Getting the XSPF Web Music Player to Work with DNN

I've been banging my head against the monitor for a while trying to get Fabricio Zuardi's XSPF Web Music Player to work under DNN with no luck. That was until I read this thread on the DNN forums and found out that IIS has to be configured to serve .xspf files in order for this to work.

The XSPF Web Music Player is a flash-based web application that uses xspf playlist format to play mp3 songs. XSPF is the XML Shareable Playlist Format. The software is written in Actionscript 2.

Here's the process that I went through to get the player to properly stream music on my site:

1. Download the version of the player you want to use. I went with the extended version so that visitors can see the name of all the tracks in our playlist.
2. Upload the .swf file to a location on your server and note the full path to the file. You'll need this later.
3. Upload the MP3 files to a location on your server that is web accessible and note the full path to these files. This can be a subdirectory off of your portal directory, for example: http://www.yourdomain.com/portals/0/MP3.
   
4. Since we went with the extended version of the player, I had to create an XSPF playlist file for the player to read. The format is very simple. Visit the Quick Start page for a summary of the syntax. I got tripped up initially with how spaces and special characters have to be encoded in the XSPF file. I had spaces and apostrophes in the names of my MP3 files so the file was invalid. I solved this by just giving simple names to the files. You'll want to Validate your XSPF file to make sure it's correct.
5. Log into your DNN portal and create a page that will house your MP3 Player. I added a standard Text/HTML module and set it to not display the container. Edit the text of this module and switch to the Basic Text Box entry mode in the editor. Copy and paste the code below but change the YOURDOMAIN/PATH/YOURPLAYLIST references as appropriate. You can also change the width and height if you would like.
   

   <object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=7,0,0,0" id="xspf_player" width="300" align="middle" height="320">
   <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain">
   <param name="movie" value="http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/PATH/xspf_player.swf?playlist_url=http://http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/PATH/YOURPLAYLIST.xspf&amp;autoplay=true">
   <param name="quality" value="high">
   <param name="bgcolor" value="#e6e6e6">
   <embed src="value=" playlist_url="http://http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/PATH/YOURPLAYLIST.xspf&amp;autoplay=" true="" quality="high" bgcolor="#e6e6e6" name="xspf_player" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" width="300" align="center" height="320"></embed>
   </object>

   
   
6. At this point, you can save the update to the module and view the page to see if you've got anything. At first, the player rendered on the page, but it would not load my playlist. If this is the case for you, you should make sure that IIS is set to serve .xspf files. Since my host provides a Plesk control panel, I'll describe how to do this in Plesk.
7. Log into your Plesk control panel.
8. Click on your domain.
9. Click on the Web Directories icon.
10. 
    In my version of Plesk, there is a "MIME Types" tab at the top of the screen. Click on that tab.
    
11. Click on the "Add New Mime Type" icon. and enter ".xspf" as the Extension and Choose "Custom" and type "application/xspf+xml" for Content (without the quotes).
12. Restart your IIS or Application Pool.
13. Test your page again. This time, your player should come up and start streaming your music.

I hope this helps.

New Project

I recently volunteered to redesign my daughter's school's site. This will include migrating over approximately 120 email addresses to a new server and reworking the landing page and the site for the parish, too. I decided on using DotNetNuke v4.4.0 as the content management system and have alredy had the folks at St. Joan create an account with EasyCGI for hosting.

Even though EasyCGI offers all of the features we needed on their X4 plan (unlimited email addresses, tons of bandwidth and disk space), the first 48 hours with them left much to be desired. EasyCGI is a platinum sponsor of DotNetNuke, but this is a bit misleading. They do offer an automated install script for DNN v4.0.3, which is a bit dated. Since I wanted to go with the latest version and I wanted to install it in the web root, it took me some time to figure out what to do. This led to me having to wait for their support staff to respond to my voicemails and support tickets. If you don't specify that the support staff can call you back at any time, they will only reply from 9AM to 9PM. I found the fact that I was put into voicemail annoying. I wouldn't mind waiting for the next support rep and having the option to leave a message.


