mike the mountain

All I wanted to do was use one of my mp3s* as a ringtone.

I could do that on any of my old phones (that were capable of playing mp3s, if not I just converted it to an older audio spec).  But then ringtones became BIG BU$INE$$.  Now, if I want to use a clip from one of my songs as a ringtone on my iPhone, in Apple’s own words:

Buy a song for 99¢, then turn it into a custom ringtone you can buy for 99¢.

Oh lucky me!  A song I already own, I can buy from you again, then buy the RINGTONE version from you!

Silliness.  And easily ignored.

But for some strange reason, the internet was funny today: every page I clicked on didn’t immediately offer complete, accurate, and up-to-date information on a minor techincal solution.  Weird.

Me – I summon Google!  How do I change an mp3 into an iPhone/iTunes ringtone?

Google – Easy, just change the file extension to .m4r.

Me – Didn’t work.  iTunes ignoring me.

Google – Well, first you convert the mp3 to an AAC file (extension .m4a), then change the extension to .m4r.

Me – Right-clicked on the file in iTunes, only option was to convert to mp3 (which it already was).

Google – You’re an idiot**.  Preferences –> Import Settings –> AAC Encoder, then right-click on the file, convert to AAC, change extension to .m4r.

Me – Jeez, you don’t have to be mean about it (who the heck knowingly leaves the default import to AAC anyway?).  OK, I have the mp3, I have the AAC, I changed the extension of the AAC file to .m4a.  Hooray!  I has a ringtone!  Syncy-syncy.  Umm… why no syncy?  Ringtone not copying over to iPhone why??

Google – Exactly how long do you expect people to wait for you to pick up the dang phone?!   40-second max for ringtones.

Me – You couldn’t have just said all that at the beginning?

Google – But then all those other pages wouldn’t have gotten any hits!  Share the love.  Now quit your whining and go back to looking for the answers to those xkcd puzzles (yeah, good luck with those).

So, to recap (Windows Vista [please don't make fun of me], iTunes 8.0.2.20, iPhone 2.2.1):

1. Right-click –> Get Info on the track containing the sound bite with which you would like to annoy people in elevators.  Options tab, choose the Start and End times of your clip (keep it around 30 second or less to be safe).  OK.
2. Right-click –> Create AAC Version.  If you see “MP3 Version” instead, change your Import Settings to AAC Encoder.
3. Right-click on the new AAC track –> Show in Windows Explorer.
4. Right-click file in Explorer –> Rename, change extension from .m4a to .m4r.  Double-click the file to import it into iTunes.
5. Sync iPhone (make sure you have checked the option to Sync Ringtones).  Smugly smile, raise middle finger to the nearest representative of The Man.

*For the record, my ringtone is now the opening Prelude from Final Fantasy III.

**I always hear this phrase in House‘s voice now.

OK, I can understand Hummers getting picked on.  They’re big, showy, and have a reputation for a certain kind of driver that would make a very tempting target for any law enforcement.

But why the Scion hate?

The Scion tC is an inexpensive, sporty little coupe targetted at young drivers, modders, and gear-heads.  It’s definitely racer-friendly, but I didn’t think that they were quite that wildly skewed.  But the XB?

My Box?

Toaster-on-wheels?

Yeah, I admit, it looks different.  But does it really scream out “BUST ME!! DANGEROUS DRIVER!!”?  Does anyone think they’re going to see Vin Diesel flying past the screen in one of these any time soon (F&F 7: Screw Aerodynamics!)?

I love my XB, but when I look at them I don’t think “street racer”.  I think most people driving XBs are a bigger risk of something like this.

Maybe that’s it… Often stereotypes are there for a reason, and just as Hummers tend to attract a certain type of aggressive personality, the job of police officer also attracts a certain type of person.  That type that was, perhaps, somewhat physically-oriented in their youth, a “jock”?  Maybe authoritarian roles also bring out those that enjoyed holding power over others, aka: a “bully”?  And if, as I proudly claim, the XB represents the “nerd” car… Maybe the temptation is just too much for some to resist renewing old rivalries?

