Create iPhone Ringtone

Select track in Itunes and Right Click/Get Info

Under Options set the start time and End time so that the track is no more than 40 seconds in length.

Click OK

Right Click/Create AAC Version

[iTunes will then create a 40 second version of the track]

Right click on the (newly created) track and Show In Windows Explorer

You then need to change the file extension from m4a to m4r

[in order to see file extensions in Windows Explorer Press Alt (to see the File menu) Tools/Folder Options/View and then uncheck Hide extensions for known file types]

[Then you probably don’t want to see file extensions in future so reverse this process]

Drag and drop the new file into iTunes and it should then appear under Ringtones

Go back to your original file and reset the playing time by unchecking the time Options.

Premiership Predictions

Saturday, 9 May 2009
Blackburn v Portsmouth, 15:00
Both sides are almost safe considering the sides beneath them but both could do with the reassurance of three points.
1-1

Bolton v Sunderland, 15:00
These sides are in a similar position with Sunderland being the more desperate of the two. The home side might just demonstrate their slight superiority.
2-0

Everton v Tottenham, 15:00
It would be an embarrassment for Spurs were they to finish in the bottom half of the table. That looks unlikely but here they face the ever resolute Everton.
2-0

Fulham v Aston Villa, 15:00
Have just avoided relegation last season after inheriting Lawrie Sanchez's haphazard squad, Roy Hodgson has worked wonders put Fulham in contention for a European place - Everton are guaranteed a place in next season's Europa League by virtue of their place in this year's FA Cup Final so seventh place will also gain entry.
1-1

Hull v Stoke, 15:00
Hull's precipitous progress has continued unabated since Phil Brown conducted his half time time talk on the pitch against Man City. At least his moustache was for charity, that act made him look like a pillock who may come to regret it as he looks up from The Championship next season.
1-1

West Brom v Wigan, 15:00
It's still mathematically possible for West Brom to stay up if all four relegation candidates from the North East pick up zero points in the remaining three games. With Boro playing Newcastle, at least one of them has to pick up some points. Despite The Baggies' precarious position they have continued to demonstrate a zest for playing football which is to be admired. However, no amount of admiration can secure a place on the Premiership. Wigan are safe so could well turn off the gas.
2-0

West Ham v Liverpool, 17:30
If Liverpool fail to gain anything but three points the title race will be well and truly over. West Ham have lost seven times at home this season so a victory is not beyond the in form Liverpool.
1-2

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Sunday, 10 May 2009
Arsenal v Chelsea, 16:00
Both teams showed themselves up midweek: Arsenal for their lack of experience and Chelsea for their lack of dignity. If Liverpool lose on Saturday, victory for Chelsea would still keep them in third place due to Liverpool's superior goal difference. Therefore, it's possible we might see two sides going toe to toe in an attempt to regain the respect of their peers.
3-2

Man Utd v Man City, 13:30
Home advantage will surely tell in what is likely to be a combustible fixture, especially if United know they have to win. City would love to upset the apple cart and take the title advantage away from their cross city rivals.
2-1

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Monday, 11 May 2009
Newcastle v Middlesbrough, 20:00
Both sides are in the bottom three with 31 points. Southgate has surely spent too long in his first job as manager and Shearer might be thinking that he shouldn't have taken the job in the first place. This is too close to call.
0-0

Premiership Predictions

Saturday, 2 May 2009
Chelsea v Fulham, 15:00
The West London derby. Fulham are safe and Chelsea could yet steal second place from Liverpool and guarantee themselves Champions League football next season. Therefore, Chelsea to win.
2-1

Man City v Blackburn, 15:00
Blackburn are not strictly safe from relegation but showed enough fight at the weekend to give their fans the encouragement that Rovers will be playing at Old Trafford and Anfield rather than Vicarage Road and Portman Road. That said, Man City are so unpredictable. Robinho seems to be flourishing again now that we have something resembling summer.
2-0

