About a month ago I started the creation of an ASP.NET MVC 3 app to a buddy. I’ll write some blog posts in the near future sharing my experiences with this awesome web framework. This app I’m still developing is a web application that I develop using my "new” computer. Today I use Mac OS as my main operating system and since I’m using ASP.NET I also need to use Windows.

Parallels Desktop is the way to go to have a Windows virtual machine [ VM ] running side by side with Mac OS. This way you have the best of both worlds. I discuss more about Parallels Desktop here.

One of the things I wanted to do during the development was seeing how the app would look like when viewed in a different OS, in this case, I’d like to see it running in Mac OS as if I were an end user accessing the app. This is good to test how the app behaves when it’s viewed in a different environment, that is, the perspective/environment of the end user, and not the developer’s perspective/development environment.

It’s cool to see the app running in a different OS and different web browsers. In Mac OS I have the chance of testing it against Safari too. I also have the chance of seeing how exceptions are being handled. There are certain types of errors that only happen when the end user is using the app in his environment. I think you know that already. This kind of testing allows me to deliver a better user experience.

When the app is accessed from the Mac side, the first difference is mainly visual because my Win 7 VM has all visual effects (clear type) disabled and so things look really simple if compared to Mac OS. I’m running the VM with no visual effects so that I have a somewhat fast VM to do the development. I only have 4 GB RAM available and I have to share it with both operating systems. I thought 4 GB RAM would suffice but that’s not the case. I have already ordered 8 GB RAM but am eagerly waiting it arrive from US. That’s another story that I plan to write in other blog post.

The reason I’m writing this post is that things don’t work at first when you try to access in Mac your app that is running in Windows VM. To get things working from both sides ( host = Mac OS and VM = Windows 7 ) they must see/communicate with each other. That’s where I had to do some work to get things going. So here are some instructions of what you need do:

1 - Set a fixed IP address for Windows VM
Set up a fixed IP address (read this page for a complete guide) in your Windows 7 virtual machine. This will make it easy when you need to access your app from Mac OS side. You won’t need to take note of different IP addresses handled by the DHCP server each time you restart your VM.

Figure 1 - Windows7 VM with fixed IP address

Above I have given the IP 192.168.1.106 to the VM. As I do not have a lot of devices connected to my wireless router, this IP is just fine.

2 - Set Virtual Machine’s Network Type
In your Parallels VM devices bar set your network type (orange arrow) as bridged:

Figure 2 - Parallels Desktop VM devices toolbar

3 - Test Communication between Host and VM
Make sure both operating systems can see each other.

Open Mac OS Terminal and execute a ping command:

ping 192.168.1.106

Change the IP with the IP you have in your Windows VM.

You should see something like this:

Figure 3 - Mac OS Terminal pinging Windows 7 VM

Now, open Windows 7 Command Prompt and ping Mac IP address. To see your Mac IP address go to System Preferences. Under Internet & Wireless, select Network.

Figure 4 - Mac OS IP address

Let’s ping 192.168.1.100:

Figure 5 - Windows 7 VM Command Prompt pinging Mac

As you see, both computers can see/communicate with each other. This means that the Network is working as expected.

4 - Configure Windows VM webserver for external traffic
What address should you type in a Mac OS browser to access the app? Well, this needs a little bit of caring. You’ll probably fail when trying to access the app with the same address you use in Windows side.

I’m using IIS Express as the web server in Windows. You can install it using Microsoft WebMatrix. IIS Express is by default configured to only server internal traffic (Windows VM). As I’m trying to access it from an external environment (Mac OS), I needed to configure it. The first link bellow was the main doc that helped me:

Serving external traffic with WebMatrix Beta
Handling URL Binding Failures in IIS Express (Serving External Traffic)

Basically I had to configure HTTP.SYS, create a URL binding that allow me to access the app in Mac side and disable Windows Firewall for my private home network.

4.1 - Configure HTTP.SYS
Type this command in Windows command prompt:

netsh http add urlacl url=http://leniel-pc:7777/ user=everyone

Change the url in the above command according to your desired configuration.

Note: the above command requires elevation. Right click the command prompt shortcut and select Run as administrator.

