Custom Ringtones in iTunes for your iPhone

You have a shiny new iPhone, and you want custom ringtones on it. You right-click your favourite song and do “Make Ringtone”…. Nothing. You can only use purchased songs.
OK you say, a buck ninety-nine for my bestest fav song in the world as my ringtone is fair. So you buy from iTunes, right click to make a ringtone aaaand… Nothing.
Too bad, you’re outside the US. No ringtone for you.

Or is there?

Here’s a way to make custome iPhone ringtones from music in your library just using iTunes.

1. Find the song you want.

2. Figure out which 30-second chunk will be the ringtone.

3. Right-click in iTunes on your song a select Get Info.

4. Look for the Start and End boxes, enter in minutes and seconds the start time of the chunk, and the end time, click OK.
Remember it *MUST* be 30 seconds or less.

5. Right-click again, this time select “Create AAC Version”.
If you don’t see “AAC”, go to Edit>Preferences find Import Settings and change the type to AAC.

6. You should now see a 30-second (or less, whatever) song with the same name. Drag it to your desktop.

7. Delete the short version from your iTunes library, say yes to delete the file.

8. Rename the file you dragged to your desktop so that it has a .m4r extension instead of .m4a

9. Drag it back to where it says “Library” above your playlists.

10. Sync your iPhone and enjoy your custome ringtoney goodness.

I got this process from a CNet video, embedded below for your perusal.

iPhone 3G Battery

So, I have a new iPhone. I’m not going to turn this into an iPhone-centric blog, but I will post some things I learn about this device here.

Starting with battery power conservation.

I noticed that I was draining almost all of my battery in a day, but that I was online a lot, getting apps and stuff like you do when you have a new toy. So it got me thinking as to how I could save battery. My friend gilmae mentioned that 3G sucks down the juice so i started from there.

1. Turn off 3G
I know, i know, it’s a 3G iPhone. But I don’t hear any difference in call quality or dropouts with GPRS, so i turn on 3G when I’m away from a WiFi signal.

2. Turn off Wifi
Unless you want to be online. WiFi actually uses less power than 3G, so use it first.

3. Turn Off Bluetooth
It’s off by default, but make sure. I used my BT headset with a more-or-less average result, so I’m sticking with the wired headset. You can’t push files with the iPhone BT anyway.

4. Turn Off Location
Not every app uses GPS, and if you need maps on all the time, you probably don’t deserve an iPhone. Switch this on with 3G (to refresh the maps) when you need it.

5. Turn off Push
Unless you’re a very active, very busy COE, you liekly don’t need to know the second an email comes in. Turn of Push and set your email to Fetch once an hour, or even manually. I do this with GPRS, because a few lines of text downloads quick.

6. Adjust the Brightness
Or have Auto Brightness On. Easy one.

7. Turn off EQ
Do you really need to bass boost songs on your iPhone? Turn off the equaliser, it uses up CPU cycles, and that means power.

All of the above should help somewhat with the battery life on your iPhone. This is what I use, but you may find other combos are better.

Iphone

I has an iPhone! But it’s not all fun. I had to call telstra to get my account number for my old service. Three people and a call back later, I had the number. The application went through and I walked out with my new phone with the promise that it would take at worst 4 hours to churn. It’s now 16 hours.
I grabbed an old bill to check the number telstra gave over the phone… It was different. The bill has an extra zero. So now I’m back off to the optus shop to try again.
Still, wireless works fine. I’m posting this using the wordpress app for iPhone :)

At the start of a long weekend?

My Xbox just RRoD‘d.

I already have a return order. I went back to work, got a box and a shitload of bubblewrap. All packaged up for Aus Post.

Always at the weekend.