MP3 Scan+Repair tool for iTunes on Mac OS

This is another post to add to my MP3 series

Yesterday I tried to add/import a folder full of MP3 files to my iTunes library. Just after adding I opened iTunes and went check those MP3s. To my surprise the MP3s were not added to iTunes. I had a hard time trying to find those files since iTunes moved them from their initial location to a special folder called Not Added. My MP3s ended up here:

/Users/leniel/Music/iTunes/iTunes Media/Automatically Add to iTunes/Not Added/2012-01-16 14.34.38

Note that iTunes created a folder inside Not Added named with the date and time the import operation occurred. The folder Not Added also stores image files and whatever file iTunes doesn’t recognize as valid files to be imported.

Now I see that I have some folders like that one - that are being created since 2010-9-17 (when I bought my Mac mini) and some of those folders have MP3 files that I didn’t notice were missing in my library. Smiley decepcionado

MP3 Scan+Repair LogoThen I realized that for some odd reason iTunes rejected those files. I googled about it with "iTunes won't import MP3" and to my delight I found a forum thread in which the user Afric Pepperbird recommended a fantastic tool called MP3 Scan+Repair by Christian Zuckschwerdt. Using this great piece of software I managed to add those MP3s to my iTunes library.

So as way to say thanks I decided to write a post to demonstrate how it works.

1 - Download MP3 Scan+Repair (it's in Beta and is free for the moment)

http://triq.net/articles/mp3-scan-repair-download

2 - Open the App and drag and drop the problematic folder (the one that lies within the Not Added folder) to the app screen:

MP3 Scan+Repair main screenFigure 1 - MP3 Scan+Repair main screen

3 - Select all the files using command+A and then click the hammer button (mouse button is over it) to repair the files:

MP3 Scan+Repair listing the files and their respective problemsFigure 2 - MP3 Scan+Repair listing the files and their respective problems

See the Messages column with the description of what’s wrong with each file… even warnings prevent iTunes from adding the MP3 file to its library.

When repairing MP3 Scan+Repair will try to recreate the MP3s moving the old ones to the trash and writing the new ones to the current folder.

After following these easy steps you should be good to go and add those MP3s files to your iTunes media library.

The app is straightforward and does what it advertises… I’m really satisfied!

Extract GPS coord from Google Maps to geotag photos

This is a quick tip related to something that I just tried today and that worked.

My camera SONY DSC-HX100V has GPS capability built-in but it won't work everywhere and it needs some time to acquire the satellite signal. This way if you just want to take a quick snap you may end with photos that don’t have GPS location in their Exif metadata. GPS is a recent capability when we talk about cameras.

SONY DSC-HX100V camera with built-in GPSFigure 1 - SONY DSC-HX100V camera with built-in GPS

Taking that into consideration, let’s say you have some photos in iPhoto (Mac OS) or whatever program you use to manage your photos. I mention iPhoto here since it’s the app I use. Those photos don't have a location set due to no GPS signal available where the photos were taken. So how can one add that missing GPS location info/data on those photos? By the way, this process is called geotagging.

This is what I’ve tried and what worked perfectly in my case:

1 - Open Google Maps and find the place/point where you’ve taken the photos.

2 - Right click that place/point you want in the map and select Center Map here.

3 - Click the Link button. Black mouse pointer is over it in the screenshot bellow.

Google Maps link popup box with URL that contains GPS coordinatesFigure 2 - Google Maps link popup box with URL that contains GPS coordinates

A popup box will open. Copy the text/URL and paste it in your preferred text editor app. The link will look something like this:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=201266260819946046546.0004a0e1b939dec67f18e&msa=0&ll=-22.428568,-44.619633&spn=0.001983,0.004128

Pay attention to the highlighted part that correspond to the longitude and latitude data.

4 - Select the photos you want in iPhoto to apply Location information and press command+I to access the Assign a Place box. Copy the highlighted text above and paste it in the box. Press the enter key to finish the task.

Adding GPS coordinates to iPhoto Assign a Place boxFigure 3 - Adding GPS coordinates to iPhoto Assign a Place box

This procedure works great when you just want to add GPS coordinates in your photos no matter if your camera has a built-in GPS or not since any photo can be geotagged nowadays.