Here are the steps if you're trying to install DNN on an EasyCGI hosted account's domain root:

1. As soon as you create your account, create a support ticket to have the "NETWORK SERVICE" and "ASPNET" users given modify and write permissions in the domain root. Also ensure that your account is set to use the right version of ASP.NET (v2 for DNN4.x.x)
   
2. Log into the web-based control panel and navigate to Website/Domain Management for the domain you're working on and go into the MSSQL Databases section.
3. Add an MSSQL database.
4. Add an MSSQL user. This is the username and password you'll be using in the connection string for DNN.
5. Check the box that gives your new user access to your new database.
6. You should have the DNN install package ready to go. Open the web.config file and update the connection string sections (x2). Comment out the SQL Server Express versions and modify the SQL Server 2005 version to include your server address (mssqlxx.easycgi.com) and user credentials. You can also change your error display settings to show full error messages while you're developing by searching through your web.config file for "RemoteOnly" and changing that to "Off"
   
7. Upload your install package to your web space.
8. When all of the above is done, including the NTFS permissions in step 1, navigate to your domain name. This kicks off the DNN installation. When it's done, it will give you a link to navigate to your new portal.

Hope that helps.

What to do on a Sea Trial

I know it's been a while since I post, but I came accross this and couldn't think of another place to put it so that I would be able to find it in the future.

We've been looking at getting another boat and I've started going out on a few sea trials. It's difficult to think of what to do when you're on someone else's boat that will give you some confidence of how good it is. I found this comment posted by Clark Roberts on Boston Whaler forum that gave good suggestions for what you should look for:

My suggestion: test drive each and put through paces; steerage at idle speed, backing down, coming to plane, hands off straight ahead, list in cross winds?, access to bow (fast, safe, easy??), ventillation in cabin, lowest comfortable cruising speed?, hard turns, climbing and decending large cruiser wakes, vision and seating at helm, stand up comfort and throttle position at hand, docking/line handling/cleat&chocks.. etc..etc..etc... often it's the small things that account for a pleasurable boat! Others may have other suggestions... do your homework and "fly before buy"! No, I don't own either but I did spend the night at a Holiday Inn Express last night! What? Happy Whalin'... Clark... Spruce Creek Navy

Florida Gator Nation Network

Calling all UF Gators out there! Be sure to check out and sign up with the new Florida Gator Nation Network. It's UF's social networking site. They've done a fairly nice job implementing Affinity Engine's social networking engine and have even tied in your UF record with the profile. If you do join, feel free to look me up and send me a link request.

Comment Spam

I hate comment spam!

Statutory Interest Calculator

The wife had a need to calculate the present value of a number of payments all that were due to one of her clients for the last several years as part of a legal preceeding. These payments are all subject to pre-judgement interest with varying interest rates. I took the chance and created a spreadsheet that she could use to enter the payments that were due into the appropriate months they were due and using the posted statutory interest rates for Florida, this spreadsheet calculates the present value of all of those cash flows. If anyone is interested in using this, don't hesitate to contact me.

Launch of Chippery.net

I'm proud to announce that we have launched the first release of the Chippery Florida site. The site allows customers to read more about our operations, the Chippery product line and it also lets them join the Chippery Club. Members receive exclusive deals and special promotions for everything from chips to shirts. Head on over there for a peak and make sure to vote for your favorite type of chip.

The Chippery - Florida: All About The Chippery

The Chippery is a unique specialty food concept that serves freshly prepared premium potato chips, dips, and sips to customers in just about any venue. The patented Chippery cooker, designed by Chippery Potato Chip Factory, Inc. (Chippery Canada), can turn a space as small as 200 square feet into a complete potato chip factory capable of producing 100 bags of chips per hour of operation. The entire process of turning fresh potatoes into tasty chips takes approximately three minutes and occurs right in front of the customer’s eyes. The Chippery cooker is a completely automated computer-controlled fryer that takes whole potatoes or any other chip-able vegetable in through a chute on one side and produces perfectly cooked chips at the other end. Once the chips exit from the cooker, they cascade onto stainless steel bowls where they are seasoned and tossed in the air for an even coating. The Chippery takes the lowly potato chip from the role of accompaniment and places it squarely at the center of the plate. Chippery chips are like no other commercial chip on the market; our customers get to enjoy them within minutes from when they’re made.

Last Day as an Employee

Strange feeling... I've been thinking about what I'll have to do so much that I didn't give any consideration to what this would be like. I spent most of the day packing and had a great lunch with a group of friends. I wrote a short message to the folks that are still left and included a link to this blog. Interesting to see that so many people were curious enough to click. Tomorrow I'll go in for a bit and go through the "Exit Interview" process. That will officially be my last day as an employee.

