Let wonder replace worry

How To Make Free iPhone Ringtones From Your iTunes Library

After patiently waiting for 2 years, Nicole and I made the jump to AT&T and are both happy iPhone owners. I love everything about my 32GB 3GS and Nicole is very happy with her 3G.

We were a little surprised at the small selection of ringtones that come on the iPhone. I quickly realized the reason may be that Apple charges .99 cents to create a ringtone from a song that you have already purchased!

So I did some poking around and it is actually pretty simple to create a ringtone from any song in your iTunes Library - except those with DRM protection. Now that iTunes no longer sells music locked with DRM, this should not be a huge issue.

I'm working on a Mac, but there is no reason this would not work on a PC.

How I did it:

1. Find your song and write down the time of the beginning and ending of the clip you are wanting to make your ringtone. I stuck with about 20 seconds.

2. Get info on the song file and click on Options. Select start and end time and enter the times you wrote down.

3. Right click the file and choose "Create AAC Version." This will create the small clip of your song.

4. Right click again and choose "Show in Finder." Drag the file to the desktop and delete it from your iTunes library.

5. On your desktop, chenge the file extension to .m4r

6. Add the file to iTunes and it will show up as a ringtone. Sync your iPhone and start using it.

It is as simple as that. Hope it is helpful. Nicole is going to be pretty excited when I tell her about this tomorrow!

Apple's iPod Hype and Youth Ministry

Apple release a new line of iPods this morning along with iTunes 8. I was really excited to see what they had in store for the Christmas season, but it was late afternoon before I had a chance to get online and check it out. My response to everything was pretty apathetic. The new iPods are pretty, but nothing that we have not seen before. The new iTunes is pretty cool, I’ll be using the Genius playlists I’m sure, but I’m not overly excited about it.

I’ve been thinking about how Apple has managed to create hype around every product they release- and how on days like today that works against them. Companies like Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony release new products all the time and I’ve never just had to get online to check out any of their new or updated products.

Which leads me to think about ministry. Hype about the next big ministry event will always let someone down. Relationships based on acceptance, genuine interest, caring, and respect never will.

The hype is so much easier- the relationship so much more rewarding.

Ping.fm

Ping.fm is a great web app I just signed up for that basically networks all of your social networking sites. Install the iGoogle widget and update Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, ect. all at the same time.

Ping.fm is still in beta, but I was given a beta code when I signed up. So if you want to give it a try, the code is "pingyoulater."

AppFresh

AppFresh is a new program I have started using that keeps all third party applications, widgets, preference panes and application plugins up to date.

The application seems to still be under development and I have ran into some bugs. So far, I only use it to scan all of my application and I then will download the updates in each individual app instead of letting AppFresh to it for me. It really will be convenient when this program is able to run in the background and keep everything constantly updated.

Tonight, I had 16 updates that have been released in the past couple of weeks that I had not yet downloaded. Its a useful tool, and it is free!

MacUpdate Promo

I am thinking of getting in on the MacUpdate Promo. Even though I only have need for a few of the applications, buying them separately would cost me more than the $65.

I am not too excited about Parallels though. I tried it last year, but I tend to like Boot Camp even though you have to restart the machine to switch platforms. Maybe I could sell it or something. I think I'll take a shot at using everything else.

Rick Roll

Possibly the biggest internet phenomenon of 2007 would be the “Rick Roll.”

In case you never had the pleasure- a Rick Roll is where a link to the video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” is disguised as a link to a false story or video. From now on anytime someone is misdirected to  unexpected content, it will be know as this I am sure.

Well guess what I saw on FOX News? Rick Astley himself talking about Rick Rolling. I guess he got Rick Roll’d or something.

That just makes the whole thing not as cool anymore. Where was Fox this time last year? With them covering it, I am going to say that the Rick Roll has peaked, and its 15 minutes of fame have expired.

Here is some more info on the whole phenomenon.

Lots of Links

I updated the links on my blog this afternoon. (Plus gave it a new design.)

Of the 140 feeds I follow, I've included 51 links so far. (I left out all of the political, technological, and culture blogs.) They are all ministry blogs that I have followed and enjoyed for sometime.

I consider these 51 people friends in ministry, even though I have never met most of them. I am fairly confident that if I were neighbors with anyone on the list we would swap house keys and share tools with each other.

If you are in ministry and take the time to read this blog, make sure you are on the list. If I have left you off, let me know and I'll enter you into the consideration process. That rigorous process takes a couple of seconds. If you are in ministry, particularly student ministry, I am interested in following your journey.

And you get an additional link online. We both win.

Bananas

What would over 7000 neatly stacked bananas look like?

Something like this:

Is the Recording Industry out of Control?

Now they are saying it is illegal to copy music from a CD that you own onto your computer.

Download Uproar: Record Industry Goes After Personal Use - washingtonpost.com

When CD's were introduced, everyone went out and replaced all of their music from cassette to CD. Now the industry is expecting you to do the same thing with digital music.

It is shocking to see an industry so resistant to change. They are doing themselves no favors by suing their customers.

For the record, (because they could be reading) I have never downloaded a song that I have not paid for.

Tell-My-Mom.com

Have you heard about this website? For a fee, parents can put this bumper sticker on their teens car and the website will send the parents incident reports when someone files a report against the car.

I'll be the first to say that some teens are bad drivers, but this has to be one of the worst things a parent can do. In youth ministry especially I deal with a great number of people have bad opinions of all teenagers. Sure, teens do dumb things sometimes, (like drive crazy) but so do people my age.

It seems to me like another way to single out and pick on teenagers. By the time high school students begin driving, usually there is only 2 years before they are off to college on their own. Shouldn't that time be used for the teenager to learn the importance of driving safe because they value their life and the lives of others? Not because a stranger might tell on them.

Speaking of, how can the site prove the complaint is truthful anyway?

This more I think about it, the worse this idea gets.