Hope it helps!

You can check my photos in this slideshow:

ResourceManager with External Localization Assembly

As a software developer I like to work with everything that is related to software Localization known as L10n. Besides being a developer working defining the architecture that will be adopted in a given project and doing the hard “FUN” work writing the code, I’m also a translator if you don’t know it yet.

One thing I've been trying to do recently is to be able to use localized strings that are present in an external assembly [ DLL ] using the ResourceManager object.
I have localized strings in resource [ .resx ] files that are specific for each locale I support. I place these .resx files in a separate class library project to maintain things organized.

So, suppose the namespace of this class library is MyProject.L10n and the .resx file name is Localization.resx. This gives me access to a class named Localization within the code. I also have Localization.pt.resx. I support English and Portuguese locales in my project for now. This naming pattern allows me to have in the future a file called Localization.es-ES.resx for Castilian Spanish (as written and spoken in Spain) and another one called Localization.es-AR.resx for Argentine Spanish. During runtime the .NET framework will select the correct .resx file to extract the localized string from based on the current culture the user has set while browsing my website.

After adding a reference to this class library, I'm able to use this code in my ASP.NET MVC project in a Razor view:

MyProject.L10n.Localization.LocalizedString;

This works as expected, but it's not what I need, though. As you see the localized string key [ LocalizedString ] is hard coded. I want to be able to use the method GetString from the ResourceManager object so that I can write code like this:

ResourceManager.GetString(item.DynamicLocalizedStringValue);

The problem and the catchy here is that in order to use the resource manager the way I want, I have to point it to the external assembly this way:

grid.Column(
columnName: "Type",
header: Localization.Type,format: (item) => new ResourceManager("MyProject.L10n.Localization", typeof(Localization).Assembly).GetString(item.Type.ToString()))

This part does the tricky: typeof(Localization).Assembly

In the code block above I’m using WebGrid that is a new helper that comes with ASP.NET MVC 3. It simplifies the task of rendering tabular data. When I do item.Type.ToString() I’m actually getting different values for each row of my grid and I pass this dynamic value to ResourceManager that in return gives me the translated/localized version of a give string key.

Going even further I’ve implemented a Razor’s Helper method in a file called Helpers.cshtml and placed such file inside the App_Code folder. This is the helper’s code:

@using System.Resources
@using MyProject.L10n

@helper GetLocalizedString(string stringValue)
{
    ResourceManager rm = new ResourceManager("MyProject.L10n.Localization", typeof (Localization).Assembly);

    @rm.GetString(stringValue);
}

Now it’s just a matter of calling the helper this way in whatever place/view I need it:

grid.Column(
columnName: "Type",
header: Localization.Type,
format: (item) => @Helpers.GetLocalizedString(item.Type.ToString()))

The above code is way more clear than the one I showed your before…

Hope this post helps shed some light in this subject since the only thing that should be done is to get a reference to the assembly that holds the Localization class and pass it to the ResourceManger’s constructor.

Blogger Posts Searcher using Google Data .NET/Java Client APIs

It just happened today that I wanted to know if I had already published a post with a given title in one of the blogs I publish: http://jes4us.blogspot.com. During translation (I translate the posts from English to Portuguese) I had a feeling that I had  already worked on a similar text… well, it turns out I was mistaken!

Instead of going through the extensive list of posts looking one by one I thought why not leverage the power of Google Data API? You may say: why not do a simple Google search instead? Good point. As I like to play with code I couldn’t resist.

So here it is. A simple and faster way of knowing if I have a post with a given title. Bellow you’ll find the codez to both the .NET client API and the Java one.

Blogger Data API for .NET
1 - Download the client library here: http://code.google.com/p/google-gdata/downloads/list

2 - Install the .msi package Google_Data_API_Setup_1.9.0.0.msi.