4.2 - Configure URL binding
As mentioned in the 2nd doc referenced above you must open your applicationhost.config file and add URL bindings that fit your needs. Mine is located here:

C:\Users\Leniel\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config

Take a look at the last binding I have added:

<site name="FitnessCenter" id="3">

<application path="/" applicationPool="Clr4IntegratedAppPool">

<virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="C:\Users\Leniel\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\FitnessCenter\FitnessCenter.Web" />

</application>

<bindings>

<binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:7777:leniel-pc" />
<binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="*:7777:localhost" />

<binding protocol="http" bindingInformation=":7777:leniel-pc" />

<binding protocol="http" bindingInformation="192.168.1.106:7777:"/>

</bindings>

</site>

4.3 - Configure Windows VM firewall
The last step is disabling Windows VM firewall for your Home or work private networks.

Figure 6 - Windows 7 VM Firewall

As I just use this virtual machine to do software development, it’s ok to me to disable the firewall. Be careful though.

5 - Access Win 7 VM web app in Mac OS
After all this configuration you should be able to browse your app externally.

To see if everything is working, open a browser in Mac OS and try to access the app typing something as this in my case:

http://192.168.1.106:7777/

That’s it.

Hope it helps.

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?

Take a look at the MP3 series. Probably you’ll find something interesting.

If you're like me, you also like to take a look at the lyrics of music that is currently playing in your computer or mobile device as the iPhone. I do it to learn a bit more of English since its not my main language and of course because I also want to sing along correctly. :)

The iPhone for example allows you to read the lyrics of the current song if the lyrics are present in the MP3 ID3 metadata container. This is pretty cool. If you already have lyrics embedded in your MP3 files you can see them while in a bus trip, waiting for a service, etc.

Every MP3 has a specific field (also know as frame) in its metadata to store lyrics information. It’s just a matter of filling this field with the correct lyrics. This is a hard work to do manually because you have to search for the lyrics and then copy/paste it in the right field. This sounds like a great thing to be done by software instead. Again, that’s what computers are for… save us time.

In iTunes (the media player/library software I use) for example, one would right-click a music file and then select the Get Info context menu option. Then you’d select the Lyrics tab and paste the lyrics in the white huge field making sure to click OK as seen in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1 - Adding lyrics to an iTunes music file through the Lyrics tab

Some time ago I asked a question at SuperUser site: Software to add Lyrics to MP3 files ID3 metadata. It seems that there are a lot of people (3,356 to be precise as the time of this post) out there looking to accomplish what this post tries to clarify.

When I asked the question I was using Windows and I got good answers.

I also discovered other software by myself as MiniLyrics for Windows at that time. If you’re interested in MiniLyrics, here goes a small tutorial to save the lyrics to MP3 metadata!

MiniLyrics
Right click MiniLyrics icon in the system tray, choose Preferences and then select the Lyrics icon. Under the Save downloaded lyrics in: - select Save lyrics in mp3 file.

Other great feature MiniLyrics has is that while the music is playing the lyrics can be shown on your screen according to what is being sung, that is, the lyrics flows in your screen according to the music timing. Fantastic job from crintsoft people... :)

Besides saving the lyrics to MP3 metadata, there are lots of features and possibilities when it comes to lyrics in MiniLyrics software.

From the official site:

    MiniLyrics Display lyrics for your favorite music!

        * Lyrics plugin software for iTunes, Windows Media Player, MediaMonkey, Winamp, etc. You do not need to change the way you enjoy music.
        * Display scrolling lyrics, you can follow along with the artist and catch every word.
        * Automatically search and download lyrics.
        * Huge lyrics database, and it is expanding everyday.
        * Free Trial version that never expires.

Lyricator
Lyricator as suggested by merv is a fantastic/great/cool piece of software to go with MediaMonkey but it is having some problems currently as you can find in this thread.

I had to resort to other service while Lyricator is being repaired. I found other free software that does the job, but only on a Mac computer (that’s OK because I’ve switched to the Mac world). It's name is Get Lyrical.

Get Lyrical

Figure 2 - Get Lyrical doing its job in the background

    Get Lyrical auto-magically add lyrics to songs in iTunes!

You can choose either a selection of tracks, or the current track. Or turn on "Active Tagging" to get lyrics for songs as you play them.

    You can also browse and edit the lyrics of your iTunes tracks right from Get Lyrical.

I highlighted in yellow above a powerful feature of Get Lyrical. You can even add lyrics to a selection of tracks at once. This is a batch processing feature really welcome when you want to add lyrics to an artist’s complete discography for example.

I’ve been using Get Lyrical for some time now and it is really competent in the job. I highly recommend it.

Motivated by this question at StackOverflow: RegExp PHP get text between multiple span tags, I decided to help.

