All That Nerdy Stuff » iPhone

Freeware Review: iRinger-Free Ringtone Maker for iPhone!

Jason Ward — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:32:49 +0000

It’s no secret that the iPhone is a huge success even in its current, highly-breakable, poor-signal-if-you-hold-it-normally incarnation, and like any other popular phone, people want custom ringtones for the thing. It’s not that the built in ones are crappy–well, it’s not just that–but more that we want to have something personalized, something that says something about us. Or, at the worst, we want to blare our favorite MP3′s ad-infinitum when we receive a call. But whatever your reason might be, there’s a single truth worth being conscious of: Apple’s iTunes store will bend you over and repeatedly rape you in exchange for the privilege of using music you already bought and paid for as a ringtone. Frankly, their fees are ridiculous, and we think you should avoid them wherever possible.

Luckily, that’s very possible thanks to a free downloadable app called iRinger, which will allow you to convert almost any audio format you can throw at it to an iPhone appropriate ringtone that’ll work with any version of the device, included the much-maligned (yet celebrated) iPhone 4. There is no application to install–you simply download the executable and run it. In my tests I found the app speedy, easy to use and virus free, though as a precaution I do encourage you to always perform a virus scan on any executable file you download from absolutely anywhere before you run it. You can never be too safe, after all.

The process is pretty simple. Open the program, click “Import,” and your music will appear on the timeline. By dragging the “In” and “Out” sliders at the bottom right of the app window (it’s a small app window, you can’t miss them) you can select the portion of the song you want to use as your ringtone. When you’ve got the clip you want to use (up to 30 seconds in length, which is the maximum the iPhone supports,) simply click “Export,” browse to the file location where you want to save the ringtone, click the checkbox that says “also export to iTunes,” and click go. In about 10 seconds your new ringtone will both save to the folder you specified and add itself to iTunes, making it quick and easy both to sync to your phone and to email your ringtone to friends, family, and of course to Steve Jobs, along with a note that says “Neener-neener-neener, I still have my $1.50!” Or something like that.

Software: iRinger

Price: Free, though they do ask for a donation if you like it.

Rating: Highly recommended if you prefer an app on your PC vs a web based solution like Myxer.

Download: iRinger

Free iPhone Ringtones? Myxer is the key!

Jason Ward — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 02:20:40 +0000

I’ve been going about this all wrong, evidently. For months I’ve been looking for a free utility to easily create Ringtones for my iPhone 3G (no, I didn’t rush out and buy the upgrade to 3GS) out of MP3′s I already have. On several occasions I’ve found some decent guides and a lot of free software, but that was exactly the problem: I needed a lot of free software to do what I wanted to do. As far as I’ve been able to locate, no single utility exists that you can download, install and use to create Ringtones for iPhone all within a single package. Without an unacceptable level of complexity, it just wasn’t going to happen.

That’s unfortunate, but hardly a deal breaker thanks to a free service called Myxer. It’s stupidly simple: Browse your nerdy ass over to the Myxer website and find the cute little box (snipped above so you know what to look for) that asks-no, demands-that you upload your very favorite non-DRM’d MP3. If you’re a self respecting nerd of any repute, all your MP3′s are DRM-free, but I digress. Moving on, upload your file (the speed will depend on your internet connection, obviously. I have a stupidly fast connection so for me it’s seconds) and wait while the site processes it for a few seconds.

What you’ll end up with is a dialog that shows the waveform of your MP3 and a pair of handles, which you can drag to the beginning and end of the part of the song you want to clip. In my case, I wanted 30 second clips, so I just manually typed in 30 to the duration box and then dragged around my selection until I found the ideal beginning and more-or-less ideal ending. Then click next, put in your phone number, click next again, and rather than clicking for it to send the ringtone via SMS, click at the lower right where you’ll see a graphic that says something along the lines of “Click here to download a File for your iPhone”. Once you’ve downloaded the file, simply highlight the Ringtones section of iTunes, drag your file into it, then sync your phone. Voila! You’re the proud mama (or papa, if you have dangling participles) of a fresh and juicy ringtone made just for you, by you, courtesy of Myxer.

There’s not a lot else to say about the Myxer service, because it just works brilliantly. If you want an MP3 that you don’t have, I recommend visiting BeeMP3, which seems to have everything under the sun. I don’t think they’re affiliated with Myxer, but don’t quote me on that.

Cost: Free
Quality: Superb
Ease of use: Excellent, even a child with raisinets in his nose could do it.

iPhone 3G-S inbound, my wallet weeps

Jason Ward — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 04:32:21 +0000

Today Apple, in what appears to be a vicious pattern of flogging my wallet until it cries, introduced the new iPhone 3G-S, which will launch in just shy of a week and a half. Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some hot iPhone action and I’ve been in a perpetual state of enthrallment with my current iPhone 3G since I got it in December. Nevertheless a gurgling, hissing voice has arisen with me and several heads have turned as I’ve uttered (uncontrollably) the words “We wants it, precious! Give it to us, it’s ours!” Yes, that’s just the kind of day I’ve had, thank you very much, Mr. Jobs.

