Turn Any MP3 into an iPhone Ringtone

http://www.pcworld.com/article/156234/turn_any_mp3_into_an_iphone_ringtone.html

 Turn Any MP3 into an iPhone Ringtone

1. Start iTunes and find the song you want to convert. (It must be an MP3.)
2. Right-click the song and choose Get Info.
3. Click the Options tab.
4. Check the Start Time and Stop Time boxes, then enter times for each (no more than 30 seconds apart, the maximum length for a ringtone). I used 0:00 and 0:30, respectively, as "Spit It Out" has a perfect ascending lead-in.
5. Click OK, then right-click the song again and choose Create AAC Version. You should immediately see a new 30-second version of the song.  (If it says MP3, you need to change your import/export preferences to AAC).
6. Drag that version out of iTunes and into the folder of your choice. (I used e:\media center\ringtones\iphone)
7. Delete the 30-second version from iTunes and undo the Start Time/Stop Time changes to the original.
8. Open the folder containing the 30-second AAC file you dragged out of iTunes, then change the file extension from .m4a to .m4r. Double-click it and it immediately gets added to iTunes' ringtone library.
9. Finally, sync your iPhone. When it's done, you can head into the settings and select your new ringtone.
10. Not syncing?  Make sure you have sync turned on the Ringtones  / Tones.  
11. Put your AAC preference back to MP3 if you had to change it above.

That's all there is to it!

If your phone can play WAV files, like most Sony Ericson's, it's a piece of cake to create a PREVIEW file in MediaMonkey (keep it under 30 seconds) and copy the new files to your phone.

Christmas Cards

Each year we send out Christmas Cards to some people in our mailing list. We check Vistaprints, Shutterfly, Smugmug, Walgreens and others for who has the best price. I like to pick a template that has mostly pictures, 3-4 pics minimum. This year Shutterfly won, they had a 30% discount and free shipping. Uploading the pictures was pretty easy and doing the layout took an hour to decide which ones worked best in which design. I found that uploading 12-15 pictures with both Black&White and Color allowed for different combinations for the cards. We decided on two 4x8" flat designs and randomly sent them out. We also found another coupon code for 5 folding ones and used those as the extra special cards for parents and sisters.

The cards arrived! They said allow up to 3 weeks, they were here in 4 days. Next step was mailing them out. We keep most of our address book in Outlook 2007, which means we can mail out mailing labels. So let's see, how does that work again? Mail Merge looked easy, and it was, once I did a little research.

So I have Outlook 2007, Word 2007 and Avery 5160 mailing labels. This is how I did my labels:
1) Organize your contacts so you can filter them. You need a way to define which people are going to get mailing labels, I used a field called User Defined 2 in each contact I wanted a label and added the word "xmas" into that field.
2) Address names - well, we all know single people don't like to be called The Mullen Family and married people don't like to get a card addressed to one spouse or the other, so you need to spend a little time getting names write on the mailing label before you print them. I like to use User Defined 1 field and type in Mr. & Mrs. Chris Schwalbach or Miss Maura Mullen or Mrs. Rosemary Mullen.
3) You need the mailing labels. I like Avery 5160's, they have 30 on each page and work great for most 3 line labels.
4) Don't print labels on the first try! It's best to use paper to do a trial run first.
5) If you have Word 2007, click Mailings tab, click Start Mail Merge, click STEP BY STEP mail merge wizard.
6) Wizard Step 1. Select Document Type. Choose labels.
7) Wizard Step 2. Select layout. Choose Label Options, Avery 5160.
8) Wizard Step 3. Select Recipients. Select from Outlook Contacts. Choose from Contacts folder, Filter, Field User Defined 2 is not blank. This is an option in the drop down, you don't have to type is not equal to "" or anything like that. Click ok. Click Next.
9) Wizard Step 4. Choose Address Block, Choose Match Fields button. Choose User Defined 1 in the First Name drop down. Choose Not Matched (you already put last name in the User Defined 1. I also usually choose Company and say Not Matched. The rest of the address fields should already be matched correctly.
10) Now the tricky part, you have to click on the UPDATE ALL LABELS button or you are going to get just one label on the sheet. Your labels should have «Next Record»«AddressBlock» in all but the first label. You can't just type this in, you have to use the button.
11) Wizard Step 5 - Preview your labels. You can preview and edit, but if you change have more than one page, editting gets reset each time you switch pages. Didn't figure that out, I just went back to Outlook and fixed them if I needed to.
12) Wizard Step 6. Complete the Merge. Click print. Again, you should print to paper first, then to labels.

We could have used 75, we purchased 70.

Done!

Sharing between Windows 7 and Windows XP

Trying to share files between Windows 7 and Windows XP? Follow the instructions here:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-7/share-files-and-printers-between-windows-7-and-xp/

After following these, I found that the old computer still had the default workgroup set to MSHOME on my old machine and WORKGROUP on my new machine. Changed the old machine to WORKGROUP by clicking Windows Key + Pause, clicking Computer Name, clicking the Change button and changing the Workgroup: to WORKGROUP. Restart was required.

How to get a cheap cell phone

I recently acquired a few new cell phones, all of which are working great! My wife's Sony phone was stolen, so I was looking for replacements. Since our 2 year plan had over a year left on it, AT&T's only offering was.

I don't mind getting refurbished equipment. AT&T refurb seems to work as good as new. I found a flip phone that has similar features to my w580i, except its a flip phone. It was $99 plus tax. No thanks.

Next I looked at purchasing a Go Phone. Go Phones are AT&T's prepaid phones and if you pop your current SIM card into one, it works just like any other phone. So I could pop in my wife's existing card into the Go Phone. Unfortunately, this phone wasn't the one I wanted either.

