How to Create Ringtones for Free with iTunes in six Easy Steps

Posted on May 2, 2012 by admin

 Why pay for a ringtone when you already have the song or an .mp3 audio file.

Yes, you can turn any mp3 or m4a file into a ring tone, For example you can record a personalized ringtone for a special person in you life, or maybe create a happy birthday or happy anniversary message and make it you personalized message for the day. Yes you have to have access to the phone, but think of the fun you can have!

Now on to how to create a ringtone.

With just a few clicks in iTunes you can turn any unprotected song in iTunes for this to work (that is, a .m4a or .mp3 file, not .m4p). To turn it into a ringtone:

  1. Find the song or file you want to use.
  2. Determine what 20 – 30 second section you want to use and MAKE NOTE  of the start and stop times you would like. You are limited to 30 seconds.
  3. Right click on the track and hit “Get Info”. Under the Options tab, set your Start Time and Stop Time to the correct values you determined in step 3, and hit OK.
  4. Right click on the song and choose “Convert Selection to AAC”. If it says “Convert Selection to MP3″ or “Apple Lossless” instead, head to iTunes’ Preferences, hit Import Settings, and switch it to the AAC Encoder, and try again.
  5. You should see the newly converted file pop up in iTunes, and it will be shorter than the original. On a Windows machine Right click on it and pick “Show in Windows Explorer” for the MAC “Show in Finder”. Change the name to append RINGTONE to the file name AND change the extension of the file from .m4a to .m4r.
  6. Then go to File > Add File to Library and navigate to the .m4r file you just created. It should show up in the Ringtones section of iTunes.

The next time you sync your iPhone, your new ringtone should show up in Settings > Sounds > Ringtones. If you want to set different ringtones for specific contacts, you can head to the Contacts app, edit the contact you want to change, and choose a ringtone for them under “Ringtone”.

If you want finer control over when your ringtone starts and ends, you can use GarageBand or Audicity.

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The People That Protect Your Computers Can’t Protect Their Own

Posted on February 8, 2012 by admin

It seems that Symantec, the company with the greatest market share in the antivirus, spyware and malware internet protection products can’t protect their own servers and as a result put everyone else’s at risk as well.

In the security world any protection solution is only as good as it’s weakest link, and it looks like that weakness is at the top.

An the article this week by Fahmida Y. Rashid in eWeek, Rashid details the background and story of the leak. While much remains unknown from all appearances some source code was leaked. You can read the details via this link: Symantec pcAnywhere Code Leaked After $50,000 Payoff Deal Collapses

 

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SOPA Has Become Toxic; So Says Donny Shaw

Posted on January 26, 2012 by admin

I’ve never done this before, but I got a great email today from Donny Shaw @ Fight for the Future (fightforthefuture.org) and I really can’t add anything to it, it’s great just the way it is so I decided to pass it along to all of my Top Technology Tips followers. So here it is . . .

Now that Congress has had time to process last week’s internet blackout, a consensus has emerged: SOPA and PIPA are toxic for politicians, and going anywhere near them could cost them their re-election.

Freedom is winning.

Together, we’ve done something amazing– never have so many people stood up to defend a free and open internet.  Here’s a San Francisco Chronicle article about how it all came together: The Largest Online Protest in History Started Here.

And here’s Carl Franzen at Talking Points Memo:

“Behind the scenes, Hill staffers from both sides of the aisle confirmed to TPM that the entire piracy debate had become so ‘toxic’ that virtually no lawmakers were likely to be ready to re-engage it anytime soon.”

Experienced Congress-watchers are telling us they’ve never seen anything like this.

Internet users, tech companies, and non-profits joined together to defend fundamental rights on the internet. To a lot of elites in Congress and the corporate world, the internet is just something that lazy teenagers use to spam people with pictures of photoshopped unicorns. The blackout showed that the peer-to-peer internet is about empowerment, and that when we work together we can defeat the corrupt politics of Washington D.C.

The New York Times and Talking Points Memo have both published good articles on how the web blackout was organized.

For months, four senators were the only force blocking passage of PIPA/SOPA. They even promised to filibuster the bill back when most politicians were against them. We need to make sure we support and vote for leaders like them who are willing to going to go out on a limb and oppose SOPA before it was popular to do so. It’s great that we pressured all those other shlubs into opposing web censorship, but these guys deserve the real cred and our support: Click here to donate

What’s next?  The Fight is not over, already new threats to web freedom are starting to emerge (particularly in Europe) and we’re getting ready.  Stay tuned, and for more updates, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Thank you again for standing up for a free and open internet!

- Donny and Fight for the Future

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All I can say is thanks Donny for the great email today, and you can count on my support!

