addition to an already fantastic gadget.

  35. Matt Says:
    December 31st, 2008 at 8:34 pm

    Hey, great gadget! Been using it for well over a year now. I also had problems with it on Windows 7. I was able to get past the login flyout issue by replacing my XMRadioData file with a working one from Vista, and so now it starts logged in. Now when I try to select a channel to listen to, that flyout also dissapears quickly. I went in and changed line 800 of flyoutchannels.html and changed the timeoutfocus time from 300 to 500. This allowed the flyout pane to stay open a little longer, and after numerous tries I was able to click on a channel and get it playing. The channel up/down buttons kind of work, sometimes they change the channel more than once. One more thing, when a song is playing, and I click on the artist/title, the search flyout comes out no problem. I dunno how that’s different than the other flyouts, but it stays up just fine. So, in the future if you make a Win7 fix, hope that helps.
    If not, feel good that I can still get my XM fix in Win7 for now. ;)

  36. Matt Says:
    January 2nd, 2009 at 1:31 am

    Hey, just a minor update, but I commented out the setTimout lines from flyoutchannels/links/login.html and it works fine now. So it looks like that focus thing was the culprit.
    Happy new year, btw!

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