3 - Create a new Console project and reference the DLL Google.GData.Client that’s in this folder: C:\Google Data API SDK\Redist

using System;
using System.Linq;
using Google.GData.Client;

namespace BlogPostsSearcher
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            Service bloggeService = AcquireService();

            AtomFeed feed = AcquireAndSetupFeed(bloggeService);

            // Search posts that contain the word "StringToSearchFor" in their titles
            var query = feed.Entries.Where(p => p.Title.Text.Contains("StringToSearchFor");

            // Writes the Blog's Title
            Console.WriteLine(feed.Title.Text);

            // Prints each post found...
            foreach (AtomEntry entry in query)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(string.Format("Post Title: {0} - Date Published: {1}", entry.Title.Text, entry.Published.ToShortDateString()));
            }

        }

        private static AtomFeed AcquireAndSetupFeed(Service service)
        {
            FeedQuery blogFeedUri = new FeedQuery("http://www.blogger.com/feeds/" + YourBlogID + "/posts/default");

            // Setting the number of posts to retrieve
            blogFeedUri.NumberToRetrieve = 1000;

            AtomFeed feed = service.Query(blogFeedUri);
            
            return feed;
        }

        private static Service AcquireService()
        {
            Service service = new Service("blogger", "YourCompanyName-BloggerPostsSearcher");

            service.Credentials = new GDataCredentials("YourEmailAddress@gmail.com", "YourPassword");

            GDataGAuthRequestFactory factory = (GDataGAuthRequestFactory)service.RequestFactory;
            
            return service;
        }
    }
}

Blogger Data API for Java
1 - Download the client library here: http://code.google.com/p/gdata-java-client/downloads/list

2 - Unzip the file http://code.google.com/p/gdata-java-client/downloads/detail?name=gdata-src.java-1.46.0.zip

3 - Create a new Java Project and add references to:
- gdata-client-1.0.jar that’s in this path: gdata/java/lib/
- google-collect-1.0-rc1
that’s in this path: gdata/java/deps/

import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URL;
import java.util.List;

import com.google.gdata.client.GoogleService;
import com.google.gdata.data.Entry;
import com.google.gdata.data.Feed;
import com.google.gdata.util.AuthenticationException;
import com.google.gdata.util.ServiceException;

/**
 * @author Leniel Macaferi
 * @date 11-21-2011
 */
public class BloggerClient
{ public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, ServiceException { try { GoogleService bloggerService = new GoogleService("blogger", "YourCompanyName-BloggerPostsSearcher"); bloggerService.setUserCredentials("YourEmailAddress@gmail.com", "YourPassword"); searchPosts(bloggerService, "YourBlogID", "StringToSearchFor"); } catch (AuthenticationException e) { // TODO Auto-generated catch block e.printStackTrace(); } } public static void searchPosts(GoogleService myService, String blogId, String search) throws ServiceException, IOException { // Request the feed URL feedUrl = new URL("http://www.blogger.com/feeds/" + blogId + "/posts/default"); Feed resultFeed = myService.getFeed(feedUrl, Feed.class); // Setting the number of posts to retrieve... resultFeed.setTotalResults(1000); List<Entry> posts = resultFeed.getEntries(); // Print the results System.out.println(resultFeed.getTitle().getPlainText()); for (Entry post : posts) { if(post.getTitle().getPlainText().contains(search)) { System.out.println("\t" + post.getTitle().getPlainText()); } } System.out.println(); } }

In the code above you need to replace accordingly the following parts:

- YourEmailAddress
- YourPassword
- YourBlogID

References
Blogger Client Libraries and Sample Code

Blogger Developer's Guide: .NET

Blogger Developer's Guide: Java

RavenDB Embedded with Management Studio UI

Go directly to solution with no bla bla bla…

I’ve been playing with RavenDB (a NoSQL document-oriented database) in an ASP.NET MVC 4 project for the past week. One thing I tried to do was to access RavenDB Management Studio UI so that I could see what’s actually present within the document store. This is important because one needs to check if docs are really being inserted, related docs are being deleted, etc…

Given that I’m running the embedded version of RavenDB (RavenDB-Embedded.1.0.499 package installed via NuGet in Visual Studio 2010), I was stuck trying to access the management studio since there isn’t much documentation on this subject when it comes to the EmbeddableDocumentStore. After struggling with it for about an hour of Googling and try and error, I decided to post a question at StackOverflow: Running RavenDB as an EmbeddableDocumentStore and accessing RavenDB Management Studio. Then I took a break to have launch and took a nap. After that I got back here to try a different approach and it really does work. Of course this is only a way to achieve what I want. This may not be the best approach but it’s enough. Just follow theses steps:

