Apps and more apps OVI Store, and Midomi vs. Shazam

Hello again. I don't intend to do a review of the whole OVI store, or do some commentary on it against other on-line content stores out there. I'm sure other more capable (and smarter) people will give us all the insights and market trends.

No, I just want to share some of the apps that have started showing up and provide what I've experienced so far.

My main interest, as it relates to this blog, is in enjoying video and on that front there is something to report. I must say that I haven't seen any big interesting things at the OVI store so far for the N97.

I think I should do some research with the N96 to see if S60 FP2 has some more OVI content.

Some of the Apps I've found and loaded to my device:

- Nokia Handwriting calculator. It's as the name says a handwriting calculator. Still requires some learning, but it has some wow factor to it in writing long calculations as you would on paper (well almost).

- eBook reader: There's a few of those out there. The one I tried worked well. Only downside is that because you need the screen ON to read, your battery will be consumed quite quickly. Good idea, but needs a less hungry screen to work.

- Compass: There are a few of them out there. Again, cool idea, but in practice isn't very reliable unless you have a good GPS signal and you "shake" the device to pick North again.

Now, there are a couple of Music recognition programs that are free and work great. Midomi and Shazam.
I've used both and both deliver what they promised, finding out the music information after listening to a tune that you sing, whistle or otherwise can pick up with the microphone. IMHO, I liked the options that Midomi gives you to watch youtube videos of the song and find more information about the artist, album or song.

Shazam is also good and let's you find the song in the Nokia Music Store if it's available in your region.

There seem to be a lot of apps loaded every week, so from time to time I'll post if I find something that catches my eye.

Feel free to drop a comment if you've found some cool apps there.

New Year, start with something easy, ALBUM ART

Hello my fellow mobile users. I hope you all enjoyed a great New Year celebration (if you follow the Gregorian calendar) or a good summer break ( for those of you in the south hemisphere) .

For me I've been enjoying the snow. Lot's of snow.

So, new year, new challenges, new horizons. To kick off I'll start the year explaining a question that is very common and has caused a lot of issues for many Nokia users. I'm talking about How to display Album Art in the Music Player.

As I've explained on several occasions there's more than 1 way to do this (isn't this the case with many things in Nokia devices?).

I'll start with the simplest one then move on to other options.
LINK THE ALBUM ART IN THE PHONE
1) Find the Album cover pictures and save in the phone (you can use Search and Images to find them on the internet or Google Image).
2) In the Music Player navigate to the ALBUM view and select the ALBUM whose picture you downloaded.
3) Select OPTIONS -> ALBUM ART.
4) Then OPTIONS -> CHANGE
5) Now locate the picture you want shown.
6) You are now done!

There are some drawbacks to this. For one, if you move the file or delete it then the album art doesn't follow. The Album art pictures stay in the phone and show in the Photos or Gallery.

ADD ALBUM ART TO METADATA
Another option would be to add the picture to the Metadata before transferring the files to the phone.
There are many ways to do this, there are Metadata editors like Tag&Rename, but also WinAmp and Windows Media Player allow you to edit the metatada in an easy way.

Some things to keep in mind:
1) Use JPEG or PNG files (BMP and GIF sometimes are not displayed)
2) Keep the filesize to less than 200 KB. Although larger pictures may work, there's no point in having large files as the thumbnail displayed is rather small. A 300x300 or 600x600 rez picture is more than enough.
3) Make sure that the picture is tagged as Album Cover Front not as User Defined or other tag. This is important as only the Cover Front is displayed by the Music Player.
4) Don't add more than 1 picture to the file. For some reason if there are more pictures then none are displayed.
5) Don't use MTP sync to transfer files (PC SUITE mode or MEDIA/MUSIC mode) as this may cause the Album art to dissapear.

Once the files have the album art attached then use mass storage to load them to the phone.

TIP: If you already had the song in the Phone. FIRST delete it, REFRESH the library, then re-load it. This will cause the Music Player to find the METADATA again and then find the album art. If you just replace the song with the one with album art the Music Player may not refresh the Album art!

Music player Database problems

UPDATE 3/29/2010:

Some people may be using the Ovi Player. Ovi Player seems to do some additional changes to how music is index in the device, as some people are having problems following this method when they use OVI player. So if you use OVI player this MAY not work for you.

Keep this in mind before trying this method.

I've not used OVI player to find out how to fix the similar issue when this software is used.