When I finally managed to get my new iphone, the first thing tatianamik & internetbrain say is "You have to get Pandora Radio". At first I'm wondering why on earth would I want an internet radio station on my phone when I can use my entire iTunes Library at last.. but then rhast piped in and said I needed to check it out so I caved. So will you when you hear about all of this.

One of the difficult parts for me was having to wrap my head around what Pandora actually is. It really is like flipping through radio stations. Each 'station' will have themes, similarities, etc. How it obtains those 'seeds' are up to you. For better explanation, I'm going to take you through the process of getting setup. It's how my mind works, so bare with me.

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There are a lot more options and tons more information in the FAQ. I strongly suggest going through it sometime.

My only real wish is that I'd be able to listen to Pandora on my iphone in the background. But that's not Pandora's fault, that's an Apple decision.

Bleh..

Really, I haven't been posting because I haven't had much to say. Been in and out of a depressed funk since I've been home. Most of it is just dealing with leftover stress from my trip. Getting used to things down here again is rough. I'm loving being home but it's not easy.

One of the best things, if y'all haven't figured it out by now, is that I managed to get an iPhone this past Monday. Woke up and went with quu to work, tatianamik actually going with us. After dropping Quu off at work, Tanya and I went over to North Point Mall where there is an Apple store. It opens at 10:00 am and we probably get there around 10:45 am. There is already a line, and they are already sold out. A bit frustrated, I drag Tanya over to the Gamestop or whatever it is that is there in the mall and ask if they have any Wii Fits... none. We then walk over and end up touring in the Waldenbooks for a bit. See all sorts of blank journals and whatnot, but I already have tons. Nearly got some book marks, but Tanya persuaded me to check back at the Apple store one more time to see if I could get a card to cut in line the next day. We get down there and one of the apple clerks is handing out more tickets. I ask, and yep.. they had gotten more instock while we were away. All they had left where some 8gigs and some 16gigs in white. Ick.. but.. I can live with it. Get a card and the two of us stay in line for probably two hours.

The line was pretty ok. A young guy and an older man behind us, a 'business casual' guy in front of us. Talked to some people who were asking questions before moving on. My knees were hurting bad by the time we get in, but it was livable. At long last we get up at the front of the line and after what seemed like forever had a sale's rep free up. I go in, give him my ticket and he heads back to go get it out of the stock room. I'm looking at the cases and stuff until he returns. When he does so, he hands me a box, and I notice it's black. My initial reaction was happy surprise! Maybe they had a black 16 gig! But then i notice... 8gig. WTF? Yea, he proceeds to tell me they didn't have anymore in stock. My brain is going "WTF, WHY ME?!" while my mouth keeps saying "She had more cards, there are others BEHIND me who have been told they had them in stock!" He says, "We're sold out of the 16gigs, but you can make due with an 8gig right?" I flat out tell him no, it's not enough. I should have told him "Hun, my house measures in terabytes, not gigs, so no this isn't going to be nearly big enough." He heads back into the stock room to check once more and I'm about ready to burst into tears while Tanya is ready to go nuclear and destroy the store. At least she was thinking "Can she at least get a card to get one tomorrow so she can skip the line?". Anyway, the guy comes back... with a shiny white box in his hands. "Luckily the manager had set some aside as 'emergency stock' for just these occasions." Yea, right. I know for a fact that the flat rule to all Apple and ATT stores is "SELL THEM ALL". They are not supposed to hold any back for whatever reason. Hell, Quu's seen memo's that went out to all ATT employees saying "If you don't -need- one, let the customers get them first."

So, I get my 16gig in white, nearly freak because Tanya forgot to warn me we needed a credit card, but thankfully Quu had just made me zero out my Discover card. I was waiting for him to say "we don't accept discover" in all honesty. But then next thing I know it's mine, it's activated, and I'm heading over to the accessories in this state of shock. They didn't have any docking stations, but that's ok. It's useful but not needed. Got a case but not sure if I'm going to stick with it or not. It has a belt clip as well as an armband. Nifty huh? Also got the car charger (with extra wall plug and mini usb cable) and a retractable Aux cable.

All in all I'm quite happy with it. Still getting used to it, but that's expected. I can now ditch all the "Agendus" software I had, which is good as it kept crashing my Outlook. I do need to go in and clean up my contacts though. A few things I don't like: Can't edit/rotate pictures I've synced from my computer, aim gets wiggy due to the 'no background processes' shit from apple, limit of 10 custom ringtones, still very very few Apps for it yet. I'm waiting for a blogging app for LJ and Wordpress. Web Apps galore but still few native apps. It will come in time though. My biggest love is Pandora radio. I'm gonna make a new post about that later.

Anyway, I've spent far too long typing this up.

Please please please see the updated version of the tutorial on my wordpress blog:

http://lethann.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/update-howto-make-your-own-custom-ringtones-for-iphone-20-3g/

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Replacing this with the better writeup I had over on my Wordpress blog.

Yesterday I purchased my new 16gig iphone and was very happy to wave goodbye to my old Treo 650 which had lived long beyond it’s mileage. It wasn’t until late last night when I was playing around with my custom settings that I found out I couldn’t add my own custom ringtones. My friend informed me that Apple had set it up that you had to pay double through the itunes store in order to get them which greatly upset me.

This morning I decided to do a bit of research. My friend linked me a nice program that did all the snipping and importing of the songs for you, but it was a paid program with only a small taste test of what you could do. This was not pleasing to me. I am a music and ringtone junky. I love to have my friends each have their own ringtone so I know who’s calling with out even looking.

Unable to find anywhere that explained a simple way to do your own ringtones without paying for it, I tried multiple ways to get the ringtone into itunes, all without success. Finally broke down and tried the paid software demo. My hunch paid off and I found out what I needed.

1) Pick out your Source – I’ve got a pretty extensive library, but I want to make sure that the song is loud enough to jar my attention when it’s ringing, as well as clear enough to make out.

2) Edit your clip – Most songs start out soft or have a blank second or so in the front. That is not good for a ringtone. Most of my ringtones are around 20 seconds long, but I think you can go longer. Since I’m a PC person, I just use the free Wavepad from NCH Software.

3) Save your clip in M4A format – Most audio editors should be able to do this, or you can use a file converter. Switch from NCH Software is perfect if you need to do bulk conversions. There are also multiple online file converters. A good list is over on MakeUseOf.

4) Change extension to M4R – I just open up the folder I saved my ringtones to and edit it straight in the OS. Don’t worry about any warnings you get about it being possibly unusable.

5) Drag the M4R into iTunes – M4R is a useable format for iTunes so all you have to do is drag it into iTunes and it will add it to the Ringtones library. I’ve read before that it’s a good idea to add only one ringtone at a time or you might get multiples of the same ringtone rather than all of your different ones.

6) Sync your iPhone – You can now choose the custom ringtone from your list. Your overall ringtone is in the Settings/Sounds menu. If you edit your contacts directly you can assign custom ringtones for each one.

Yes folks, it’s as simple as that. As far as I know this should work for both PC and MAC users. I don’t think there is a limit on how many or how large your ringtones can be, but I’m not exactly sure so be careful with your experiments. Remember that your phone rolls over to voicemail after a certain time period so it’s pointless to make anything longer than that. Typically shorter ones will loop, but I haven’t tried it out myself just yet.

Enjoy!

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UPDATE: After adding my other ringtones, the iphone itself is limited to carrying only 10 ringtones at once. Sad Leth. If someone finds out differently without jailbreaking their phone, please comment and let me know.