Tag: iPhone

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Name That Tune: Playing Games with Midomi


Being the weekend, I’m sharing something a little more recreational in nature.

When I first bought my iPhone 3G (same day they came out), the lines were horrendous. But I did have plenty of time to learn about the new apps that were available. The Apple store employees were showing off their favorite apps, one of which was Midomi.

Midomi essentially let’s you find songs when you don’t know the name or even the artist. You can hold it to the radio and it will tell you the artist, the song title, the album and even provide links to YouTube videos and the ability to purchase the song on iTunes. But even more impressive, you can hum or sing a bit of the song and Midomi will find it for you… usually.

I didn’t really get the appeal of Midomi when the guy in the Apple store described it, so it wasn’t until a week ago that I downloaded it and gave it a try. The verdict? Midomi is FUN!

This week when I was driving to Dulles airport, I had the radio tuned to a classic rock station, and heard a song that I wanted to add to my personal library. I fired up Midomi,

Midomi - Grabbing a song snippet Midomi - Search Results Midomi - Direct Hit

Midomi records about 10-15 seconds of the song, sends it to their server and returns a list of matches. In my experience, grabbing songs from a radio was extremely accurate.

To purchase via iTunes, you must be connected via wifi. Since I was on the road, I just added a bookmark so I could return later and purchase the song.

Now for the real fun…

Midomi is useful, but the real fun begins when you try singing or humming a song. Lynn and I were cracking up as we tested the accuracy of Midomi (and our singing talent). Here’s how to play:

Get a few friends together. In round robin fashion, you challenge your friends to “match” a song from the band or artist of your choice. They choose the song, and sing or hum into Midomi. Who ever gets a match (or the highest match, if you’ve got a group) can decide the next challenge.

Let the laughter ensue.

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Google Translate on the iPhone

This past year, I’ve been brushing up on my Spanish, taking two semesters of the language at the local college. I’m still not fluent (I don’t practice nearly enough), but my reading comprehension is pretty decent.

One of my favorite tools when learning a new language has been Google Translate. I know that it has plenty of problems, as does pretty much any software-based translation system. There are many things that simply cannot be cleanly translated without the application of a little human intelligence. But it does a reasonably good job of getting the gist of a conversation. I found it useful for “checking” my own translations.

Google has done a great job of getting their other products (mail, calendar, even docs) iPhone enabled, but their translator was neglected for some reason — until last week.

Yep, Google Translate is now available on your iPhone or iPod Touch. It’s very quick and being free, makes an excellent resource for travelers (or students!). To access the new iPhone interface, just point your iPhone browser to http://translate.google.com. Yes, this is the same URL that you can use on your PC, which makes it easy to remember.

Unfortunately, Google has decided to auto-detect if you are browsing the site with an iPhone and automatically serve the iPhone version. This is convenient if that’s what you want, but the iPhone version doesn’t have all the same functionality of the full website. Most notable exclusion? The “translate this URL” function is missing from the iPhone version. And Google didn’t see fit to include a link or an option to view the full version (which, up until last week, you could do on an iPhone).

So kudos to Google for (finally) providing an iPhone specific version. And curses to Google for forcing us to use a limited version, with no option to get to the “full” translate site.

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Projects in the Pipeline

I had a perfect day yesterday, going down to Huntington Beach with Lynn and the dogs. We rode our bikes, played on “Dog Beach” and generally wore ourselves out in the fresh air and warm sun (see pics on Flickr). We capped the day with dinner and movie (Atonement, which I do not recommend).

Today is a working Sunday, with the NFL football playoffs in the background to distract me. Here’s an overview of the things I’m working on and what’s coming down the pipeline:

Installing Photoshop CS3 on Lynn’s PC (done!). She’s taking a Photoshop class at Saddleback that looks like a lot of fun. I’m hoping I can pick up a few new tricks by osmosis.

OpenAds logoUpgrading phpAdsNew to OpenAds 2.4.2 (in progress). OpenAds is the very best free ad server out there, and I highly recommend it to anyone running a website with advertising. It provides great tools for rules-bases ad serving and reporting. They recently received funding that will allow them to proceed with plans to offer hosted ad serving, but until then, this is truly the best option out there. I’m using OpenAds for most of my sites in the BigBlueNetwork.

Over on BigBlueBall, I’m preparing to make some staffing changes. In fact, if you’re interested in instant messaging (IM) or pretty much any other social networking tools, we’re looking to add to the staff. See this post on the BigBlueBlog for details.

While keeping these balls in the air, I’ll be spinning some plates, too. Not literally, but I am testing a number of sites and tools that show a lot of promise.