1 - Grab RavenDB latest build here:
http://builds.hibernatingrhinos.com/downloadlatest/ravendb

2 - Extract the files to C:\RavenDB-Build-499

3 - Edit the .config file in C:\RavenDB-Build-499\Server\Raven.Server.exe.config to point to your embedded database:

<appSettings>
   
<add key="Raven/Port" value="8088"/>
   
<add key="Raven/DataDir" value="C:\MyProject\trunk\MyProject\
App_Data\Database"
/>
   
<add key="Raven/AnonymousAccess" value="Get"/>
</appSettings>

4 - Click the Start.cmd present in the root folder C:\RavenDB-Build-499\Start.cmd

The server status output window should appear while it starts:

RavenDB server status windowFigure 1 - RavenDB server status window

When the server finishes its starting process, the Silverlight Management UI should be automatically opened in your preferred browser.

RavenDB Management UI (Web UI)Figure 2 - RavenDB Management Studio UI (Web UI)

Now I can see my docs, indexes, etc… and I hope you can too! :D

Note to self
According to John Allers, one should be able to access the Management Studio without having to start the server manually. That’s fine and I had already tried that, but I could not get it working at first (some days ago). This has led me to try everything else today and my last resort was posting a question at StackOverflow. After trying once more the same procedure, that is, trying to access the management studio using the URL http://localhost:8080, I finally got it working! Go figure. One possibility is that I had another service running on port 8080 when I first attempted to access the UI. As Windows has restarted since then, that service (Hudson probably) that was running on port 8080 is stopped and now everything just works as expected.

Things to do:

1 - Instantiate your EmbeddableDocumentStore this way:

_documentStore = new EmbeddableDocumentStore
            {
                ConnectionStringName = "YourDbName",
                UseEmbeddedHttpServer = true
            };

2 - Copy Raven.Studio.xap present in C:\RavenDB-Build-499\Server\ folder to the root folder of your web project

3 - Run you your web app

4 - Access http://localhost:8080 and voila… everything SHOULD work out of the box.

5 - Select Default Database:

RavenDB Management Studio accessed without running the server manuallyFigure 3 - RavenDB Management Studio accessed without running the server manually

Resources
Embedding RavenDB into an ASP.NET MVC 3 Application

Tree Graph Ordered Traversal Level by Level in C#

Recently as part of a job interview process, I was asked to solve some programming problems. This post shows the solution for one of such problems.

Problem
The problem ( or could we call it an algorithm exercise? ) is this:

Consider a tree of integers. Knowing that its root node is 0, and given its adjacency list as a two dimensional array of integers, write a function that prints out the elements/nodes in order/level by level starting from the root. That is, the root is printed in the first line, elements that can be reached from the root by a path of distance 1 in the second line, elements reached by a path of distance 2 in the third line, and so forth. For example, given the following adjacency list (draw the tree for a better view):

0 => 1, 2, 3
1 => 0, 4
2 => 0
3 => 0, 5
4 => 1, 6
5 => 3
6 => 4

The program should print:

0
1 2 3
4 5
6

Little bit of theory
If you read about Tree in Graph theory, you’ll see that we can represent a tree using a graph because a tree is an undirected graph in which any two vertices are connected by exactly one simple path. In other words, any connected graph without cycles is a tree.

The tree in this problem isn’t a binary tree, it’s a n-ary tree.

Solution
With theory in mind, here goes my proposed solution…

I’m reusing some code from past posts. In special, the Graph, AdjacencyList, Node, NodeList and EdgeToNeighbor classes.