So, beyond the obvious shiny, what does the new iPhone 3G-S bring to all those patient consumers who decided to tough it out? Here’s a quick and dirty chart to show you the difference and what you can expect to pay for that difference. Note also that the chart reflects todays price drop of the existing 8GB model iPhone 3G to 99 effing dollars.

Nevertheless, even the iPhone 3G remains an amazing device that can offer you the ability to be much more productive in your daily doings, so if the price has been what’s holding you back you no longer have any excuse. Unless I’m horribly mistaken (a distinct possibility, I haven’t done the research), this officially makes iPhone 3G the cheapest non-refurb Smartphone on the market.

Device	iPhone 3G	iPhone 3G-S
Storage & Price	8GB ($99)	16GB ($199) 32GB ($299)
Features	Cut, copy, paste MMS Widescreen Keyboard Voice notes Spotlight Search	Cut, copy, paste MMS Widescreen Keyboard Voice notes Spotlight Search PLUS!!!: Faster performance (2x!) Improved Camera Video Recording Video Editing Post straight to Youtube Voice Control Compass (Digital) My Effing Envy
Camera	2MP mediocrity	3MP Video Record Video Edit Auto Focus Tap to Focus (dammit!)
Battery Life	Good	Better (I can’t bare to rub any more salt in the wound)

My iPhone: A love affair without sex

Jason Ward — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:13:09 +0000

Back in November of 2008 I decided that it was time to retire my trusty HTC Wizard (Cingular 8125) after more than 2 years of superlative service. Over the time I owned it the phone did something few do: it got better and better over time, thanks to the hacking community over at XDA Developers, who turn out a steady stream of high quality hacked ROM’s (operating system software for the phone) that add capabilities that manufacturers technically could add but seldom do because they want you to buy another device. I did not replace my Wizard with the iPhone because, frankly, it’s just too goddamn trendy for my tastes.

Instead I purchased the HTC Fuze, which in every measurable physical sense is superior to the iPhone. It has a better CPU. It has a higher screen resolution. It has a landscape QWERTY keyboard. It has every connection type known to man and it’s expandable to capacities that the iPhone will never be able to reach without completely replacing the phone. But there was a problem. Within days, my new Fuze began to lock up constantly. It drained battery life like a fat man drains the soup kettle at Souplantation. It rebooted. Randomly. During calls. Clearly my phone was jacked up in hardware, so I exchanged it for a fresh one. Within days it exhibited the same behaviors, though less so. But there was something worse, actually: Windows Mobile. For the record, I’ve always been a fan of WinMo, but as I sat there with this expensive new phone (nearly $400 with tax) I realized something: It was running slower than my old Wizard, whose CPU was only a little more than 1/3rd the speed of the new Fuze. Why? WinMo.

And that’s when it struck me: Windows Mobile hasn’t advanced in years. So I headed back to the AT&T store and decided to give the trendy iPhone a try.

I left the store with almost an extra $100 in my pocket because the iPhone was just that much cheaper, surely a sign that it’s that much worse of a phone, right? Not so much. I was immediately impressed with the speed of the phone. Opening and closing apps was quick and easy, all the important functions were right up where I could get to them easily and the signal quality was noticeably better than what I had on the Fuze or even my Wizard (but please note, I live in California, so my signal quality sucks no matter what phone I use). And then I found what would become my crack pipe: The App Store. I drove home before I’d really looked at it, but when I’d had my dinner and settled down to watch Heroes I began to peruse the app store.

At first I went for the obvious stuff: Free games. After all, that’s what you can expect from phones, right? A handful of free, albeit cheesy, time wasting games. Instead I found a good library of small but fun games, and since I could sort according to their status, I had a field day downloading pages and pages of free games. Then I discovered the apps, and realized something even more shocking: Without spending a lot of money, my iPhone could actually be a badass tool in addition to its status as half baked game player and iPod. At one point I had a combined 9 pages of apps and games because I just plain needed to try everything I could get my hands on. Heck, I even bought the Orb streaming media app to connect to my home server so instead of being constrained to my 16GB of iPhone storage, I could get all 80GB of music from home almost anywhere I happened to be. Pretty awesome.