"What do you mean the ticket fine is 'my lunch money'?"

(As a caveat, and to make sure that every cop in the city doesn’t decide to get that ticket ratio to number 1, I will say that no, I don’t think that EVERY police officer is a frustrated bully working out his power-trip fantasies on the public.  My best friend, who has saved my life almost as many times as he’s put it at risk, is exactly the kind of person you would want protecting society, your home, and your family.  I’ve known many wonderful and honourable men and women in the service.  Of course, I’ve also been attacked and beaten by two different cops, so it’s hard to say.  Gee maybe stereotypes aren’t right 100% of the time…)

Major system issues on my work laptop… sadly, it’s time for the classic Windows Waltz: crash-1-2-3… backup-1-2-3… format-1-2-3… wait-1-2-3…

4-5-6…

install-1-2-3…

Install list:

• 7-zip
• AVG
• CCleaner
• Comical
• Delicious
• DivX
• DOXBox
• Flickr Uploader
• Foxit PDF Reader
• GameTap
• GDocsUploader
• GIMP
• gnucash
• Google Chrome
• IEPro
• Inkscape
• ISO Recorder
• ITunes
• KeePass
• Last.fm
• Launchy
• Thunderbird
• Microsoft Office
• Nestopia
• Network Stumbler
• Notepad++
• OpenOffice.org
• Picasa2
• Scribus
• SecondLife
• Skype
• TrueCrypt
• VLC
• Vuze
• Mozilla Firefox:
  • Adblock Filterset.G Updater
  • Adblock Plus
  • Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper
  • Better Flickr
  • Better GCal
  • Better Gmail 2
  • Better GReader
  • Better YouTube
  • ColorfulTabs
  • ColorZilla
  • Del bookmarks
  • Download Statusbar
  • Download Helper
  • DownThemAll
  • FireFTP
  • GMail Notifier
  • Greasemonkey
    • Google Docs Download
    • Writing Room 4 Google Docs
    • Download YouTube Videos
    • Google Reader for wider screens
  • IE Tab
  • Password Exporter
  • PDF Download
  • Stealther
  • Tiny Menu
  • URL Fixer
• Vista Sidebar Gadgets
  • Network Meter
  • All CPU Meter
  • Top Processes
  • Simple Date
  • Binary Clock
  • Battery Monitor
• Various proprietary work stuff

A couple necessary evils, but looking at this list I’m pretty happy to see that I’ve managed to maintain an almost entirely FOSS work (and play) space.

I’m debating how to segment my “work” computer from my “home/personal” computer, since it’s the same machine.  I’d still like to include an Ubuntu (or maybe Mint) partition, so I could always keep all my “fun” stuff there.  Or a seperate Windows account.  Depends how easy/hard I want to make it for myself to get to the fun time-wastey stuff while I’m in work mode.

The curse of personal responsibility… Any advice?  Or any suggestions for other programs/addons that I might want to look at?  Leave me some love in the comments.

This is one more reason why you should never doubt just how much Prince kicks ass…

Courtesy of Topless Robot’s The Best 11 Songs From Geek-Movie Sountracks

Batman, meet Prince’s dirty mind. Prince’s dirty mind, meet Batman. I’m sure you’ll have a lot to talk about! Man, try to imagine modern-day Warner Bros. and Christopher Nolan turning over the soundtrack for their ponderous Batman Begins to, I dunno, OutKast and you’ll have some idea of how freaking crazy it is that this song and video ever even happened. Torn between his brother-in-mononymhood Batman and his fellow purple enthusiast the Joker, Prince created a hybrid character called Gemini, who presides over a berserk interpretive dance involving women in batsuits, a parade of Vicki Vales led by a woman in a shirt reading “ALL THIS AND BRAINS TOO ” (an homage to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns!), cheeky references to the ’60s TV-show theme that still have over-serious Bat-fans sputtering with fury, collage-style lyrics culled from all of Prince’s other Batman soundtrack songs, and a fucking vicious guitar solo. The end result is a ballsy slab of industrial-dance-funk-rock-madness that proves superhero soundtrack music doesn’t have to be kid-tested and mother-approved.