I use this method to fill a Graph with the Tree structure:

/// <summary>
/// Fills a graph with a given tree structure.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="graph"></param>
private static void FillGraphWithTreeStructure(Graph graph)
{
    // Vertexes
    graph.AddNode("0", null);
    graph.AddNode("1", null);
    graph.AddNode("2", null);
    graph.AddNode("3", null);
    graph.AddNode("4", null);
    graph.AddNode("5", null);
    graph.AddNode("6", null);

    // Edges
    graph.AddDirectedEdge("0", "1");
    graph.AddDirectedEdge("0", "2");
    graph.AddDirectedEdge("0", "3");

    graph.AddDirectedEdge("1", "4");

    graph.AddDirectedEdge("4", "6");

    graph.AddDirectedEdge("3", "5");

    /* This is the tree:
               
            0
          / | \
         1  2  3
        /       \
       4         5
      /
     6
             
        This is the expected output:
             
        Level 1 = 0
        Level 2 = 1 2 3
        Level 3 = 4 5
        Level 4 = 6

    */
}

This is the method that does the hard work:

/// <summary>
/// Performs an ordered level-by-level traversal in a n-ary tree from top-to-bottom and left-to-right.
/// Each tree level is written in a new line.
/// </summary> 
/// <param name="root">Tree's root node</param>
public static void LevelByLevelTraversal(Node root)
{
    // At any given time each queue will only have nodes that
    // belong to a level
    Queue<Node> queue1 = new Queue<Node>();
    Queue<Node> queue2 = new Queue<Node>();

    queue1.Enqueue(root);

    while (queue1.Count != 0 || queue2.Count != 0)
    {
        while (queue1.Count != 0)
        {
            Node u = queue1.Dequeue();

            Console.Write(u.Key);

            // Expanding u's neighbors in the queue
            foreach (EdgeToNeighbor edge in u.Neighbors)
            {
                queue2.Enqueue(edge.Neighbor);
            }
        }

        Console.WriteLine();

        while (queue2.Count != 0)
        {
            Node v = queue2.Dequeue();

            Console.Write(v.Key);

            // Expanding v's neighbors in the queue
            foreach (EdgeToNeighbor edge in v.Neighbors)
            {
                queue1.Enqueue(edge.Neighbor);
            }
        }

        Console.WriteLine();
    }
}

To spice things up I have implemented a Parallel version of the above method using a ConcurrentQueue:

/// <summary>
/// Performs an ordered level-by-level traversal in a n-ary tree from top-to-bottom and left-to-right in Parallel using a ConcurrentQueue.
/// Each tree level is written in a new line.
/// </summary> 
/// <param name="root">Tree's root node</param>
public static void LevelByLevelTraversalInParallel(Node root)
{
    // At any given time each queue will only have nodes that
    // belong to a level
    ConcurrentQueue<Node> queue1 = new ConcurrentQueue<Node>();
    ConcurrentQueue<Node> queue2 = new ConcurrentQueue<Node>();

    queue1.Enqueue(root);

    while (queue1.Count != 0 || queue2.Count != 0)
    {
        while (queue1.Count != 0)
        {
            Node u;
                    
            queue1.TryDequeue(out u);

            Console.Write(u.Key);

            // Expanding u's neighbors in the queue
            foreach (EdgeToNeighbor edge in u.Neighbors)
            {
                queue2.Enqueue(edge.Neighbor);
            }
        }

        Console.WriteLine();

        while (queue2.Count != 0)
        {
            Node v;
                    
            queue2.TryDequeue(out v);

            Console.Write(v.Key);

            // Expanding v's neighbors in the queue
            foreach (EdgeToNeighbor edge in v.Neighbors)
            {
                queue1.Enqueue(edge.Neighbor);
            }
        }

        Console.WriteLine();
    }
}

Now it’s time to measure the execution time using a StopWatch:

private static void Main(string[] args)
{
    Graph graph = new Graph();

    FillGraphWithTreeStructure(graph);

    Stopwatch stopWatch = new Stopwatch();

    stopWatch.Start();

    LevelByLevelTraversal(graph.Nodes["0"]);

    stopWatch.Stop();

    // Write time elapsed
    Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed: {0}", stopWatch.Elapsed);

    //Resetting the watch...
    stopWatch.Reset();

    stopWatch.Start();

    LevelByLevelTraversalInParallel(graph.Nodes["0"]);

    stopWatch.Stop();

    // Write time elapsed
    Console.WriteLine("Time elapsed: {0}", stopWatch.Elapsed);

    Console.ReadKey();
}

Now the results:

Sequential
0
1 2 3
4 5
6
Time elapsed: 00:00:00.0040340

Parallel
0
1 2 3
4 5
6
Time elapsed: 00:00:00.0020186

As you see, time is cut by a factor of 2. I currently have a Core 2 Duo processor in my Mac mini.