So, I hit Ebay and won a bid on a used W580i. It was about $60.

How to save some money on your cell phone

After debating adding another line to my ATT Cell plan, I decided to investigate how I could do this for less money. I was reviewing my Family Talk plan, which had 550 minutes with rollover minutes. That was working for my wife and I, until my oldest son got his phone. We quickly added unlimited text after he texted about 600 texts on his 3rd month. (Yes, we punished him, yes, I made him pay for it.) All said and done, we were paying about $100 per month for 3 phones and unlimited text.

I signed up for a corporate discount (you may want to check if your company has an arrangement with any cell providers). That allowed me to save a few bucks each month. Next I started checking with other family members to see if any of my single relatives had plans. I found one who was paying $50 per month for himself (no texting included) on the cheapest plan from AT&T. We agreed to add him to my plan as a 4th line. This required I move up to the 700 minute plan (about $10 /month) and pay for the additional line ($10/month). So where is the savings? Between the two of us we were paying $150 per month. Combined, we now pay about $120 per month. Plus, he gets unlimited text too!

ATT Wireless

Zappos.com - Shoes with free ship

Just saved $20 on my size 10.5 Bass Albany dress shoes:
http://www.zappos.com/bass-albany

Zappos allows you to not only ship to you for free, if you don't like them you ship back for free too!

Firefox not staying signed in to Gmail

With Firefox 3.5 I log in to web sites, like gmail and yahoo to read my mail. Many times, I want to stay logged in, so I check the "Stay signed in" checkbox. Recently, my passwords and my cookies didn't seem to be sticking.

I found an article that describes searching for a hidden file called cookies.sqlite. Renaming that file (after closing firefox and killing the firefox process.)

The file was found here for me:
C:\Documents and Settings\Daddy\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\z8honqxy.default

Source of this info:
http://capetownnews.co.za/2008/07/22/losing-firefox-3-web-browser-cookies/

Staining the Deck

After 3 years, we finally decided to stain the deck again. We pressure washed the deck with Aaron's Briggs & Stratton 2300 PSI gas pressure washer. I pressure washed twice, once with 40 degree and once with the 15 degree. The stain chips went everywhere, which the boys later swept and we finally blowed.

Stain was available at Elliot's Ace, Cabot 1608 Medium Tint Base with Beachgrass the chosen color. This is a solid stain and I think it will hold up well.

I had the boys do the trim work with a brush and then I rollered the stain on. First coat went on about 4 days after the pressure washing. I put it on with the grain and a couple days later the second was against the grain. No rain for the whole week, which was fortunate. The deck was wet each morning though, so we waited until evening before applying. First coat was applied in 50-60 degree weather. The second coat was a nice 75+ degree day (Labor day!)

Hotwire

During out trip to Yellowstone we used our laptop with wireless to check hotel rates on Expedia and Hotwire. If you are willing to chance a lousy hotel, the hotwire deals were phenomenal! We took 3 star hotels for 65, 65, 82 and 92. Three were Holiday Inns with decent pools (a couple were being remodeled and a couple were way in the back of the hotel, but it was better than the $99-$149 "best" rate! It also beat the AARP, Entertainment and AAA rates. On our way home, we were about 20 miles from Sioux Falls and decided to check hotwire. A 3 star hotel was $53. We booked it. All said and done, with tax and fees, it was $65! We found out we were in a 3 1/2 star Sheraton which was beautiful. It was a little out of the way, but it was worth the extra 5 miles or so.

In Cody, where we wanted to stay in a particular hotel, I used Expedia to check the rate using the hotel's wireless network!

http://hotwire.com
http://expedia.com

Dishwasher has cloudy dishes

Well, we figured out the dishwasher this week. We ran vinegar through it, dishwasher cleaner, switched to powder and nothing. We took apart the traps and filter. Angel cleaned the upper spray arm out after a simple pull to pop the arm off the top.

Picasa and Facebook

How do you upload photos to Facebook or Google?

I use a free tool from Google called Picasa3 to edit and upload all my pics. You can find it here:
http://www.google.com/picasa/

Once you have installed picasa, point it at your My Pictures folder and it will read them all in. Picasa provides rotating, cropping, red eye fixes, changing to black and white etc. The only thing I don't find in Picasa that I go elsewhere for is more sophisticated filters like watercolor.

The number one reason to use Picasa is that with a simple install to Facebook, you can upload your photos with a couple of clicks. Download and install the picasa uploader. http://apps.facebook.com/picasauploader/?ref=ts

Now select the photos from Picasa and then click the Facebook button. You will need to sign into Facebook the first time and choose the album name and then the pictures will all upload! The captions from Picasa are transferred automatically.

Let me know if you have questions.

Tom

Resetting a Vonage Router, specifically the Motorola VT1005

I've called Vonage a number of time and get asked to reset my router. Each time they send me to the admin page and have me reset the factory defaults and then reboot the router. I always seem to forget the address, so here it is:

http://192.168.102.1/admin.html

After you are in you need to click Factory Resets, then click on "Reboot".

One catch to doing this, you must be on a PC that is behind the Motorola router, in other words it needs to be connected directly to the port that says PC or to a router that is connected to the PC port.

Figure it Out

I spend a fair amount of time working on solving problems. As I am approaching 40, I feel like I'm spending more and more time trying to remember how I figured something out. Therefore, I'm creating this blog to post things that come up periodically.

Thoughts on future posts: Using Picasa to organize my photos, Using Mediamonkey to handle MP3's, how to backup your important files, why you should use pivot tables and more!!