May the Fourth be with you.

Dude’s just got exactly my sense of humour…

the loneliest number

via WWdN: In Exile by wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton) on 1/31/08

I have a sticker on my car that says, “There is no place like 127.0.0.1″

I get to explain it to a lot of people, and I’m usually rewarded with a blank look, followed by a pitying look, followed by parents holding on tightly to their children as they move away slowly at first, then quickly, never turning their backs on me.

Such is the life of a geek among normals.

My pal R. Stevens, creator of the always-awesome Diesel Sweeties comic, has a new T-shirt with a different take on the 127.0.0.1 joke that hit a little close to 127.0.0.1 for me:

There will be 10 kinds of people in the world: those who get this shirt, and those who don’t.

(Okay, that was taking it just a little to far, I will admit.)

For the record, no that joke’s never too far (and yes, I own the t-shirt), and I totally know what you mean about your car (see my personal example to the right).

Being the resident unofficial techie of my friends, family, and now office, I’m going to allow myself an extra 3d6 minutes of blogging, screwing around with Ubuntu, and randomly flipping through Userfriendly archives.

Geek-break begins… well… I guess about 5 minutes ago when I started writing this.

ahhhh…

… doesn’t mean I’m not thinking about it!

Anyway, I’m on a beach, and I’m just not that hardcore to break out the laptop when there’s sand and water to play in.

Vacation. Girlfriend’s parent’s 2-minutes-from-the-beach cottage. AKA: better things to do.

Of course, I have managed to watch half of the first season of Heroes (gimme a break, I missed the first couple episodes and haven’t had a chance to catch up yet!), start and finish Cory Doctorow’s novel “Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town”, and tonight we’re going to catch a double bill of 300 and Transformers at the local drive-in!!

You can take the boy out of the city, but you can’t take the geek… I mean, you can take the geek out of the boy… no, I mean you can’t take… whatever. I’m a geek. Rawk.

Did you remember to hug your geek?

Finally did it.

Susie (my 4 year old white G3 800mhz Apple iBook) was practically flatlining. Crashes, dropped wifi signals, major system lags… couldn’t even play videos without tons of choppy playback and dropped audio. Never mind the hard drive has been at 99.9% capacity (at least) for the past year (dang indie music blogs!).

I came very close to buying a whole brand spankin’ new macbook, but I just couldn’t justify the finances. And I knew that Susie still had life in her. So I maxed out the RAM a few months back (a whopping 640 megs!). Helped a little. I stripped everything I could off of her, keeping pretty much nothing but my music, photos, and e-mail (still had less than a gig of free space on the hard drive). Done everything I could think of to optimize the software. Still couldn’t even watch a clip on YouTube without it chopping out.

Time for more drastic measures.

I knew what I had to do. First things first: back everything up. Grabbed my backup drive, copied over all the files I wanted to keep. I already had .mac backing up a lot of my system settings and passwords, but just to be sure I wrote down all my essentials. A while ago I grabbed a copy of OS X 10.4, ie: Tiger. I put it in, my plan was to first do a “Archive and Install”, which preserves my current installation while making sure my Tiger install goes smoothly. No such luck unfortunately, some kind of error on my hard drive prevented me from doing anything but a complete erase/format. So with a prayer to the geek gods and a root beer sacrifice, I wiped Susie out and put a Tiger in her tank! (hard drive, whatever.)

So far so good, she’s running like a dream! I’m being very picky about what goes in here. Quicksilver and Firefox so far. I’m going to try and stay open source as much as possible. OpenOffice.org (or maybe NeoOffice), GIMP, and the granddaddy of them all: Linux.

And with all the love for Ubuntu these days (like the article below for example), and my own brief but very positive experience, I know exactly what I want to do to add another “personality” to my little white weapon!