At times I'm greeted by some very foul music. Foul to the point where I find myself ejecting the CD from my car's stereo. Next I lightly “sand” the offensive CD against the garage floor (ensuring it becomes unusable) before returning the CD to it's jacket. Then I'll leave a little note, expressing my displeasure and disappointment over my daughter's choice of music 🙁
But this morning, as I drove to my 5:45 class, was very different! “I really like this… I wonder who it is?” Ejecting the CD provided no clue as there wasn't anything written on it. A quick text to daughter Carly returned; “IDK – marley left it Shazam it.”
Answered my question in 10 seconds
Shazam is a free smart phone App (iPhone and Droids) that will listen to a song playing and tell you the name, artist and give you the option to purchase the song from iTunes. There's also a little play button that you can use to listen to the iTunes sample to confirm Shazam correctly identified the song – which by my estimation is always correct.
With your device connected to a wireless system go to the App store and download Shazam. It's free and the basic functionality is all most people will need; turn it on, hit the center button, Shazam listens and gives you the song info.
Spotify Premium subscribers, may want to upgrade to Encore for $3.99 a year. Encore give you the option to Tag tracks you've identified and play them or create Artist Stations, using Spotify or Pandora on your device. I tried to purchase the upgrade. After correctly entering my Apple ID a half dozen times and reconfirming my payment details, everything failed… I didn't try again 🙁
As with many other Apps, they will try and take over your life… if you let them. When you first install the App you'll be asked to approve “Push Notifications” which allow Shazam to alert you to something they feel is really important. My personal choice is to turn these OFF.
Hi John,
I'm having some printing format problems with some of the recent postings, including today's topic. When I go to print the document there is only an all black color sheet shown and printed. I thought something must be awry with my printer settings but it is not happening at various other sites that I am printing from.
Never having tried to print one of our posts, I wasn't aware that when you try to print a post or page it looks crappy and much of the printed page is in fact all black. Not good, considering how expensive printer ink is these days 🙁
The problem, it turned out, is the software that runs our site does a terrible job rendering the page so it can be printed.
Not anymore.
At the bottom of every post you will now find a little “Print Friendly” button. Give it a try and see how it displays a nicely formatted document that can print, create a PDF or email a copy to yourself or a friend. There's also a box you can tick to remove any images, saving your color cartridge from unnecessary use.
How did you do that John? A common question in our home…
I just clicked it to see what would happen.
If you have a fear of clicking a link you're not alone. This affliction actually has a name; clickmentphobia and it was coined by the popular humorist, Sophy Laughing, otherwise known to her friends as Soph Laughin 2012.
She advocates for a Can Point, but Afraid to Click Support Group
Finding a well-qualified counselor is difficult, especially one who is clicker friendly, when your ability to click on links already has you suffering, if not overhwhelmed. In a clickerbound world, it can be downright hazardous to have a therapist who lacks clicker training and the experience of working with other clickaphobes.
Readers need to understand that I'm not a Psychologist and have no formal training that would remotely qualify me to offer any advise toward the treatment of clickmentphobia… but I will anyway and hopefully prevent you from suffering the same fate as this guy.
When stuck, confused or frustrated click something > chances are slim that you will delete the whole Internet (or anything on your computer for that matter) the the results may surprise you. Just don't click the links in that weird email.
Can you imagine a class where everyone of us looks like Darth Vader? Luke, increase your resistance, oh and I forgot to tell you, I'm your father.
No? Well neither can I.
The AIRE mask is one of those inevitable products that takes a silly idea to an even sillier extreme. In fact it earned the Ridiculous idea of the week at the site.
The mask uses the force of you breath to turn some mini turbines in the mask, which creates enough power to charge your iPhone.
Inventor Joco Paulo Lammoglia, from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, said the device could be used in all situations from running to sleeping.
He said: ‘I hope to bring the concept into production and reduce the carbon footprint.
‘It can be used indoors or outdoors, while you're sleeping, walking, running or even reading a book.
‘Besides saving energy and helping environmental preservation, it also encourages physical exercise.
Forgive me if a vent a bit here… Is it too much to expect a minimum level of critical thinking from the people who write articles like this? Reduce the carbon footprint? Helping environmental preservation? What utter nonsense. The tiny amount of energy this thing creates will never equal the amount of energy needed to manufacture, package and ship this product. Encourage physical exercise? Sure, I know dozens of people who would be excited to wear this thing at the club… but wait!
If it would keep people from talking in my class 😉
PRO member Marc Schlosberg alerted me to a new feature in Spotify; Gapless playback and adjustable Crossfading for when you play music directly from your computer. No, this doesn't work on your iPhone 🙁
Update – 6/25/2012 crossfade is now an option on your iPhone and I'll assume your Droid has it as well. Open Spotify > Options and slide how long a crossfade you would like.
I'll be checking if it does on a Droid and let you know ASAP.
Here's how to get to it:
Open Spotify on your computer
Got to Edit > Preferences
Scroll down and you will see the new options.
I've been playing around with it and found that a 10 second crossfade works well. Many of us have used this in iTunes as a simple substitute for MixMeister. Now if we could only set the song start and stop time.
Can an Indoor or Outdoor Cyclist measure their power using only Heart Rate?
I personally find it hard to believe, and yet CycleOps says their new PowerCal will do exactly that. Now if I had seen this advertised on some late night infomercial I wouldn't have given it a second thought, but CycleOps is one of the leaders in Power measurement for both Indoor and Outdoor Cyclists… so it must work – right?
I contacted Angie Sturtevant from CycleOps and she has connected me with their product specialist. Maybe I can get him on the Podcast to explain how this works.
In the mean time here is a short video from CycleOps discussing the PowerCal.
