Spotify and WireTap Studio: The Perfect Combination?

Spotify

Spotify is a free application which allows both mac and PC users to listen to millions of songs; completely free of charge. Users simply sign up for an account on the spotify website, download the application; and listen to all of their favourite songs. Spotify benefits from a wonderfully simplistic user interface which makes navigation of many songs very easy. The music is also in a reasonably good quality; which is always a bonus. One of the negatives of Spotify is that it does contain adverts. They are infrequent, but may annoy some. Customers can avoid this problem by purchasing a premium version of Spotify, currently £9.99 per month or £99 for a whole year.

WireTap Studio

WireTap Studio is an application which allows users to record any sound that comes out of their computer’s speakers. It currently costs $69 but was a part of the macheist bundle. WireTap Studio is extremely easy to use. This is mainly down to the fact that it contains a small and easy to use menu (pictured)in addition to the main application window. The menu allows users to start, pause and stop recording and also allows them to choose which application to record the sound from. This menu gives users the ability to quickly start, stop and pause their recordings without having to invoke the main application window. Users also have control of the file type and file quality that their recording will be. Another benefit of WireTap Studio is the ability to send recordings straight to iTunes, without the hassle of exporting from WireTap and then importing into iTunes.

Readers with a modicum of common sense will by now have realised where this article is going. If a person has the ability to play high quality music for free, as well as the ability to record any sound that their computer emits, why not combine both abilities? It is very simple to play a song in Spotify, record the audio in WireTap Studio, and then send the audio straight into iTunes. This way, users that have the time and patience - of which I have neither - to get music this way, may never have to pay for their music again.

I hope this article has encouraged readers to investigate these two phenomenal applications as well as the idea of using them together.

Unboxing: New Ipod Shuffle 2009

Hey Guys,

Here is my quick unboxing of the new Ipod Shuffle that I recently purchased from the Apple store.  For the past day that I have used it, I have enjoyed it.  It is sooooo small and is almost non-existent as far as weight is concerned.  It has a study, solid aluminum structure that I like and as with all Apple products, in my humble opinion, looks fantastic.  The only gripe I have is the control setup.  The new Shuffle is controlled via a pill sized button layout on the headphones.  This can be annoying and because only Apple makes headphones with these special controls, it makes you buy Apple's in-ear headphones if you want better audio quality.  Check back for a full review in the near future.  Thanks for watching and enjoy!

-EGP (Dan)

If You Use Twitter Check This Out

If you use twitter you have got to check out this site. It is awesome! The site is TweetStats.com. TweetStats offers one thing, but is dam good at it, giving you stats about you on twitter. Good name for it, right?

Once you enter your twitter user name and wait for it to process the data, you can view all sorts of information. For example, you can see your average tweets a day (I do 5.1) and how many tweets you did per month. One piece of information that I think is cool (above) is how many tweets you do each day of the week (i.e. Sunday, Monday etc.) and how many tweets you do at what time (i.e. 1pm, 2pm etc.)

My favorite info that it gives you is your tweet density (below). It shows you how much you tweet each day at what time, but it gives it to you in a really cool way.

In a different tab it gives you a tweet cloud of all your most popular words (below). It makes your most popular word bold, and below the cloud it tells you your top 5 words.

Again the site is TweetStats.com. If you have a twitter account I really suggest checking it out. Its really cool, and gives you a lot of information you would have otherwise never of known.

Adam Goetz

www.SubJuiced.com

www.adamg.me

Speak It! Application Review

Speak It!, developed by FutureApps, is a very useful tool when you are unable to speak. The main functionality of Speak It! is that it converts text to speech with incredible realism. There are a few menus within the application that I would like to go over. The first screen is the text entry screen, which is displayed when you first open the application. Below is a picture of the aforementioned screen:


You can see the standard iPhone keyboard, and above that are two buttons: “Say it!” and “Done.” When you enter text into the above box, you can press the “Say it!” button to hear your text turned into spoken words. But, the fun does not stop there. If you press “Done,” the keyboard disappears and you are presented with a scrolling wheel of “Select Voice” options, seen below.


There are four options: Male American Voice, Female American Voice, Male British Voice, and Female British Voice. All of these voices sound very real and not automated at all like some text to speech programs (*cough* Mac OSX Alex *cough*) sometimes do. At the bottom of this post are audio samples of the voices used by the application. Now, with any application, there is also a settings page. While there are relatively few things to customize in this application, there is still a settings page, which you can see below.


There are two options within this menu, one being “Voice Volume,” and the other being “Voice Speed.” While these are pretty self-explanatory, just to clarify, “Voice Volume” adjusts the loudness of the output voice, and “Voice Speed” adjusts how fast the selected voice reads your inputted text. There is also a How To guide built right into the application if you are still unsure about something. The next feature I will be talking about is one of great usefulness. This is the ability to save your currently entered text for future use. That way, when you need to use that text again in Speak It!, you do not need to reenter it. The “Save It!” button can be seen below.

You can then access your saved phrases by going to the “Saved Phrases” menu, shown below.



When there is a saved phrase in the menu, all you have to do is simply tap on it. Then, Speak It! will load the text and you can modify the voice, change the text, or “Say It!”

Overall, I was very impressed by the realism that this application brings to the table. I have never heard such clarity in even a Mac or PC application and I must congratulate FutureApps for putting so much power in such a small device.

Ratings:

Functionality: 9.9/10
Aesthetic Design: 10/10
Intuitiveness: 10/10
Speed: 10/10

Total Score: 39.9/40

Explanation of Ratings and Closing Comments:

While I previously said that the functionality of the application is great, there was one feature missing that I would have expected in such an application. The first is the ability to export the generated audio so it could be used on a computer. This criticism is also a compliment in disguise. The audio generated by this application is just so crisp, clear and real that I would like to be able to use the generated audio elsewhere. Aesthetically, this application is beautiful and I found no flaws in it. The intuitiveness of this application is great and it truly resembles the feel of Apple, many easy to use buttons and scroll menus, and it presents them in a sleek, easy to use manner. As for the speed of the application, I saw no lag during all of my testing and nothing ever froze, even when I entered a long entry of text. I would definitely recommend this application to anyone looking for a text-to-speech application for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

Audio Samples: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FUUWZ6IU

If you liked this review, visit my Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/Tigercat212.

Delicious Library 2

Ever been talking with a friend about a movie you saw a couple of months ago, but can't remember the title? Or maybe a friend asks you about the price of one of your gadgets, but you simply can't remember? Well, the solution has come; Delicious Library 2. This prize winning application, which lets you store information on all of your valuables on your computer, is a great way to archive all of your valuables. And, as stated on the site itself, in the unfortunate event of say your house burning down, you'll be able to list all of your stuff without leaving out anything. This application has an incredible database of items (you can add books, movies, albums, software, videogames, toys, gadgets, tools or apparel), and you can either add items manually by searching item titles, or use your webcam to scan the barcodes of the items. Say you've got a CD you'd like to add. You place the barcode of the CD so that the webcam sees it, you hear a 'beep', and Delicious Library has found that CD and will put it on one of the library's shelf with album art and information including 'Synopsis', 'Details', 'Reviews' and 'Recommendations'.

The price tag of $40 may be on the pricy side for some, but it is nothing compared to the application you get and the amount of money it may save you in the case of an unfortunate event.

5/5. Awesome.

... and anyway, even if nothing unfortunate happens to you (lets hope not), scanning the barcodes of your many DVDs and video games gives you hours of GREAT fun (really)!

http://delicious-monster.com/