In my previous tutorial I covered how to create ringtones using a Mac.  Today I’ll cover creating ringtones using a PC and only free applications such as audacity. Download and install audacity and iTunes on your PC prior to doing this.  I’m also using Vista but the same or similar screens exist for XP.

1. Open the piece of music or sound that you want to be your ring tone in Audacity and edit it down to under 40 seconds.

2. Go to File>Export and export the song as MP3. Audacity does not have the ability to export to AAC.

3. Give the file a unique name and save as .MP3

4. Once you have saved it you’ll next need to open the file in iTunes. Right click on the file and choose Open With>iTunes

5.  Now that it is in iTunes you can convert it to iTunes native mp4 or AAC.  Right click the file and choose Convert Selection to AAC

6.  Now we need to rename this file to a ringtone format so browse to your iTunes music folder - in most cases its your default windows music folder.

7. By default windows Vista does not show file extensions.  You’ll need to turn this off.  Go to Tools>Folder Options. Un-check Hide extensions for known file types.

8. Once you have done this you should be able to change the file name to .m4r

9. Choose Yes that you are aware your computer will explode if you change the file extension.

10.  Right click on the file and choose to open with> and choose iTunes.

11.  Once you open it up in iTunes you should see it is now in its ringtone category.  And you’re good.

This is an article about how to create custom ringtones for the iPhone or iPhone 3g for capturing movie quotes or music from a DVD using a Mac. I’ll follow up later with one specifically for PC. This article assumes that you know a few things about how to setup itunes, audio hijack, and the built in DVD software. I also use Sound Studio Pro but Audacity will work too.  *disclaimer I am not suggesting creating copyrighted ring tones - that would be wrong…

1. Launch Audio Hijack Pro and select your DVD player then click the Hijack button.  Play your movie, click on record during the part of the movie that you wish to sample.

Audio Hijack

2. Open the sampled audio that you have recorded in Sound Studio Pro, or Audacity and edit it to get the amount of spoken word or music to under 40 seconds.

Sound Studio Pro

3. In sound Studio you’ll next go to File>Save As>  give the file a unique name

Choose File Format of AAC (m4a)
Choose a Bit Rate, I usually go with 112 or 96kpbs.
Click Save

Saving in Sound Studio Pro

4. Now that you have saved the file you need to change it to an iTunes recognizable format for ringtones. To do this, simply right click the file and choose Get Info.

Get info of file

5. Where it says Name & Extension you want to change the extension from .m4a to .m4r

Change File Extension

6. You’ll receive a warning that says “Are you sure…” Click the Use .m4r because yes, you are sure.

Use .m4r

7. The last step, right click again on your file and choose to open with iTunes.  This should put the file (if you have itunes auto-copying) in your ring tones section.

Open with iTunes

8. As you can see in my ringtones is my new sample.  When I sync up my iPhone it will automatically be transferred as long as I have ringtones selected to transfer.

Voila

If you have questions post a comment.

From here.  As many sites have reported that Starbucks is cutting back on its stores in an effort to stay profitable, 600 stores are supposed to be closed.  Initially they stated that Austin was not one of the locations that would be cut but apparently it is.

This of course is another sign of our down turning economy but not only that Austin is on the end cycle of this complete business boom with new growth.  If you go down Parmer Lane towards 1431 you’ll notice brand new businesses and new office spaces that are for lease that are just built.  Now, I fear they will sit empty for while as the economy continues to sour.   Actually I shouldn’t’ say that, we’re still in good shape here, we just grew too fast,  businesses need a chance to stop, take stock and re-evaluate.

South Congress and Academy (1007 S. Congress) – Austin
MoPac and Slaughter (5000 W. Slaughter) – Austin

Will be the 2 stores to be closed down.  To me, I really don’t care that much because Austin has plenty of Starbucks locations and not only that we have some really good local coffee shops that have a better atmosphere.  Comment if you know of some other really good local only coffee shops.

The Dark Knight

While Alamo is completely sold out for the Dark knight, Fandango shows a couple theatres with seats still for tonight.  Don’t miss your chance to see what is being touted as one of the top action/drama movies of this year.   I can almost garantee that this movie will be awesome and that you’ll want to see it again.

Dr. Horrible Act II

If you haven’t had a chance yet, check out Dr. Horrible Act II. I’m actually very impressed with NPH’s singing.  They actually have a duet that is actually pretty damn good.

So yeah, I have my ticket for The Dark Knight. I picked it up online earlier in the week, and I’m going to go see it before work tomorrow.

Here’s the thing, though- for once, I have very little knowledge beforehand. I’ve actively avoided learning too much about the movie. Even today, I’m still very much in the dark about any key plot points.

It’s kinda nice, actually. I’m looking forward to seeing it tomorrow.

Oh, and we’re instigating a rule. Any fucknut that posts any major spoilers for this movie on our site between now and next Friday and ruins it for anyone else gets banned indefinitely. I’m not having a repeat of The Sixth Sense on our site. (The short version- I went to Kevin Smith’s View Askew site within the first two weeks of that movie opening, only to find some asshole had posted the big reveal rather nonchalantly in the middle of a post that had nothing to do with the movie.

I’ll post a review tomorrow and let you know how the movie is.