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Google Search Guide

Posted on January 24, 2012 by admin

Have you ever done a search on Google only to find to had way to many or results different from what you wanted. Well GoogleGuide.com offers some help. Well Google Guide is an online interactive tutorial and reference for experienced users, novices, and everyone in between. Nancy Blachman developed Google Guide because she wanted more information about Google’s capabilities, features, and services than found on Google’s website.

Her site offers a printable Advanced Operators Reference guide. It is free and extremely helpful. Check it out and download it today!

 

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Protests of SOPA, PIPA Explode Across Web

Posted on January 19, 2012 by admin

SOPA & PIPA, they sound almost like characters in a children’s cartoon story. I just wish there was some childish humor to be found in these bills, they are really serious horror stories.

On the surface both these bills sound great. In simple terms they are about stopping piracy, and after all who could be against stopping piracy but the pirates? Well, me for one! I have created, programs, documents, articles, guides Apps that in many cases have been ripped-off in mere hours by internet pirates. Does that make me happy? Of course not, but the methods of enforcement and the lack of safe guards in both SOPA and PIPA worry me even more than the fear of losing my own intellectual property (IP) and some money.

It’s not that I want to make it easy to steal my stuff, but I also don’t want to make it easy for someone that has an ax to grind to have my site or content taken down without ANY due process.

But I’m not alone on this issue, yesterday Google, Wikipedia, Wired, reddit, Mozilla, Move on, Craigslist, WordPress.org, Minecraft, Tumblr, and boingboing, and thousands of other sites blacked out there pages or made their landing page into a SOPA and PIPA protest message. Facebook alone was filled with protest. I can’t remember a time so many people were unified in opposition of a single issue. And it’s not just, me and you and these internet companies that are opposed to SOPA and PIPA,but there are also a number of representatives trying to speak in opposition. For example Anna Eshoo, a California Democrat, blacked out her own website to protest the bills. Yo can find the whole store in the MacWorld Article – SOPA and PIPA: Web protests seem to be a turning point.

These bills if pass they will have many unintended consequences. Hosting providers have no liability if they take down a site with alleged offending material, but they have full liability if they do not. So many sites will be taken down with only a mere allegation, no notice, no review just, taken down.

And talk about unintended consequences, even the sponsor of the SOPA bill, Congressman Lamar Smith own’s website would be shut down under SOPA, so would Whitehouse.gov for copyright violations.  Check the links above.

SOPA and PIPA are far reaching “guilty until proven innocent” bills that need to be stopped. And don’t let up, because if we stop them now, they will be back.

Here are some awesome additional resources regarding this issue. After your review I think you will find both of these bills are very bad ideas.

I HIGHLY recommend watching the TED talk by Clay Shirky, “Why SOPA is a bad idea”

USAToday Article – Questions and answers on anti-piracy bills

eWeek Article – IT Security & Network Security News & Reviews: Google, Wikipedia Lead Protests of SOPA, PIPA Across Web

Please share this information and contact your representatives  to let them know your feelings.

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Excel for the iPad!

Posted on January 12, 2012 by admin

The real Excel, Word and PowerPoint on the iPad? Well pretty close. In a new app to be released this week called OnLive Desktop offers the closest compatibility to date. The WSJ has a great article entitled “Working In Word, Excel, PowerPoint on an iPad.”

However for the information direct from the company at desktop.online

Check it out!

 

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Cellphone Service From Google?

Posted on August 15, 2011 by admin

Well, not yet! But, Google announced today it has agreed to buy Motorola Mobility, a handset (smartphone) manufacture for $12.5 billion. Let’s write out that amount $12,500,000.000.00, yes, a lot of money. Why?

Many people are saying that it for the patents thus giving the search a large number of patents to better position itself in the mobile device marketplace. And no doubt that is a major factor. But in my option I believe that the bigger reason was to better defend the Android mobile phone operating system (OS) in the marketplace.

But this may in fact cause bigger problems as other device manufactures court carriers for their valuable shelf space and are now competing with Google via the Droid OS. Will this cause other smartphone manufactures to embrace other mobile OS’s? It’s a strong possibility. This certainly will be a  tough road for Google to travel.

If they don’t get continued Carrier endorsement of their OS, and coming soon phones they may have to take the path toward becoming their own carrier.

Might Sprint be an option? If so becoming a cellphone carrier maybe in Google’s future.

We will wait and see . . .

To Read more:

http://budurl.com/GooPhone

 

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Tie Your Laptop to Your Phone, Well Not So Fast

Posted on August 14, 2011 by admin

Okay, so this is going to be a bit of a rant . . . here goes.

