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Showing posts from 2008

Tagging songs using Shazam

Shazam is a free mobile application that identifies music playing anywhere. The company calls themselves the 'world's leading mobile music discovery provider'. When you hear a song you like, you simply place your mobile device near your radio, TV, a film or in a store and hit the 'Tag Now' button. Shazam analyzes the song and, in less than fifteen seconds, indicates the song, album and artist and allows you to share the 'tag' with someone, view artist discographies and biographies and watch videos from YouTube. You can also download the song from iTunes and add photos to your tags from where you hear the song. Shazam is amazingly accurate . While using an iPhone in my car, it recognized 'Bluebeard' by the Cocteau Twins (from the radio) and 'Black Tambourine' by Beck (from a CD). I have to say, however, that the iTunes download function was hard to find . I expected to find it on the Tag details screen but was surprised to have to drill sever

Using the Honda Fit audio system

One of my favorite features of the versatile and economical Honda Fit Sport is its 160 watt audio system. Not only does it sound great, but I can plug my iPod directly into the auxiliary jack and listen to music that way. The Fit combines the iPod integration with an interesting interactive console. It is designed well : the display is bright, easy to read and frequently used buttons are placed near the driver including a large knob used for changing modes (aux, cd, fm/am) and sound settings. When I first saw the knob, I thought it was a bit obnoxious but the more I used it, I realized that since I change modes often, it was nice to have it nearby and prominent. Also, the large buttons make it easy to hit the 'target' while driving. One gripe is that sometime my palm will hit the center button (used for volume and power) and shut the system off. I just wish I had waited longer for the available navigation system. Overall, the audio system provides a great music user experience

Pandora on the iPhone

I have been using Pandora for a while and their site is great. It's clean and easy to use and allows you to rate songs using a 'thumbs up/down' scale. You can also bookmark and purchase the songs you like (through iTunes). So, I thought I'd try the new Pandora application for the iPhone. Installing Pandora was easy . Although initiating the install was weird (you have to hit a 'Free' button which then changes to an 'Install' button), overall, the process was simple. One thing I really liked was being asked for my Pandora login to make the process easier. "Already a Pandora user?...even easier, just login...Pandora for the iPhone is fully integrated with Pandora on the Web". The application imported all of my stations quickly. Using Pandora was just as easy . Although functionality is a bit limited when compared to the web version (for example, song, artist and album info isn't available), it works great as a 'walk up and use' appl

Adding songs to an imeem playlist

Last night, I found this site called imeem.com . It's sort of a social networking site where the focus is music and video sharing. I created a playlist of songs to embed in my blog but then found that a few of the songs were a little choppy. Today, I went back into the playlist on imeem to remove the choppy songs. I found an 'organize music playlist' button which allowed me to rearrange and delete songs but NOT add new ones. I looked for an hour and couldn't find a way to add new songs to my playlist! This is really frustrating . An 'add songs' button would be perfect and should be located either on the playlist or 'organize music playlist' popup.

Embedding a video from YouTube

Embedding this Radiohead video from YouTube was fairly easy. I found the simple instructions under... Blogger Help > Multi-Media Blogging > Video Google's Blogger and YouTube (so far) work together pretty well. Below is the video I embedded called 'House of Cards'.