Ringtones

After abit of hunting around the internet I found a really good post that explained how to create ringtones with music that already exists within iTunes.  Since it would normally cost to buy a ringtone from Apple its a nice idea to be able to take music that you already have and create a ringtone from it.  I’ve not looked to see whether its possible to purchase ringtones from other people, but I assume this isn’t possible (not to be picky put isn’t this a monopoly! but that’s an arguement for another day).

So how do you go about creating a ringtone in itunes, well its a shame its not as simple as right click create ringtone its abit more difficult than that.

Here is the step by step guide of how to create the ringtones from a record track within your music library:

1. Select the song that you want and right click and select “Get Info”.
2. This will display the track information, go to the options tab of the track.  On this options tab there is the start time and end time of the track.  Select the checkboxes next to both of these and select the 30 second segment that you would like to be your ringtone.  A ringtone must be 30 seconds or less, but in reality 20 seconds is the max before the phone will go to voicemail.  Click “Ok” to return back to the library
3. Right click on the song that you have just changed the length of the song.  This should show a menu with a convert selection to AAC  (If the dropdown menu item does not contain “Convert Selection to AAC” and reads “Convert Slection to MP3″ (or some other format) go to iTunes -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Importing and change the “Import Using” drop down menu to “AAC Encoder”).  Once the song has been encoded go back to the Get Info and uncheck the start time / end time.
4. Find the location that this encoded will have been created, this will normally be in the same location as original music track.  It will be named as *.m3u.  Rename the file to being *.m3r (which is the itunes ringtone extension).
5. Finally the last stage go back into itunes and import the file into iTunes.  This should now add it into the ringtone section of iTunes.

Probably not as easy as it should be, but I suppose Apple are out to make money!

Phone Mast

After purchasing the iPhone I have been abit disappointed by the lack of 3G receiption that I’ve been getting when being out and about with it.  Well as if by some devine wind I was reading the register today and they had an article about ofcom publishing maps of 3G covered and I have to admit I was slightly shocked that O2 has what looks to be the worse coverage of the big networks.

The full pdf can be download from here.  It is interesting looking at the maps to see the cover or lack there of for O2, but the maps really do remind me of a three year old that has been trying to colour-in maps of the UK with a purple pen!!

Geo Fence

It’s the first time I’ve heard about a geo-fence (just found it on wikipedia) sounds like a great idea that you could track someone into an unauthorised area by tracking there mobile phones. See the Register article about it here.  Just one small thing unless I’ve missed something what happens if the mobile phone is turned off and you walk into the area!  For general purpose where were you at the time its good technology to ‘potentially’ prove you were in a certain location.

I have to admit I’m not the best person recently to ensure that I have my phone on my all the time and sometimes I have it on me but there is no charge in it!  The technology and idea sounds great but to secure something like the olympics it sees flawed.  Now I suspect there will be more than just geo-fencing meaning CCTV and personel around to catch these people with there phones off or left at home.

I can see some great use for this technology in the realm of mobile games that are coming along, where you play against people in the really world.  It would mean that there could be boundaries to the game and points off if you went outside this area.  Maybe that will be the next big thing in mobile reality gaming….

GPS has not been around for that many years in the public domain alot longer in the armies of the world.  But its staggering that you can now get a GPS tracker as small as a credit card.  Fastastic to track people that you what to keep an idea on the problem though is if they find out that you have placed one on them!!!!

Its possible to track someone with there mobile phone, since when ever you are within signal range the mobile phone is communicating with at least two base stations and using the strongest signaled one.  Using these signals a mobile phone can probably be tracked down to metres.

Is big brother watching us? Probably, its difficult to know 100% what the intelligent services are doing.  With mobile phones its unfortunately probably one of many modern technologies that are looking over us on a day to day bases.  As for gps tracking well you are ok unless someone places a tag on you.

To read the full article about GPS Mum at the mirror website.

I think it was Bill Thompson that was writing it and his opinion columns are very good. So he was saying that instead of stopping kids using their phones in classes they should be encouraged to use them.

As someone that is involved volunteering to help with Scouts the mobile phone normally is not an issue. They will get confiscated if seen by a leader because they can be very distracting so it got me thinking about what was being said in the article.

I understand what he was saying that they are a good aid to education otherwise know as the kids can google for the answers. But I also see the distracting side because phones can do so much these days not just phoning and txt’ing but all the games that can be played and pictures taken.

I do think that Schools probably need to embrace modern technology more, but I think this is happening slowly – like the interactive whiteboards that some schools are using. But as someone that grew up with the calculator my mental maths is not that good, does this mean that there will be an impact on our kids that only google for there answers.

It will be interesting to see how schools adapt as more and more modern technology is owned by kids. The iPhone probably has more cpu power than the first BBC I used at school.