But the goods just kept getting better. I found the fantastic free WordPress app, which lets me blog from anywhere, I can even upload pictures straight from my phone’s camera (and let’s be honest, the iPhone camera is amazingly mediocre, but hey, it’s a cell phone camera, what do you expect?). Now, I know what you’re thinking: If you can blog from anywhere, where the hell have you been the last few weeks? The short answer: Busy. I’ve got some projects going on, I’ll tell you about them soon, I promise. I’ve also found other exciting apps that do amazing things like keep my notes synced between the web and my phone so I can access them from any PC. I’ve got an app with my vCard on it so I can send it to anyone with an email address in a flash (and who doesn’t have an email addy at this point?). I’ve got apps for streaming internet radio, streaming video talks with some of the world’s great thinkers, all kinds of amazing stuff to help me be entertained, stay focused, work easier, learn more or develop contacts. And it’s in my pocket, it’s with me wherever I go.

So what have I learned from my new iPhone? I’ve learned that you can have all the hardware in the world, but if your software sucks it doesn’t make a lick of difference. I’ve learned that if your software is capable and diverse and easy to use, that makes up for a lot of hardware shortcomings, nerdy desires be damned. Apparently, there’s an End User inside me somewhere who just doesn’t want to fuck with his phone so much as he wants it to just work.

So, it’s with some joy that I announce the impending arrival of our new series reviewing iPhone Apps. From now on we’ll cover a regular assortment of software that you can download for free (in most cases, though we may cover some paid stuff too) to keep yourself productive, entertained, informed and educated. I hope you’ll join us for these upcoming reviews, because I can promise they’ll be informative, slightly funny, and I just might say “fuck” a couple of times. Hey, you never know!

FreeWare Review: Orb Media Server

Jason Ward — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 21:02:41 +0000

Today’s nugget of tasty freeware is something for, perhaps, the slightly more advanced user. Now, for a site that’s all about Nerdy Stuff, that shouldn’t present a problem for anyone reading this. Even so, a fair word of warning is in order: this one will require a little patience.

Orb Networks. Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe not, but what they do primarily is provide the free Orb Media Server software. Now, in theory this is an amazingly cool piece of software, but in practice it’s actually only pretty darn cool. Yes, cool has levels.

Anyway, the software. Orb is pretty slick; what it does is fairly simple in premise: install it on your PC, configure it to point to your folders full of music and video clips, and it will stream all that media to your mobile device, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Wii, cell phone, iPhone or pretty much anything else with a web browser. In cases where the target device doesn’t support the media in its native format Orb will transcode it to something a little more universal, notably Flash FLV format (as you’d find on YouTube or similar sites).

For mobile devices, this software is, to put it plainly, freaking awesome. Torn between the $300 iPhone 16GB and the $200 8GB models? Don’t be-get the 8GB and save yourself the $100. Add Orb to your computer at home and have access to as much storage as you can afford there, and let’s face it: for that $100 you just saved you’ll get a hell of a lot more than the 8GB extra you will from Apple. I’m currently streaming the entirety of my MP3 collection (which itself wouldn’t even fit on my 60GB regular iPod) plus a good 30ish DVD’s I ripped for the iPod. Suffice to say, my chances of getting all that content on the phone alone are well below zero.If you don’t mind spending $10, Orb even offers a nice little app on the iTunes App Store that will stream into a nice interface, but if not that’s fine-you can stream from Safari with no problems in most cases (Disclaimer: it doesn’t work for me, but it does work for the other person on my Orb account, streaming from the same server. Of course, my phone is now Jailbroken, so that may be related).

But Orb is not perfect. I’ll background this for you a little by telling you that I’m running Orb on a Quad core AMD Phenom 9600 with 4GB of DDR2 memory (PC6400), with most of my media streaming from a RAID5 array (4x320gb 7200RPM 16MB cache). When I stream videos to my Xbox 360 they look awful. This is not the fault of the 360-the same video files played natively from a USB hard drive or streamed through another app look fantastic (they’re all DivX format and some are in HD 720p) It streams the music to 360 just fine and I enjoy that functionality, but the video is simply awful. I suspect this is as a result of Orb’s default settings for transcoding, but unfortunately the software doesn’t give you any granular access into those settings to allow you to tweak them for yourself, and the defaults clearly don’t take into account a robust multicore CPU/memory system with decent GPU.

Further into Orb’s list of weaknesses is the fact that you can only add 3 users to your account, though for many people this will be no problem. For me it doesn’t really matter at all as I only have 4 people who use the server and rarely does more than person at a time access it, but if you’re looking to share your media with a lot of heavy users simultaneously then Orb might not be for you.

All in all Orb is a good, solid piece of software that just about anyone should be able to wrap their heads around, and unlike many of its contemporaries it’s fairly reliable. You’ll get your best experience on your mobile devices, but if you can get around the fact that streaming quality to a console isn’t that great you might enjoy that experience as well.

Final Judgment: Good software for streaming to a portable device with limited local storage, but has some problems with more capable devices

Website and Download: Orb Media Server