    • temp.jpgMint.com is what Quicken should be. It’s free, web-based and provides really clever ways of looking at your finances. As long as you’re not too queasy about them recording your login information to your financial accounts, it’s absolutely recommended. I may end up using Mint instead of the Quicken upgrade that I just paid $80 for!
      • Jott.com makes it easy to create little notes to yourself, or even add items to your blog, Twitter, Google Calendar, the list goes on. You call a toll-free number from your phone and speak your message. Jott transcribes the notes and sends you SMS reminders or integrates with your other web tools.
      • Todoist.com provides a really simple interface for managing your to-do lists. You can set up multiple projects and sub-projects, set due dates and view it on your PC or mobile phone. It’s similar to Mark Hurst’s gootodo, but free.

      Finally, I’m also preparing a review of the various IM options available for the iPhone. I’m looking at both the web-based systems like Meebo and Mundu IM, as well as applications for a jailbreaked iPhone like Apollo IM and MobileChat. This one will keep me busy, but I want to get it done soon so I can apply the latest iPhone update (which hasn’t been “jailbroken” yet). I’ll be posting at BigBlueBall as soon as I’m done.

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        It fits on your iPhone!

        iWPhone theme for WordPress in actionI did some housekeeping here at www.jeffhester.net today, cleaning up some problems caused by legacy files being mixed in with the latest WordPress 2.3.2 stuff. In the process, I made a number of changes. One change that I particularly like is the inclusion of ContentRobot’s very cool iWPhone plug-in (see the screenshot for an example of how this blog looks on my iPhone).

        I’ve also updated the theme using N.Design Studio’s Mac-inspired Glossy Blue. I’m very happy with the shades of blue and green, though I’ll probably end up creating my own version with similar colors and a wider layout eventually.

        I’m currently using the following plug-ins (in alphabetical order):

        Akismet does such a great job of filtering out spam comments that I don’t even bother checking for false positives anymore. It’s a must for anyone running WordPress.

        Feedsmith is also an essential — if you are already using Feedburner. And if you’re not, why not? It’s free and offers great stats on who has subscribed to your content.

        Donncha’s Flickr Widget makes it easy to add a badge to your site. I’m using it for now, but I’m keeping my eyes open for something with greater configurability. I took a look at Erik Rasmussen’s Flash Flickr Badge Widget, which offers the configurability I want, but it caused problems (the WP Plugin page turned blank upon activating). So the search continues. If you know of anything better, please let me know.

        Gregarious is an awesome social tagging plug-in that I also consider a must-have for WordPress bloggers. It is clean, simple, highly configurable and pretty fucking cool. That says a lot. Dont’ think; just get it and use it.

        The MyBlogLog Widget is really just a custom text widget. You still have to cut-and-paste their javascript code to get it to display, but it is a nice way to see recent visitors.

        The Scrobbles Widget shows your recently played music. You’ve got to have an account on last.fm, but works like a charm and also highly configurable.

        Alex King’s Twitter Tools are indispensible for Twitter users. It will show your most recent tweets, auto-notify your Twitter followers of your new blog posts, and give you the option of posting new tweets directly from your blog.

        Viper’s Video QuickTags make it super easy to embed video content from YouTube and a slew of other popular video sites. No, it’s not particularly difficult to do it yourself, but hey, I’m lazy!

        The relatively new WordPress.com Stats plug-in is also very nice. I’ve now got it installed on two blogs, and it seems to do a great job of providing all sorts of great data without any perceptible performance penalty. Nice.

        And last, but not least, the venerable scalability powerhouse: wp-cache. If there was one thing I took away from this year’s WordCamp, it was that you mustuse wp-cache; it’s that good. I have it installed and activated, but not turned on. Next time I get dugg or slashdotted, I’ll quickly flip it on and let the server smoothly handle the extra load.

        So there is the update for Sunday. I still have a long list of projects to write about, but I’ll get to that after dinner.

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        My First iPhone Wallpapers

        I recently ran across a couple of Flickr groups devoted to iPhone wallpapers, and decided to try my hand at it. The proper size for an iPhone wallpaper is 320×480, portrait orientation. And just for kicks, I used Flickr’s (relatively) new built-in editor to crop and resize the images. Click the images below for the full-size version, then right-click to download.

        Tile pattern  Forgotten  iCandy  The sun has set  Paradise, post-processed

        I’ve tagged my wallpapers, so to see them all, just click here.

        If you’ve got an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you can download your fave wallpaper images to a folder, then simply sync that folder to your iPhone using iTunes. Pretty sweet, no?

        I’m still trying to decide whether to jailbreak my iPhone or not. There is a very easy method if you’re running the 1.1.1 firmware, but I’ve already upgraded to 1.1.2. Should I downgrade to 1.1.1, just to jailbreak my iPhone?

