iReview: Shazam

shazam describes itself as "an amazing music discovery engine". um, okay? i love using shazam though so i guess maybe it is an amazing music discovery engine. my old, shitty, lg shine actually came with shazam on it so i've been rockin' this technology for about 2 years now. if you live in some sort of hole and haven't heard of shazam, here's the deal: you're driving to work, listening to the radio and you hear a song that really strikes your fancy and you think to yourself, "man, i wish i knew who sang this song!" enter shazam. you launch that bad boy, it listens to your radio, sends the sample to some database, then comes back to you with a song title and artist. holy crap, right? it's genius.

this app is totally free and a must-have for ALL iphone users. be prepared for it to fail every now and then. it doesn't always identify the obscure stuff but i'd say that 90% of the time i use it, it comes back with an answer for me. and another great part is that it saves all the songs you've tagged so you can go back and find a song in case you forgot the title or artist or something.

i even tried to use shazam at sxsw in 2008 and guess what? it worked! it was at jens lekman so i guess his live songs sound almost exactly like his studio songs because shazam identified him immediately. it was crazy!

iReview: IMDb (or iMDB?)

i've only had my iphone since september but since day -10 (that's 10 days BEFORE i got the thing) i've been wanting an imdb (internet movie database) app. i LOVE imdb. i use it ALL the time. i always think about how much of my life would be wasted sitting around trying to figure out where i know the guy in this movie from. that database is truly a life saver! if you aren't familiar with this site a) i feel sorry for you and b) get your butts over there and check it out!

when i discovered the lack of app-age, i had to bookmark it in safari and just use that all the time. on december 10, 2009 (two days after the app was released) i was on a roadtrip back to austin from san angelo, tx (about a 4 hour drive). without going into too many details, several friends and i had made the trip out there to attend a friend's funeral. anyway, on the way home something came up that caused me to consult my imdb safari page. when i got there, i saw a huge (well, not too huge since i was viewing it on my phone) banner advertising an app for the iphone and ipod touch. i may or may not have gone a little nutso. i was running on no sleep and had experienced the peak of every emotion known to man that day so i can't really be held accountable for the way i reacted. i downloaded that shizz immediately and have used it daily ever since. oh, did i mention the best part? IT'S FREE! i've paid for my fair share of apps already but i get super-duper stoked when i find free apps that i actually like. and i don't just like this app, i love it. i want to marry it.

stay tuned for a possible vlog where i 'splain an app in front of a video camera. scary, huh? nah, i made my vlog debut on my regular blog this weekend and it was fun (even though my hair was a mess).

iReview: Photo Funia

I wrote a review for this app on my personal blog, but I'm going to repeat it here, only with much better information!

I don't really know how I stumbled upon Photo Funia, because it wasn't in the Photography category in the Apps Store.  It was in the top 100 free apps in the Entertainment Category.  That's right folks, this app is FREE!

This app was created by Alexey Ivanov, and boy, do I think he hit a home run with this gem!  Photo Funia works two ways, which is always a plus for me.  You can either use a picture from your existing album, or you can take a picture and use it!  I always love the apps where you can use a picture from your existing album because I'm sort of forgetful, and most of the time don't remember that I have a fun photography app handy.

I would compare this app to something sort of *like* photoshop.  You take your picture and place it in one of their many random scenes.  You can put your picture on a $100 bill, you can see your picture in the middle of times square, you can see many people staring at your picture in an art gallery, the possibilities are almost endless!

The other neat thing about this app is that they have a website - www.photofunia.com.  You can play with this online, at your computer too!

The Quick How To:

1)  Open the App...

2)  Scroll through the variety of options

3)  After you have selected the scene that you want to use, choose your photo

4)  Once you've chosen the picture you would like to use, the app will create your scene.  Here are a few I've created:

Using Photo Funia is so simple, and it really is a ton of fun!

Here is one that I created on their website.  Their site has a several that are not available on the app.  I'm assuming that when there is an update, they will also be included.