Hope you enjoy it and feel free to add your 2 cents to improve this code! Of course there are other ways of solving this very problem and I would like to see those other ways. Do you have any other better idea?

Download
You can get the Microsoft Visual Studio Console Application Project at:

https://sites.google.com/site/leniel/blog/TreeLevelTraversal.rar

To try out the code you can use the free Microsoft Visual C# 2010 Express Edition that you can get at: http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/products/2010-editions/visual-csharp-express

SVN, Hudson & MSBuild - Building code on post commit

SVN, Hudson and MSBuild - Revision control repository
SVN, Hudson and MSBuild - Continuous Integration

This is the third and last installment in the series I’m writing about SVN, Hudson and MSBuild.

Today I’m going to show you the last piece that actually makes the whole thing work. We could call this the plumbing. The piece lies within a specific SVN folder related to your project. It’s called hooks. The path to the hooks folder is this:

Project’s hooks folder before the set upFigure 1 - Project’s hooks folder before the setup

As you can see there are some template files ( .tmpl ). The one we’re going to use to inform Hudson that it’s time to build the code just committed to the repository is the file post.commit.tmpl. Make a copy of this file and change its extension to .bat since it’ll be used by SVN to execute some commands. The file should be named post-commit.bat.

Open the .bat file and add this code at the end:

SET REPOS=%1
SET REV=%2
SET CSCRIPT=C:\WINDOWS\system32\cscript.exe
SET VBSCRIPT=C:\svn\post-commit-hook-hudson.vbs
SET SVNLOOK=C:\Program Files\VisualSVN Server\bin\svnlook.exe
SET HUDSON=http://leniel-pc:8080/
"%CSCRIPT%" "%VBSCRIPT%" "%REPOS%" %REV% "%SVNLOOK%" %HUDSON%

Note above that we’re setting some vars and pointing to some specific files:

- CSCRIPT points to cscript.exe file that should be present in your Windows system32 folder.

- VBSCRIPT points to to the post-commit-hook-hudson.vbs file and its code is as follows:

repos   = WScript.Arguments.Item(0)
rev     = WScript.Arguments.Item(1)
svnlook = WScript.Arguments.Item(2)
hudson  = WScript.Arguments.Item(3)

Set shell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

Set uuidExec = shell.Exec(svnlook & " uuid " & repos)
Do Until uuidExec.StdOut.AtEndOfStream
  uuid = uuidExec.StdOut.ReadLine()
Loop
Wscript.Echo "uuid=" & uuid

Set changedExec = shell.Exec(svnlook & " changed --revision " & rev & " " & repos)
Do Until changedExec.StdOut.AtEndOfStream
  changed = changed + changedExec.StdOut.ReadLine() + Chr(10)
Loop
Wscript.Echo "changed=" & changed

url = hudson + "subversion/" + uuid + "/notifyCommit?rev=" + rev
Wscript.Echo url

Set http = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
http.open "POST", url, False
http.setRequestHeader "Content-Type", "text/plain;charset=UTF-8"
http.send changed

- SVNLOOK points to svnlook.exe file that comes with VisualSVN Server (see part 1 of this series for more details about it).

- HUDSON points to your Hudson server address. Change it accordingly.

With it all configured we should be ready to get an automatic build when code is committed to the repository.

To test your environment, change any file already versioned and commit it. Open Hudson in your browser and watch a new build start automatically.

If you look in Hudson’s build Console Output you’ll see that the build was initiated by an SCM change.

That’s all!

This is how your SVN project hooks folder should look like now:

Project’s hooks folder after the set upFigure 2 - Project’s hooks folder after the setup

Can you spot another .bat file in the folder? It’s the pre-revprop-change.bat. I’ve been using it so that I can modify the commit’s log message/comment when I forget to mention something or to correct spelling. More info about this file can be seen in this StackOverflow question: What is a pre-revprop-change hook in SVN and how do I create it?