Posts Tagged ‘Music’

What’s that song again?

// August 29th, 2009 // 2 Comments » // Music, Tech, Video, iPhone

Ever had a song stuck in your head and you don’t know the name? It happens to me all the time. Either I know a line from the song, or have some idea of the tune, but no idea who the artist or the song is.

To make matters worse, I always seem to miss the song intro on the radio and the DJ never seems to repeat the song title.

Midomi Song Identification and searchImagine my delight when I stumbled upon the iPhone song identification application Midomi. Let me briefly interject.
A good friend, Leon Jacobs once said, “The greatest things about iPhone is the potential that every new app has to completely transform the device into a totally new experience.” I have to agree with Leon. Midomi has transformed the way I interact with music.

The premise is simple - open Midomi, press the big orange button, hold your iPhone up to a source of music and voila, it identifies the artist and song title. It even allows you to play back a short clip (from its own database) so that you can confirm if it’s the same song. Just watch out for loud ambient noise though - it makes song recognition a bit tricky.

Surprisingly enough it even recognised my tone-deaf humming of certain songs. Of course, if you don’t want to feel like a dork singing to your phone, you can also search for a song or band just by saying or typing the name.

The features don’t stop there though. You can bookmark and share your song results via Twitter and Facebook. Check out the lyrics, videos via YouTube and obtain detailed artist info. You can buy the song, but I haven’t been able to do so since the iTunes music store is still not available in South Africa.

All in all, this is a great application and at $4.99 (around R38) it’s worth every cent.

Download the Midomi application for your iPhone here.

Midomi screenshot Midomi screenshot Midomi screenshot
Midomi screenshot Midomi screenshot Midomi screenshot

Choir sings “What’s my age again”

// May 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // Funnies, Video


BBC’s “All the Small Things” recently featured a choir singing “What’s my age again”, the Blink182 hit off their album Enema of the States.

iPhone applications

// April 13th, 2009 // 1 Comment » // iPhone

My iPhone recently had to go back to Vodacom for an issue with the vibrate button. The thing broke off after only 2 months out the box. Something that’s completely unacceptable. Unfortunately the only thing to do was to book it in at Vodaworld, figuring it will be resolved fairly quickly.

In the initial three days I received a few messages informing me of the progress of the job, until it had to be sent back to the supplier. Around two-and-a-half weeks of silence ensued before I was finally notified that it was ready for collection. As expected (and welcomed), they exchanged the phone with a new unit.

One thing I must commend Apple on is how well the restore function works. Surprisingly enough it restored every setting, archived sms and application back to the last known state. Pretty amazing, considering I’ve never been able to do so with my Windows Mobile phones.

Funny thing about restoring your phone is that you notice how much nonsense you had on there in the first place. I took the opportunity to do some housekeeping and removed some unwanted / unused applications.

Below is a list of some of the more oft used (and mostly free) applications still on my phone.

    Photography

  • Flickit - Flickr uploader
  • PanoLab - Capture panoramic images
    Productivity

  • Discover - Mobile file manager
  • Road Trip - Best travel logbook application by far
    Social Networking

  • Brightkite - Location based networking
  • Facebook - What? Never heard of Facebook? Welcome to earth.
  • Fring - Instant messaging across multiple services
  • LinkedIn - Professional networking
  • Skype - Free calls and instant messages
  • Twitterfon - Twitter client
  • Twitterrific - Twitter client

Unfortunately some of the better apps in the iTunes App Store are still not available to South Africans, so we’ll have to make do for now. But here’s the question, are there other apps out there that I should have on my phone? What do you have on yours?

Timothy Moloi - the YouTube sessions

// March 16th, 2009 // No Comments » // Music, Video

Recently I received an email from James Bassingthwaighte introducing himself as a musician that reads blogs. Well James, cool surname, although I still can’t pronounce it without getting my tongue twisted in at least three knots. Apparently he’s a music producer and his record label has just signed their first artist, a guy by the name of Timothy Moloi. Since I’m always interested in finding new South African music, I eagerly clicked on the relevant links and landed on a couple of cool cover songs.

Dubbed, the YouTube sessions, it is a collection of well known songs from artists such as Timbaland/One republic, Mika, Frank Sinatra and others. I was very impressed with Timothy’s voice and overall sound. For a brief moment I thought I was listening to Seal - a good thing in my books.

If these renditions are anything to go by, I’ll be the first to stand in line when his album hits the shelves. Hope I can get mine signed.

As a parting note, why not listen for yourself - Timothy singing a cover of Mika - Relax, take it easy.

Afrigator