Out.

There is a new tool that is coming out that allows you to drag and drop your files.  It’s called DataCase.

The iPhone and iPod Touch keep your media close, but what about the rest of your data? DataCase keeps your files close by turning your iPhone or iPod Touch into a hand held wireless drive. Keep your data with you wherever you go and access it when and where you need, on any available computer (Mac, PC, Linux), no upload program or server configuration necessary.

Uploader apps are limiting and server configurations are painful. That’s why DataCase works directly with Finder and Bonjour to make saving files to your iPhone easy. Start DataCase and your Mac already knows that it’s there. Drag and drop files just like it was another hard drive. File transfer made easy: just drag and drop.

I’m hoping that this comes in the affordable app price because this looks really cool.

We’ve been getting a bunch of hits for people looking for availability. As wetwired is not apple we couldn’t possibly take the time to go to every ATT store and Apple store and keep up with that stuff but because I posted about what stores had stuff when I or my buddies were in the buying process the questions keep coming.

The best method to find out availability is to go here. This is the Texas iPhone availability page that gets updated nightly. It does not include the ATT stores but you can be willing to bet that its just as sparse. Right now the best method is direct shipment to get a phone.

I can tell you that one of our old posters has given up looking for one and just ordered direct shipment.  The store salesguy explained that the lead time is 7-10 days but usually its a lot quicker.

This is a two-for-wednesday.  It would have been Tuesday but yeah… coding problems.

Number one:  As you can see wetwired has the new look that we promised.  I’ve been working on coding this for a while and given that I hate coding for wordpress, I think its turned out reasonably well.  There are slight issues with the sidebar and different browsers.  I’ll be continually working on it to try to address the issues that crop up.   Incedently if anyone is good with wordpres and divs and this stupid widgetized sidebar and can figure out why the twitter stuff loads 5 different ways from sunday on every browser, please let me know.

Number two: Wordpress 2.6 has been released.  This means new features for us, and maybe for you.  I tested slightly on our sandbox to verify all hell didn’t break loose and I’ve now updated wetwired to this latest version.  Let me know if you see something broken I might fix it, or I might laugh in your face.

Neil Patrick Harris (NPH), Mr. “snort coke of a strippers titty,” himself has a new online show. Dr. Horrible.  Its pretty damn funny.  Dr. Horrible is created by Joss Whedon, you know the guy that brought us Buffy and Firefly. 

During the WGA strike Joss Whedon started writing a three part musical series for the internet. Each of the three episodes will be approximately ten minutes each.

Co-writers for the internet feature are Joss’ brothers Zack and Jed and Jed’s Fiancé Maurissa Tancharoen . The writing and shooting have been completed and the series is now in post-production.

“It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.” says Whedon.

“Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” will star Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, Nathan Fillion as Captain Hammer, Felicia Day as Penny and a cast of dozens.”

From http://doctorhorrible.net a message from Joss Wheden:

At last the time has come to reveal to you our Master Plan. BEWARE! Those with weak hearts should log off lest they be terrified by the twisted genius of our schemes! Also pregnant women and the elderly should consider reading only certain sentences. Do not mix with other blogs. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading this blog. You must be this tall to read. ‘Kay?

It is time for us to change the face of Show Business as we know it. You know the old adage, “It’s Show Business – not Show Friends”? Well now it’s Show Friends. We did that. To Show Business. To show Show Business we mean business. (Also, there are now other businesses like it.)

ONE WEEK ONLY! AN INTERNET MINISERIES EVENT!

“Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” will be streamed, LIVE (that part’s not true), FREE (sadly, that part is) right on Drhorrible.com, in mid-July. Specifically:

ACT ONE (Wheee!) will go up Tuesday July 15th.

ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.

ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.

All acts will stay up until midnight Sunday July 20th. Then they will vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom – that’s still playing. Like, everywhere.)

Update: The Dr Horrible Servers Crashed because of the amount of people checking this out.

Wetwired Radio Presents: our eleventh podcast. In which we present the uncut versions of the Second Amendment discussions from the last Podcast. This is a shorter podcast than the latest ones have been, and a bit more serious in nature and tone.

Listen to this via iTunes or directly below.

Out.

 

 Wetwired Podcast: Episode 11 [20:47m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Ok this is cool.  It is web/iphone app made for iphones to track metro buses- although not setup as an application yet to install (that’s coming soon),  and the graphic for it is kinda blah.. Actually I’d make it look more cool for them if they were interested. 

Below is the email I got, while I don’t make use of the metro in austin (not for lack of trying), I am sure there are many out there that could use this.  I live in round rock - no bus service. Boo for me, yeah.

Dear Blogger/iPhone User,

 

Thought you might be interested in this iPhone webapp for tracking Austin Capital Metro buses:

 

http://www.me2bus.com

 

This began as a quick project for us, then we decided to finish and share

with the public.   It was submitted to Apple’s website today.  Enjoy.

 

Sincerely,

John Erdner

Founder Nfomedia Inc

http://www.nfomedia.com

Anyway, pretty cool, I’d actually love to see this expand to other cities - being a frequent travler being able to explore a city without renting a car is always nice.  I wish I would have had this in Brussels a couple years ago where we ended up taking the wrong bus and went into the country.