The error and setup

As a new iPhone user, I was pretty excited about the new service Apple launched with the iPhone 3G called Mobile Me. It not only promised a slick, cloud computing solution for mail, calendar, contacts and photos, but also promised all this in a “push environment” that automatically sends updates.  Moreover, it also claimed to provided the ability to keep all these data in synch across multiple Windows or Mac-based machines.

So, I created my free  trial MobileMe account and started with contacts. Since I need to edit and thin my existing contacts list from outlook, I just started from scratch in MobileMe and added contacts. I did try exporting and importing some contacts using the vCard import/export, but had a lot of trouble. I did cut and past some lengthy addresses into fields in MobileMe, but for the most part this was done on the web-based MobileMe site.

I then synched to my iPhone. Worked great, no problems. Changes to either would show up almost instantly on the other device. Next, sync all this up on my Windows XP machine and MS Outlook. I did this through the MobileMe app in Windows Control Panel and selected to “replace all data” on the PC with MobileMe data.  After several minutes, I get the dreaded:

Contacts/Calendars could not be synced due to inconsistent data.  Confirm that your computer’s data is valid, then reset Contacts/Calendars/etc on MobileMe in System Preferences

Since I had deleted all my contacts from Outlook, I could not figure out how this could be inconsistent or invalid. I also tried the same with my brand new Macbook and received the same error. So, I got on the line with Apple support (in chat format) and after several trial and errors we determined that somehow invalid data got into my MobileMe contacts info. Here’s the troubleshooting steps:

1. Export contact from MobileMe as vCard.
2. Import vCard into Address Book on Mac (or you could try it into Outlook on PC)
3. Some contacts imported fine, others did not. Those that did not contained invalid data
4. Some of the invalid data was easy to spot, like extra line returns or unprintable characters. Others DID NOT SHOW ANYTHING. With those, I just deleted any notes or addresses and started over.
5. Worked through all contacts until all could import into contacts cleanly.

To reset and re-synch the data:

1. Got all my contacts imported into Address Book on my Mac and eliminated any duplicates and updated any missing data.
2. Reset sync info in iSync (on PC, you would do this through MobileMe control panel)
3. Synchronized all data on Mac up to MobileMe replacing all MobileMe data.

Note: Unfortunately, in this process I was not able to import my contacts pictures that I had associated on MobileMe. I had to manually add those back on the Mac in contacts since the export/import vCard process did not export the images. I got lucky in that I had created a folder that I used to store my contacts profile images—at least I didn’t have to go back and hunt for those—and it was a fairly quick update to associate the images with the contacts.

After all this, my contacts now sync nicely between my iPhone Contacts, Mac Address Book and Windows Outlook Contacts. It certainly was a frustrating error to track down and not an obvious one.  If you’re having this issue, check your data. It may have invalid data but you may not know it.

I hope this helps!

What is Shazam?

Shazam is a mobile music recognizer. It comes as an application on several mobile platforms including the iPhone and Android. You can also dial “2580” and hold your phone to the music, then Shazam returns the info straight back to you as a text. In addition, there is a Facebook application that allows you to share with your friends.

How Shazam recognizes music

According to the London-based Shazam website, the company started out in 2002 and is currently embedded in tens of millions of handsets.

The core music recognition technology enables a mobile phone user to identify music that is playing by Shazaming it. You can capture music played over the radio, TV, live concerts wherever music is playing even under noisy conditions. This is saved as a clip and this clip is run through a database of over 6 million tracks (according to Shazam extends back to the ’50s) to find an exact match. The system uses pattern recognition technology to identify performances from within the audio clip.  Shazam calls this fingerprinting. A similar type of technology is used to generate Genius Playlists within Apple iTunes 8.

Shazam iPhone  application

I’ve been using the Shazam application for several weeks now, but not in time to make by Top iPhone Applications blog post. Oh, and did I mention it’s free?

Shazam’s iPhone app was downloaded 1.5m times and identified 20 million songs in its first ten weeks.  The iPhone application expands upon basic music fingerprinting.  The Music is “tagged”, album art and more information on the artist is saved and the song can be bought on iTunes and related videos can be seen on YouTube.  The synergy between Shazam and iTunes is obvious and to see a great demo of the Shazam application in use, check out the Apple advertisement below:

Does it work?

I’ve been using it for several weeks and I will say that it hits about 90% of the time. I tried to identify the song in the promo for Friday Night Lights, but it failed to find it.  I ended up finding it by searching iTunes for “Friday Night Lights” and found the song Devil Town by Tony Lucca. This song was only available on the soundtrack compilation. However, I found it did match most of the time and it performs well in some seemingly adverse conditions. On Sunday I tried it at Lucas Oil Stadium and it identified the song playing over the loudspeakers even with all the crowd noise.

Try it out yourself! Does it work for you?

Overall Top 12

1. Twittelator
2. Facebook
3. BeejiveIM
4. Sportacular
5. eWallet
6. Pandora
7. iNeedStuff
8. Mobile News
9. i.TV
10. Showtimes
11. GPS Kit
12. WeatherBug

Applications Summary

Note: Developers tend to change their pricing frequently on the pay apps. Check iTunes for current pricing. Good news is they usually lower it over time.

