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Don’t kill the Mac Mini!

Nooooo, Apple, No!
Are you listening? Don’t kill the Mac Mini!  Are you crazy? It’s a great little machine that fills so many niches I can’t even list them here.
My two favorites are: Entertainment Center (more powerful than an AppleTV) and low-cost server. I’ve set Minis up as both with many clients.
The end of the line for the Mac mini? | The Apple Core | ZDNet.com

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Apple/?p=2418&tag=nl.e550


While we’re at it… what are you thinking with killing off FireWire?
Argh.
justin

Recycle your computer.


It may be a little later than our Greenpeace friends may have liked, but Apple has mostly gotten its act together on recycling. When you buy a new Mac, you can send or bring them your old one for proper disposal… at no cost to you. That’s a huge step and as this Macworld article details, a very welcome one in a growing number of options for high-tech disposal.

So please, DO NOT simply throw away that old Macintosh or monitor or even cell phone. (That’s actually illegal in California) Pass it down to a less-discerning friend or relative if it still works… and if it’s broken, find a place to recycle it.

There is a great facility for Los Angelinos to use in Glendale. Just drive up there on a Saturday or Sunday morning and drop off pretty much any and all of your old electronics with peace of mind. I did it, and it’s very very easy. But if you don’t want to do it, next time you see me I’ll take it for you and bring it on my next run!

justin

iPhone ringtones

There are many ways to make ringtones for your iPhone from music you already have in iTunes. You really have no excuse… and it’s fun!

So here are some of the ways you can do it:

1) iTunes Store ringtone feature: $0.99 each.
For songs you’ve purchased at the iTunes store, this is the only option, and that’s only if the creator has allowed ringtone creation. The $0.99 cost is in addition to the cost of the song. It’s not that much money compared to other ringtone costs… and it gives you a really easy method of choosing the section you want.
Click here for further instructions.

2) GarageBand 4.12 to iTunes: $79 for iLife’08 if you don’t already have it.
Anything you can make in GarageBand you can turn into a ringtone… including unprotected tracks from iTunes. It’s an official built in feature just like #1, but it’s MUCH more flexible and opens up the rest of your library too (not to mention using your own voice or your own recordings).
Here’s a great tutorial.
Caveat: This is my personal favorite but it hasn’t been working since I got iTunes 8. Hopefully Apple will update GarageBand soon to make this work right.

3) Use iTunes and the Finder: $0.
Somebody came up with this clever workaround technique which doesn’t give you the ease and precision of the selection as the first two options… but it’s easy and works even with iTunes 8.
Check out this tutorial.

4) Use QuickTime Pro: $29 for QuickTime Pro.
This method will give you more precision to choose the section of the song you want, and doesn’t require GarageBand or any third party utilities.
Try this method out here.

5) PocketMac Ringtone Studio: $15.
This nifty little utility might just be the easiest method for converting your non-DRM tracks or anything else… to a ringtone. It has a great and simple interface… and even though I’d like the timeline to be longer for greater precision in selecting the segment, I highly recommend it to anyone with a few bucks to spend on this.

6) Ambrosia’s iToner: $15.
iToner has a similar interface to Ringtone Studio but unlike it’s $15 competitor, it syncs the entire ringtone list for you instead of iTunes… This is great if you aren’t syncing your iPhone with iTunes regularly and just want to update your ringtone list… but it also gets confusing if you do. I love Ambrosia Software for the many great things they do, but this approach isn’t my favorite.

So try one, try all… make a playlist of songs you might want to use and get started! With the exception of iToner, they all can work harmoniously together by adding the ringtones into iTunes’ master list. It’s really fun to do and even more satisfying when that friend calls you and you know who it is before you even look at the phone!

justin

UPDATE: Rogue Amoeba just updated their good audio editing app, Fission, with an automatic export for ringtones to iTunes. For $32 this is a good deal because it does it all.

How wrong our tech heads can be….

I just got a huge kick out of two John C Dvorak columns.

First, I read a great treatise about how the iPhone is not only changing the cell phone industry, but actually creating a new one in an amazing, game changing way:

Understanding the impact of the iPhone: The eventual market for these devices as envisioned by Steve Jobs and Apple will eventually be bigger than anything we’ve ever seen and should surpass the massive PC and desktop computing market before the dust settles.

And I had renewed faith in the old Cranky Geek who I love to laugh at when I listen to him whine about stuff on This Week in Tech… until, in an effort to find the source link for the article that I originally found on my Etrade site, I did a google search and found another article by Dvorak, but with a slightly different take on the iPhone:

Apple should pull the plug on the iPhone: What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it’s smart it will call the iPhone a “reference design” and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else’s marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures.

Did I say slightly? HA! Perhaps Dvorak should think twice before jumping to conclusions about a product that hasn’t even been released yet. He was definitely wrong about this one…

justin

Passwords. ah passwords. don’t we love ’em…

How many people have only one password? How about those who have one password and then a bunch of variations with “2” or “69” at the end? Well guess what… don’t get used to them. Because one day soon the whole password thing will slowly become obsolete. You may rejoice or moan about having to learn something new… but if you have a strong reaction either way, you should read this NY Times article about the present and future of passwords… or at least the first non-techy first half that has some great nuggets like this:

Surveys show that we’ve remained stubbornly fond of perennial favorites like “password,” “123456” and “LetMeIn.” The underlying problem, however, isn’t their simplicity. It’s the log-on procedure itself, in which we land on a Web page, which may or may not be what it says it is, and type in a string of characters to authenticate our identity…

not sure whether to be comforted or scared? read on… and then call us with questions if you have them…

need iCase for iPhone? Maybe, iNo!

Sleep easily, iPhone users. Your all-in-one digital motherdevice isn’t flimsy or remotely scratch prone. So forget about those silly screen covers and consider using your iPhone naked. If you think I’m crazy, click on this link and see why it took a motorcycle to kill the iphone…
PC World – It’s Tough to Kill an Apple iPhone 3G

http://www.pcworld.com/article/148310/its_tough_to_kill_an_apple_iphone_3g.html


justin
PS: personal experience backs this up by the way. After a year of heavy use there is nary a scratch on my iPhone screen… then… a problem with the touchscreen at the bottom got me a shiny new one, and now I get to start from scratch with the scratching!
was that line too obvious? oh well.

A Blockbuster piece by The Onion: TV

Way back in college, I discovered the genius of The Onion when I picked up a free rag in the student union (rag = old school paper news thing). Since then, I’ve visited their website, subscribed to their podcast, and now watch their videos online like a TV show. Now I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t even have a print version anymore.

That, by itself, is a great example of the sea change in the way people consume media. Much of it is exclusively online… and the social interaction we’ve come to enjoy around it provides a richer experience (for the still few who choose to participate in blogs, comments and twitter-like stuff) than ever before in the days of, say, going to the store and renting a movie. Sure, you might bump into your friend down the street while at the store, but now you get a recommendation from a friend in another country without even having to ASK them! How cool is that?

Anyway, those of us who find comfort in never having to actually talk to people in person will love this Onion video about Blockbuster-as-relic:


Historic �Blockbuster� Store Offers Glimpse Of How Movies Were Rented In The Past