Overview Meetings with Contractor, Press Release and Business Cards

Over the last couple of days I've driven out to the mall to meet with Don, our contractor, to review the renovations we're going to be doing in the space. I'm confident that Don has a good grasp of all of the changes we want to do. The more I go out there, the easier it is for me to envision the space as it will eventually be. I drove out there today and found that our "Coming Soon" sign had been posted already. The sign is very plain, but at least it gets the message accross.

On the PR front, I've received and made revisions to Jenifyr's first draft release. It is sort of strange reading about yourself even if it isn't in print yet. I'm confident that Jenifyr will do a great job getting it in ink. I'm starting to feel pretty good about it and I think we'll probably issue the release in the next week or so.

I also ordered my first batch of business cards. This may not seem very important, but I only have two weeks left working at Motorola and I want to be able to hand out as many as I can before leaving. These cards can be redeemed at the store for a free "quick fix" bag of chips. I'm hoping they will bring some people out there and that those people will order a dip and soda to go with the chips. By the way, if you're looking for a great printer for your business cards, I've place several orders with Printing For Less and found their service to be great. Check them out and use my referral code (RP1QSDHJ6) to receive a $25 on your first order.

Back Home After Hurricane Frances

I brought the familly back home today after being at my folks house for five nights waiting out hurricane Frances and its aftermath. It's nice to be home again!

I actually drove up to Boynton to check up on our house with my dad on Monday. Our place did fairly well. We lost some roof shingles, had some damage to our wooden fence, and have slightly thinner trees now, but that's about it. We also ended up losing everithing in our fridge and freezer. My dad and I threw all that out when we were here. Seems we lost power on Friday, Sept. 3, at night (lucky that we left that morning). We found out we had power from one of our neighbors this morning so we packed everything back up again and headed home. I love staying with my parents and everything, but it's just not the same as being in your own house. I think they're going to miss having the kids there a lot!

Preparing for this damn hurricane was a royal pain in the butt! Since our house was built just prior to hurricane Andrew in 1992 (and we've slacked on getting them on our own), we don't have hurricane shutters. I started our preparations by running out to home depot to get plywood to board up the windows. This was the Wednesday before the storm at 10:30 in the moring. I was in line about 2 hours before I got the maximum 15 sheets that they would give me. I also bought a bunch of 2x4x12's that I used to build a wall across my lanai. Unfortunately, the 15 sheets was 2 sheets short of what I needed. I wasn't going to wait in line again, especially since I really didn't notice that I needed more until Thursday evening. By then the lines were much longer and the weather was starting to turn crappy. I started looking around until it struck me... "Hey... the chip cooker is in a crate... a wooden crate!" It was like I ordered the thing exactly to fit our front office window. I built a frame out of the studs and drilled one of the large faces of the crate and one small scrap piece directly into the space. The best thing is that "The Chippery" and "Fragile - Handle With Care" were clearly visible for all of the neighbors to see. See for yourself in the picture:

Plans Approved by Division of Hotel and Restaurants

I got a call today from Lynne, the plan reviewer from the division of hotel and restaurants, saying that our plans had been approved. She was very pleasant on the phone. She said that she was so bored waiting for the hurricane to pass that she ended up taking plans home to review and she got through ours. I'll be sending her a case of chips as soon as we're up and running!

I also called Steven, the permit expediter I had talked to earlier, to see if he can pick up the plans and take them over to the Palm Beach County offices for the Fire Department's approval, but I couldn't get a hold of him. If don't talk to him before I get back up to our house I'll just rund down there and take them in myself. That will save me about $400.

Preparing for Hurricane Frances

Things aren't looking too good over here. It seems that hurricane Frances will pass by close enough for us to see at least some of the effects of the storm. Other than the regular preparations for the family and home, now I have to worry about the business. Even though the store hasn't been started yet, I still have the Chippery cooker sitting in my garage. This was supposed to be a temporary holding place until we received access to the space in the mall so I didn't think that updating our insurance would be an issue. Our contents including the cooker add up to more than what we're insured for (gasp!). The plan is to push the mall to turn the space over as soon as possible and get the cooker over there. The mall sits further inland and may not experience as strong a storm as we would. We're fairly close to the coast. I'll try to keep this updated with what we do.