I’ve also provided a quick overview of the applications to give you an idea of what they do and why I like them. Click the link below to read more detail on each application and see screenshots.

Twittelator Pro

For all you Twitterers out there, this is a must have. Twitterific was first out on the iPhone, so I used it, but then tried Twittelator when it was released and have not gone back. I started out with the free version, but really like the extra features in the Pro version so I upgraded.

Filter tweets by type:

Friends tweet view:

Enter new tweet:

Some of my favorite features are:

• Integration of adding snapshots and location maps to tweets
• Pasting tweets and easily adding URLs to tweets from Safari and Safari bookmarklet
• Easy filtering by groups

For more features, check out the developer’s web site.

Facebook

The popular social networking web application ported to the iPhone allows you great mobile access and an intuitive user interface. Note that it is a bit different than the web interface and not all Facebook features are available. However, the ones you really use in a mobile environment are there and each version Facebook adds a few more features.

Facebook status feed:

Profile page:

Photo album view:

BeejiveIM

Free instant messaging through the iPhone! I had used the web application from Beejive and loved it and now the native iPhone app is even better. Several other IM clients, most of them free apps, were released prior; however, they were not as full featured and many user complaints on the reliability ensued. BeejiveIM is a little on the pricey side, but if you want a full-featured IM client that works, it does it.

Select from all the widely used IM platforms:

View of the buddy list:

Active chat view:

Sportacular

Sports nuts like me will love this app as it tracks live scores from all the major sports. Check game action, player stats and more all in pretty close to real time. For fantasy players, it also allows you to create custom teams and add players from your fantasy teams so you can track player stats.

Selecting a sport to track:

Scores:

Individual game stats:

Individual player stats:

Create custom/fantasy teams:

Custom teams stats:

eWallet

Always have your internet site passwords, credit card info, car license plate number and more ready in an instant. All this is secured with 256-bit encryption technology.

In addition, if you have several computers and want to have 1 wallet that is current and updated, there is an option to add-on Windows wallet synchronization. The synch upgrade will cost you $9.95. See the ilium software site to buy or for more information.

Wallet info by card type:

Card view (can be customized by card):

Pandora

The popular Pandora Radio web site is brought to the iPhone. Link to your Pandora account and access saved radio stations and add new ones.

Pandora station display:

iNeedStuff

More than just a grocery list, it’s a smart list. You create your shopping list and once you start shopping, it recognizes your location and stores your shopping order for that location based on how you shopped the last time. Next time you are in that store, the list is sorted in that order.  It also allows for list synchronization.

Create shopping list:

Shopping list:

Mobile News

Very nice mobile news feed that sources Associated Press stories on top news, sports, showbiz and many more categorys. Even has photo and video feeds.

Top News newsfeed view:

i.TV

Pick your local service provider and this app will list your current TV shows. Nice visual list with details ready at the touch. It also comes with movie lists by theatre with reviews and a link to your Netflix account.

TV show listing:

Movie review listing:

Showtimes

Location aware theater finder lists available theaters by closest proximity to current location. Drill down into movie listings, descriptions and showtimes. Links to 3rd party reviews on movies.

Theater listings by proximity:

Movie listings drill down:

Movie description:

GPS Kit

As wonderful as the GPS feature in the iPhone 3G is, you’ll find a lot of GPS features missing from the Maps application. GPS Kit provides experienced GPS users the full set of tools needed to get the most out of the device. Elevation, odometers, waypoints, compass, tracks, downloadable GPS log files, and more are all well integrated into this application.

As many well know by now, Apple does not permit applications to run in the background. This is a problem when running around or hiking with your phone out. The developer’s cleverly created a screen lock to keep from interacting with the device while pocketed as well as a display dimmer to reduce battery drain.

For more features and details, check out the developer’s web site.

Main dashboard view:

Topographical mapping:

Record tracks and save:

View recorded tracks:

Visual of recorded track:

Weatherbug

Great weather information on the go. Get current and forecasted conditions, weather maps, cameras and videos all on the go. Save up to 10 locations.

Conditions view:

Weather map:

Weather camera:

These are a few of my favorite applications so far on the iPhone. What are yours?

On Saturday, Jill and I went down to Bowling Green, KY to tour the Western Kentucky University  campus. WKU is my alma mater having gone to graduate and undergraduate school.

I was impressed with the number of new construction projects currently underway as well as several brand new buildings that were built since I was last down there. It was homecoming and the campus was all decorated and there were many people tailgating for the football game. Lots of floats lined up for the parade (humm, I don’t remember having floats and a parade when I was in school, but maybe I just missed it.)

News things since I was last there about 3 years ago:

• New Mass Media building
• New dorms
• New parking structure between Diddle arena and football stadium
• New extension to football stadium adding visitor stadium seating and end zone enclosure
• New construction around Planetarium
• Several streets closed and turned into sidewalks and common areas (like areas between North Hall, Grise Hall and South Hall and in front of the University Center)
• Swimming coach’s house and surrounding neighborhood demolish for more construction (this was sad to see)

I’ve created a gallery of images from the trip. Take a look.

Some pics:

Start of the ramp

Straight drop down the side of the hill

Not sure where the end will dump you back onto the trail.