Just when you thought it was safe to use a cellphone, along comes this video…

EDIT: I’ve been told that this is indeed a hoax. Snopes has the details (scroll to the bottom).

I’ve had my Apple iPhone for awhile now, but what really irks me for all the music-power of the iPhone, is how incredibly difficult it is to get good ringtones for it!

Sure you can pay $0.99 to iTunes to download a ringtone, but that feature is really limited. I had already purchased the JXL Remix of Elvis’ A Little Less Conversation (regular iTunes), liked the song, and figured that it’d be a cool ringtone. So after paying another $0.99 to get the “ringtone version”, it turned out that the sound quality was crap. The ringtone (which sounds fine on my PC’s speakers) sounded tinny and crackly on the iPhone’s ringer. Technically speaking, the ringtone’s “range” was set too wide and too loud to be handled by the iPhone’s ringer. And because the ringtone was encrypted by Apple’s proprietary AAC encoding, there was no way for me to lower the volume (even though iTunes allows you to “modify” the default volume of songs on iTunes, it does not offer this feature for ringtones). Basically, $0.99 down the drain!

After alot of searching (there were various articles online which explains how to make your own ringtones for free, but all of these loopholes had since been closed by Apple), I discovered the best way to get around the problem was to create ringtones myself using a few simple tools. The process is:

• Find a MP3 (or WAV or some other unencrypted music format) version of the song you’d like to convert to a ringtone.
• Install Wavepad. It’s free, so you can’t beat that!
• Using Wavepad, you can edit the song as you desire. Trim, increase/decrease volume, fade in/out, and a million other effects.
• Install iPhoneRingtoneMaker. There’s a full-feature-but-limited-use free-trial, but it is really worth the money! Just make sure you read their home page, to ensure that the current version of iTunes is supported before you pay money!
• Using iPhoneRingtoneMaker, load the song/ringtone you just created - two-clicks and viola it’s in your iTunes ringtones folder.
• Sync your iPhone, and then set it to use your new ringtone!

For $14.95 (the price of iPhoneRingtoneMaker), there’s really no easier way to get ringtones onto your iPhone! You can download 15 crappy ringtones (at $0.99 each) from Apple iTunes, or just make great quality ones them yourself (with fade in/out effects so that it actually sounds like a real ringtone).

I fully support musicians and artists (the MP3s I have were purchased legally from places like Amazon MP3 Store and Music Today). I love my iPhone, and I’d also love to support iTunes, but until they get me a real way of putting quality ringtones on my iPhone, there is no other practical option available to me.

For the record (no pun intended), and to give my favorite band a bump:

• I purchased The Eagles latest album (Long Road Out Of Eden, in FLAC lossless encoding).
• Used WinAmp to convert FLAC to WAV format. And then used iTunes to import the WAV files as MP3. The instructions on how to do this bit can be found here.
• Then I used WavePad to edit the MP3 (creating new files with the shorter ringtone version).
• And finally iPhoneRingtoneMaker to import that new MP3 back into iTunes/iPhone as a ringtone.

Net result, I now officially own The Eagles’ latest album. And my iPhone has some ringtones that I really love!

Well, I’m not going to waste your time or mine, trying to catch you up on the past 36 years of my life. This blog is about the stuff I learn going through life, from today onwards.

As the Internet-fueled global economy and marketplace expands, it is easy to buy an “unlocked” phone to work with your current cellular provider. I did just that a few months ago, picking up one of the latest Windows Mobile 5.0 devices (Samsung i320N). Of course, one of the things you don’t really think about when scoping out that cool new phone, is how to actually get the damn thing to work with your cellular provider! An unlocked phone doesn’t have all the access point codes, username and passwords required to actually connect it to the Internet!

After much searching, I pieced together information that worked with my provider, Cingular. This is what I learnt…

GPRS SETTINGS (connects to EDGE where available… not sure about HSDPA as my phone can’t do that)
Description: MEdia Net GPRS
Connects to: The Internet
Access point: wap.cingular
User Name: WAP@CINGULARGPRS.COM (typed in UPPERCASE)
Password: CINGULAR1 (typed in UPPERCASE)
Primary DNS: (leave blank) or all zeros (0.0.0.0)
Secondary DNS: (leave blank) or all zeros (0.0.0.0)
IP address: (leave blank) or all zeros (0.0.0.0)

PROXY SETTING
Description: Cingular WAP
Connects from: The Internet
Connects to: WAP Network
Proxy (name:port): wireless.cingular.com:80 (type in lowercase)
Type: HTTP
User name: (leave blank)
Password: (leave blank)

Internet connection: Automatic
Work connection: Automatic
WAP connection: Automatic
Secure WAP connection: Automatic

INTERNET EXPLORER SETTING
Internet Explorer -> Menu -> Options -> Connections:
uncheck (Automatically detect settings.)
Select network: WAP Netwok

MMS Profiles
Name: Cingular MMS
MMSC URL: http://mmsc.cingular.com
WAP Gateway: 66.209.11.32
Port: 80