        Blogged with Flock

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        Jobs and Gates on the future of computing

        Walt Mossberg of the WSJ sat down with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates to discuss the future of computing, the “death” of the PC and life in a “post-PC” world. It’s interesting to hear their vision for where things are going. Hint: look for a lot of innovation in the small form factors (iPhone, tablets, etc.).

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        iPhone Phrustration

        I did it. Last Saturday I took the bait and plonked down the cash for an 8 GB iPhone.

        I’ve been using an HP iPAQ hw 6515 for the past two years. It runs Windows Mobile 2003 and can technically do a lot of the same things that an iPhone does. In practice, the iPAQ is clumsy, even when using as a phone. Add to this the fact that most of the new software won’t work on Windows Mobile 2003, and the hw 6515 can’t be upgraded to the newer versions of Windows Mobile.

        So in order to support the research and writing on messaging, collaboration and social network technology on BigBlueBall, it was time for an upgrade. After some hemming and hawing, I became the proud new owner of the very sexy iPhone.

        Saturday afternoon I walked into the local AT&T Wireless store and asked if they had the iPhone in stock (they did). I have an existing account with AT&T, and wanted to switch to a new cell number (local, since my old number still tagged me as a 909-er) and upgrade to the iPhone. The process was smooth and painless, and I was on my way home in about ten minutes.

        This is where my story takes an ugly turn.

        I unboxed my new iPhone and hooked everything up. I’m running Windows XP Pro, but iTunes recognized my iPhone and gave me a friendly “Let’s get started” message. I was asked to enter my Apple ID. Trouble is, I use my AOL ID for all my iTunes purchases, and I couldn’t find a way to enter it. I tried using my @aol.com email but no dice. Oh well, I had other things to attend to, so I’d have to activate later in the afternoon. I’d sort through those details when I returned… or so I thought.

        Gratification... delayedWhen I came back later that afternoon, my activation session had expired. No surprise, really. I just undocked and reseated my iPhone to restart the process. WRONG! Instead, I was greeted with a message informing me that “iPhone activations are unavailable at this time.” There was an ambiguous message stating that they would be available after 3pm EST (it was much later already) but no date was given.

        I tried several more times, shutting down iTunes and even rebooting my PC to make sure it wasn’t a local problem, but always got the same message. I tried calling 6-1-1 (customer service) from my old cell phone, but after navigating their voice mail maze, was summarily dismissed with a request to call back Monday through Friday during the hours of blah-blah-blah. I couldn’t hear the specifics over my cursing.

        I finally went to bed, hoping that Sunday would bring better results. I was wrong again.

        Sunday morning, same screen, same frustration. I put it aside and went for a bike ride with Lynn. I drove to Murrieta to review an offer I received on the house. I kept busy until well past 3pm EST, hoping that surely the activation process would be working by now.

        iPhone activation woes continue...I hooked up the iPhone and got the encouraging “Let’s get started…” message. So far, so good. I enter in the basic info about my current phone number, and after 30 seconds or so verifying, ran into another roadblock. The message was worded almost the same, but without the pretty picture of the iPhone to taunt me. This one simply said “iPhone activations are not available at this time.” No ETA whatsoever.

        My frustration level was increasing in direct proportion to my compulsion to “try again.” I turned to the web, hoping to find solace in the company of other new iPhone owners. The AT&T Wireless customer support forums confirmed that many others were also having the same problem. We were all asking what to do with our $400 paperweights.

        Fortunately, I did find a different customer service number for AT&T that took me directly to a representative — no voicemail maze to navigate! The rep informed me that yes, their activations servers were in fact down, and that no, they did not know when they would be back up. His advice? Wait a while, and try again later. The situation was now officially fucked up.

        How can Apple accept this shoddy level of service? When a customer shells out $400 for an iPhone, they expect they’ll be able to use it that same day. I hope that they have a clause in their agreement with AT&T that gives them an “out” and allows them to offer the iPhone with other carriers sooner, if (when?) AT&T falls down on important issues such as activation. I’m keenly aware that things go wrong from time-to-time, but this reflects poorly on both companies.

        On the bright side, on Monday morning the activation servers were finally up. My iPhone is activated and I’m all is well in the world again.

        I still need some questions that maybe some other iPhone users can help answer.

        1. First, what do you consider the essential iPhone accessories? A protective wrap? Apple’s bluetooth headset?
        2. Second, what do you consider to be the most essential iPhone web resources?
        3. Thirdly, what advice do you have for syncing my iPhone from two different computers?
        4. And finally, does anyone know if it’s possible to merge iTunes accounts? I ended up activating the iPhone using an older, previously unused Apple ID that I had setup. Most of my purchased music used my AOL ID. Any advice?

        I’m looking forward to reviewing the best of the IM options for the iPhone.