This is just one more post in the MP3 series where I write about how you can organize your MP3 library/collection performing batch renaming to correct MP3 metadata and save time.

Just after I posted about Using Regular Expressions to correct mistagged MP3 I had other task to accomplish with Mp3tag but I didn’t know how to do that. What I want now is somewhat like what I showed in that previous post. The difference is that now I want to use the content of a given tag to fill another tag, thus copying/cutting that content from tag to tag.

As always I have a feeling that there must be a way of doing what I want and as always I go after it.

Here’s the problem this time:

Picture 1 - Title tag has both the Title and Artist names and Artist tag has a wrong value

As you see in Picture 1, I have some MP3 files that have the Artist name included in the Title tag. The Artist name is between brackets while the Artist tag has the text Various. Obviously this is wrong because the Artist name should be in its proper Artist tag.

How can we correct this without manual intervention that would be a time consuming task?
The simple answer is using Mp3tag and its powerful set of features like the one called Guess values.

Guess values is so amazing that its window dialog just takes 2 parameters to get the job done. They are: Source format and Guessing pattern.

The Source format field in this case has the value %title% and the Guessing pattern field has the value %title% (%artist%). You can use any mp3 tag field between percent signs (%). What do these values mean?

Source format retrieves the value present in the Title tag of each MP3 and by guessing the values through the Guessing pattern it’s possible to split the Title tag according to the pattern. This opens up a world of possibilities where you can use any kind of combinations (masks/patterns) to split the value of a given tag and have those split values fill any MP3 tag of your choice.

So, in this case we have something as this happening behind the curtains:

Title: Begins With Me (Point of Grace)

Source format = %title%
Guessing pattern = %title% (%artist%)

Making the substitution, we have:

Guessing pattern = %Begins With Me% (%Point of Grace%)

With this, Mp3tag now knows what values it must use to fill the MP3 tags we want correctly.

Here’s the final result after you press the OK button present in Picture 1:

Picture 2 - Correctly tagged MP3 files

Hope you got the idea and make good use of this.

I already have the material to write the next post in this series. Keep an eye in this blog. :)

Two months have passed since I last posted something here. These were 2 busy months in my life. Hooray, I bought a brand new car and got my driver license, not necessarily in this order.

This post is about something I had planned to write sometime ago… the two screenshots shown here I got maybe 3 months ago. :D So let’s get to it.

As a big and eclectic fan of music that I’m, every now and then I see mistagged MP3 files like the ones with title tags that contain both the artist name and the song name. The following picture shows what I mean:

Picture 1 - Mistagged MP3 files (Title field has both the Artist and Song names)

Here’s where Mp3tag comes to the rescue. As you see in Picture 1, I’m using the dialog “Replace with regular expression”. Read my previous post about this great piece of software called Mp3tag to see how to get to this dialog. It has 3 fields that you must fill to make some magic happen allowing you to correct those wrongly tagged/mistagged MP3 titles all at once. Ha! You won’t lose your precious time correcting MP3 by MP3. I know that this is boring and that’s why I desperately searched for a solution. I know that if you’re reading this, you’re probably in the same situation and you just found a solution. :)

I’ve chosen the Field TITLE since it’s the problematic field in this particular case. Now the most important part, the so called Regex or Regular expression: (.*) - (.*). This thing means that we’re gonna separate the MP3 Title field in two parts. One part will have everything (.*) before the hyphen - and the other part will contain everything after the hyphen (.*).

Example:

Dru Hill - Away (Prod. by B.Cox) (Full + NoShout) (2010)

The regex (.*) - (.*) will separate the MP3 title above in two parts…

$1 = Dru Hill
$2 = Away (Prod. by B.Cox) (Full + NoShout) (2010)

The Replace matches with field has the value $2 because in this case I want to replace/substitute the MP3 Title with only the Song/Track name (the 2nd part/match of the regex above). If instead I wanted to keep the Artist name in the Title tag (D'oh!, not something I’d want to do), I’d write $1 in this field.

Now, take a look at Picture 2. When you click OK, this is the end result/magic you get. Nice and correctly titled/tagged MP3 files. The way I wanted them to be.

Picture 2 - Correctly tagged MP3 files

To make things last forever, do not forget to click the Save button present in Mp3tag’s toolbar or in the Save tag option present in the File menu. I like to press Ctrl+S as a shortcut.

If you want to learn the basics about regular expressions to use with Mp3tag, check this out: http://help.mp3tag.de/options_format.html#regexp

As you see, using regexes (one of the most powerful features of computers) you can make any kind of change to your MP3 tags like for example removing that (2010) present in each MP3 Title field above. That 2010 should be in its proper MP3 tag, namely the Year tag. Don’t ya think?

Hope this simple process helps someone out there keep an organized MP3 library as I do like to keep mine.

Note
Mp3tag is a Windows only application as is Windows Live Writer that I use to write these blog posts. I use/run it through Parallels Desktop on my Mac mini. Read this post to get more info about how to run Windows side by side with your Mac OS.

Today I just thought about showcasing/displaying my StackOverflow flair/badge in my LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is a good place to show it because it’s a perfect match between your reputation as a software guy and possible good opportunities.

Since LinkedIn doesn’t allow one to put html code snippets in profile fields this showed to be a difficult task at first. Nothing that a little bit more thinking couldn’t solve: Google presentation application to the rescue.

Well, basically what you have to do is create a simple online Google Docs presentation. You could also create an Office PowerPoint presentation and upload it. For sure it’ll give you a lot more customization options. I’ve chosen Google presentation because it suffices my needs for the moment.

Inside that presentation you’ll put an image object that points to your StackOverflow flair image URL. Mine is this one:

http://stackoverflow.com/users/flair/114029.png?theme=dark

Just substitute my StackOverflow user id highlighted above by yours to get your flair.

To change the theme, add ?theme=clean or ?theme=dark or ?theme=hotdog to the end of the image URL.

This URL will render a picture that represents your flair this way:

The bad point in this approach is that as your reputation grows your presentation won’t show your updated flair. You’ll have to open the presentation and re-add the flair image to reflect your current SO reputation.

Google should give us a way to have dynamic content inside a presentation (its spreadsheet service allows this kind of content). This is something that is really missing in presentations. Hey Google, can you hear me?

To give a more personal touch to your presentation you can also put a background image in your slide. I selected a Lamborghini Gallardo because it’s my main car in GT 5 today. So it represents my mood right now. One day I’ll have this car. Just kidding. :)

This is the final result:

This post provides an answer to this Meta StackOverlfow question:

IS it possible to show SO flair on LinkedIn?