The Space Was Vacated

Well, if you're keeping track, you're wondering to yourself when the heck I get the space. Funny you should ask! I was supposed to get the space on August 25th, but due since the tenant paid through the end of the month, they were able to stay there for the full month. Just to make sure, I passed by the mall tonight and saw that they had vacated the space. They didn't leave it in too bad a shape, but they did take a few things I didn't think they would be able to get away with.

The ice machine is no longer there and they took the sandwich prep station. The ice machine is attached to plumbing, so I figured it would be considered a leasehold improvement. I had already budgeted for a new ice machine and refrigerator. On the bright side, they left a glass door merchandiser that I may be able to use.

Submitted Plans to Health Department

This afternoon was very hectic. I took off early from work thanks to Mot's "Summer Hours" program and had to drive to Ft. Lauderdale to our architect's office to pick up six sets of plans. I had the architect sign and seal five of them and print out an extra set for me to keep. I then drove back up to Margate to drop off the plans at Florida's Division of Business and Professional Regulation. The Division of Hotels and Restaurants is the regulatory agency that reviews and issues permits for restaurants in Florida.

I managed to get to Hotel and Restaurants at 4:30 in the afternoon. This, along with the fact that I didn't have the required water and wastewater approval forms, didn't play well with the plan reviewer. She quickly told me that she didn't believe that I was there at 4:30 and that she couldn't work overtime anymore. Not having the water approval form or a water bill for the space almost cost me the chance to get the plans in for review before the end of the week. The reviewer ended up agreeing to let me fax the bill in on Monday but warned that if I didn't, it would be another 30 days in the review cycle. I'm hoping that I'll get their stamp in two weeks.

Free Gmail Invitation

I've got one Gmail invitation available that I will graciously give to the first person to post a comment on this post. If you include details of why you read, I'll even send you your first message on your new account :)

Back From Vacation

My wife and I just got back from a quick cruise vacation with the two kids. This was sort of the last break before things get crazy through construction and then opening the business in November. We took a three-night cruise to the Bahamas and Castaway Key on Disney's Wonder. Overall it was a good trip even with a two-year-old and five-month-old. My only complaint was the quality of the food aboard the ship. I've had much better meals aboard Carnival cruises and I figured Disney should at least been as good.

Final Store Design

The design phase of the first Florida Chippery unit is done and boy has it been a chore (more to come later). Little changed from the initial concept that I posted about earlier, but I thought I should post the final layout for prosperity's sake.



The main difference between this one and the one I posted earlier is that the counter has a raised section at the end and a couple of cubby holes along the front face for displaying bagged chips. The face of the raised portion of the counter will be finished in Chemetal #449 Ripple with a Real Red tint. The effect I'm looking for looks very much like fire running up the side of the counter if the lighting is right.

(Re)writing the Business Plan

As I told you folks earlier, I lost my previous business plan due to a combination of stupidity and laziness. The plan wasn't finished (as if they ever are) so I had never printed a copy or sent it to anybody for review before losing the USB key drive that I stored it on. Well, I'm in the process of re-writing the business plan for the Chippery and I'm much happier with this version than the last. I've been able to take a step back and re-think the entire concept. I'm no longer married to the words that I had thrown on the page just so that I didn't have to stare at a blank sheet anymore.

In doing the re-write, I've gone back to one of the resources I've always used to get my bearings on the outline. That's Inc.com. They have a series of posts (Build a Strong Business Plan, Section by Section) that for some reason or other, I've always used to get a better idea of what I should include in the business plan. The articles may not be all-encompassing, but they've helped me. I thought I should share.

Employment Pre-Screening Service

Wow! What a racket! Here's an itch looking for a scratch...

I've been looking for a service that will automate the employment pre-screening for my chippery stores. I figure that for high-turnover businesses like this there must be something where I can pay a monthly fee to have any candidate answer a few preliminary questions, then if they satisfy our criteria, have them move on to a short personality assessment. Personality assessments are available in the public domain and the rest of it isn't rocket science.

Well, I've found a few providers, but none that are even remotely close to what I'm willing to pay. One wouldn't even quote because they target operations with more than 4000 units. The ones I have gotten prices from charge upwards of $2500 for initial setup and then about $25-$50 per candidate - not qualified candidate, just candidate. If I send 10 people to this site, they charge me $250-$500 that month! The incremental cost for each new applicant is zero once the system is set up!

I don't know about you, but this looks like a rip off.

Fully Executed Lease

I just received my two copies of the fully executed lease documents. There's definitely no turning back now :)