Recently I got a Mac mini. I still hadn’t played with PHP on Mac and to debug my answer to that question I needed a way to test the code. So I thought: why not also give PHP a try on Mac OS since its my main OS today? Oh, good idea, go learn something new… :D

The first thing I did obviously was recurring to Google and searching for something that could help me get there.

I hit a pretty good tutorial to enable PHP on Mac at About.com written by Angela Bradley that gets to the point: How to Install PHP on a Mac. Along the way I had to solve only one minor thing described in the caveat section at the end of this post.

You see that the title of this post has the word installing (well I thought I had to install it – that was my first reaction), but in fact it could be the word enabling because PHP is an integral part of Mac OS X Snow Leopard and we just need to enable it as you’ll see soon.

Here we go. Follow these steps:

1 - Enabling the Web Server
PHP works hand in hand with a webserver. Mac OS already comes with Apache web server and so we just need to enable it. To do so, open System Preferences in the Dock. Then click the 'Sharing' icon in the Internet & Network section. Check the ‘Web Sharing’ box.

Figure 1 - Web Sharing option under the Sharing configuration in System Preferences

Now type this address in your browser: http://localhost/. You should get a message that reads: It works!

2 - Enabling PHP
PHP also comes bundled in Mac OS, but it’s disabled by default. To enable it we need to edit a hidden system file located in this path: /private/etc/apache2/httpd.conf.

I used BBEdit text editor to edit such a file (note that I marked the box Show hidden items in the screenshot below):

Figure 2 - Editing the hidden system file httpd.conf with BBEdit

Now within that file search for:

libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Delete the character # in the start of the line so that that entire line should now read:

LoadModule php5_module          libexec/apache2/libphp5.so

Save the file.

3 - Testing the installation
There’s nothing better to test the PHP installation than using its own information. To accomplish this, write a one liner simple .php file named test.php with this content:

<?php phpinfo() ?>

Place this file inside your personal website folder. Mine is located in this path:

/Users/leniel/Sites/test.php

Now let’s test this page by typing its address in the browser:

http://192.168.1.103/~leniel/test.php

As you see, the address points to my personal website as seen in Figure 1.

When you run this simple .php page you should get something like this:

Figure 3 - Testing PHP installation with its own configuration’s information

If your PHP installation is OK, the test page will display PHP's information. If it displays the page code, you need to restart the Apache server.

You can restart Apache by entering the following in Terminal:

sudo apachectl restart

Try to reload the page again. Everything should work.

Well done!. Now you can play with PHP on your Mac computer and write some neat codez. :)

Caveat
When I tried to restart Apache server I got the following error:

ulimit: open files: cannot modify limit: Invalid argument

I resorted to this solution: Mac OS X 10.6.5 broke my apachectl

Last time I showed you the Practical use of CountIf with Google Docs Spreadsheet.

Today I’m showing a practical use of a function called Right that can help you in a lot of situations.

Consider this sample spreadsheet:

I’m using the above spreadsheet to keep track of my progress during online theoretical practice tests for my first driver’s license.

I like math so I wanted to know how many tests people have taken or how many tests have been served by the server since my last test.

The Right function is being used in the column named ‘’Tests since last’’ starting at the second practice test I’ve taken. For example, the actual formula in cell C4 is this:

C4 = right(B4, 7) - right(B3, 7)

Let’s break this thing and explain each piece:

B4 contains the URL that points to the practice test I took. In this case the URL is this:

http://www.provadetran.com.br/simulado_termino.php?simulado=4396981

As you see, there’s a number at the end of the URL. This number has 7 digits of length and is a sequential that identifies each test. This allows me to go to the test to review what I did right and what I did wrong at a later time.

Well, to answer that intriguing question I need to subtract this number from the number present in the URL just above cell B4, namely B3. Now look at the formula in cell C4 above. It does just that. The right function is giving me the last 7 characters of the URL. Last because it gets the characters from right to left. If you wanted to get the first 7 characters you’d use the left function instead.

The right function has this form: RIGHT(text, number). It defines the last character or characters in a text string. Text is the text of which the right part is to be determined. Number (optional) is the number of characters from the right part of the text.

Easy to understand, isn’t it?

Let’s do the math making the substitution of values:

C4 = right(B4, 7) - right(B3, 7)
C4 = 4396981      - 4396181
C4 = 800

Now I know that from the time I took the first practice test on 11/25 to the second test on the same day but at a different time 800 tests have been served. This is more of a curiosity metric than anything. I like math anyways. :o)

This was a simple and practical use of the right function that came in handy in this situation.