The revenue cellphone carriers’ have been making on you voice calls has been dropping for some time. To keep their bottom lines healthy they have had to make up for that that lose revenue on things like outrageously expensive text messages and more recently on data plans.

As smartphones usage explodes, more free alternatives to text messaging have become popular. After all peer to peer apps like Facebook and Twitter are allowing the same functionally as texting without any of the cost. Message volume from applications is forecast to overtake the simple text messaging volume on phones by 2016. The trend has already started cutting into the text messaging revenue the cellular companies have been enjoying and data usage is on the rise. So why not start charging more for data.

So now data revenue is the major focus. Many carries have had unlimited data plans. Yes I said “have had.” It seems as that option is coming to an end and fast. All of the major U.S. carriers are phasing out “unlimited” plans, and if you still have one and your usage gets to high, you will notice your download speeds and data availability will slow down or even stop.

Throttling is the industry term for this process. And it is one of the ways to make grandfathered-in unlimited plans unattractive to high-volume mobile data consumers.

As tethering, which is the practice where you use your cell phone to get data access for your laptop, iPad, or other portable wireless devices, becomes more popular there is even more pressure to eliminate the unlimited plans.

If you still have an unlimited plan, just try to make a change to your usage plan and you will find to get the new service or feature your want to will have to give up your “unlimited” plan. I tried to enable tethering on my iPhone recently and was told it wouldn’t be a problem, but that I would have to give up my unlimited plan to get the tethering enabled.

As carriers’ roll out 4G, or 4 generation service wireless broadband networks access can make tethering a more enjoyable experience. A 4G connection can sometimes even outpacing speeds available via “wired” cable modem or DSL connections. So now tethering is becoming a bad option unless you pay extra for it.

Carriers are becoming even more aggressive regarding tethering as they have started  revoking unlimited data plans for customers who use unauthorized apps or methods to tether.

Some carriers’ are even starting to block access to their networks for  jailbroken iphones and modified Droid phones.

I personally find this amusing as iPhone app developers have been asking Apple to do more about app piracy for quite some time without success. You see to download a pirated app a user needs a jailbroken phone. I’ve always thought that Apple would require the cooperation of the carriers’ to do this and that the carriers were more inclined to simply ignore the process as they were getting the cell revenue. But as it has started to become a revenue problem for the carriers, now they’re starting to pay and dislike jailbroken phones.

It’s the ongoing war and this is just the latest battle. But it’s good to know what is current in the trenches.

That’s all for now.

By the way, here’s the background store behind this rant!

http://budurl.com/CPTeather

 

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Microsoft Decides to Help Apple!

Posted on July 6, 2011 by admin

As Microsoft expands it’s enforcement of patent royalty collections for parts of the Android or the Droid OS it increases the cost of non-Apple handsets using the Droid OS, and in fact making the iPhone even more attractive to many cost conscious buyers. Wait you say . . . the Android OS is open source and free . . . well Goolge provides it as no charge but, alas then there is Microsoft with their hands out asking for $15 per unit royalties.  What you said, where is  coming from? Well as reported by Reuters yesterday Microsoft has made a demand to Samsung to pay $15 for each smartphone handset it makes based on Google Inc’s Android OS based on patents used in the OS. In April 2010 Microsoft reached a similar licensing deal with HTC for the same Android patent issues.

This comes as Android phones continue to gain in popularity and market share. Microsoft also markets and charges handset makers such as HTC and Samsung to use its Windows mobile software and has tied up with Nokia to challenge Google and Apple Inc in the smartphone market.

To give you an idea of how popular the Android OS is becoming, Just one phone, the Samsung’s Galaxy S II,  that runs on the Android platform, has sold more than 3 million units since its debut in late April. Sound iPhone number familiar? It should . . . Yet in my opinion as many of the yet unaddressed Droid issues (security flaws) become more published, this will do nothing but drive more users to the more stable iPhone platform.

Thank you Microsoft!

Of course there is the very real possibility that Microsoft wants to make the Android OS more expensive to use than their own Mobile OS to make it more attractive and possibility motive more handset manufactures to reconsider using Microsoft’s option.

Regardless of the motivation I see this move as helping Apple’s iOS and the iPhone.

To check out the full story click here.

So what do you think?

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JC Penney Hoping to Learn from Apple

Posted on June 16, 2011 by admin

The retail giant JC Penney this week announced that they have hire the former Apple executive responsible for creating the Apple store experience. In case you didn’t know the Apple store on 5th Avenue in New York City is now the most photographed landmark in New York City. [Source: NYC Photo Study] While I wouldn’t expect to see a line of people starting to flock to their local JC Penney store I can see major opportunities to move JC Penney’s retail locations into the 21st century.

Additional Source: Apple Exec hired by JC Penney

 

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