Middlesbrough v Man Utd, 12:45
United are top of the league and reigning champions but have hardly enthralled all season but it's hard to see them being concerned about a visit to the Riverside. Middlesbrough can turn it on against the better sides and a win for them would re-enliven the race for the title but they are so out of form.
0-2

Portsmouth v Arsenal, 15:00
Victory for Pompey will cement their place in the Premiership next year and Arsenal will be more focused on Tuesday's Champions League game.
1-1

Stoke v West Ham, 15:00
Few people outside Staffordshire expected Stoke to be playing for anything more than pride at this stage of the season. Furthermore, did anyone expect Zola to have such a successful first season as manager? Games such as this are hard to call at this stage of the season because other than absolutely guaranteeing another season in the Premiership, Stoke have nothing to play for and West Ham won't gain a European place.
4-3

Tottenham v West Brom, 15:00
Redknapp will no doubt blame someone else if his side come unstuck here. They are only playing West Brom so his excuse will have to be pretty big. The game could swing on West Brom accepting their fate, relaxing and catching a complacent Spurs off guard.
1-1

Wigan v Bolton, 15:00
Wigan outplayed Blackburn last week and lost 2-0 at home. The chance of redemption in the North West comes quickly. It won't be easy against Megson's sluggers but Wigan should have the quality to see them past such obstreperous opposition.
2-1
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Sunday, 3 May 2009
Liverpool v Newcastle, 13:30
"Alan Shearer - the worst caretaker since Ian Huntley" Or so they've been saying in some corners of Tyneside. The press have been reading the last rites to the Geordie Messiah this week, knowing that they face a difficult task against title contenders Liverpool. Liverpool have scored more goals against Newcastle than any other team. The omens are not in The Magpies favour.
3-0

Sunderland v Everton, 16:00
Everton lost one of their key players, Phil Jagielka, to injury this week. Their place in Europe next season is guaranteed from both their league position and their place in the FA Cup Final. It would be understandable if they were to take their foot off the gas here.
1-0

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Monday, 4 May 2009
Aston Villa v Hull, 20:00
Villa are in a similar position to Everton. European football is guaranteed and they have no chance of catching Arsenal is fourth. Hull are not yet safe.
1-2

iPhone 3G Review

This is my first iPhone so can't compare it to the original. Up until recently I had an iPod Photo from 2005. Upon setting up the SIM card I immediately upgraded the OS to 2.2 so I won't write about how it works straight from the box.

Aside from the fact that it's a cool piece of kit, I wanted to upgrade my phone and have one device for my music and phone. The iPhone is perfect because it allows me to sync my existing iTunes library whereas other phones would require me to set something up from scratch. Additionally, as mobile providers charge more and more for downloads the inclusion of an unlimited (but within reason) download limit was also attractive so that I don't have to pay through the roof to check my emails when I'm out and about.

Texting
I use my phone for texting more than anything so I was a little concerned that my chunky thumbs wouldn't be able to type properly on the touch screen keypad. Texting is far easier than I had feared. I was able to type quite quickly albeit in an error prone fashion. If you accept that it will correct your typos you can generally type quickly. When I was just using my (right) index finger I kept hitting b or v instead of the space bar. I have improved that since I started using my thumb to press the keypad and index finger for letters. I sometimes use my middle finger in a three-pronged attack. The Apple demo video shows someone using both thumbs in the same way that my friend types on her Blackberry but I'm not comfortably doing this with my chunky thumbs. I probably could if I gave it a chance but it doesn't feel right to me. I can also type old school, with one hand using just my thumb. I'm still having to go back and correct a few mistakes if I type quickly but the one real drawback of using a touchscreen to type is that one can't type without looking - because there's no keys to feel. [Since writing this a few months ago I've now taken on typing with both thumbs or just one thumb if i'm out and about]

The SMS interface is different to all other phones I've seen. Rather than dividing texts into Inbox, Drafts, Outbox, Sent it displays messages per user as a continuous chat. This is good because it enables to look at the message you're replying to without closing a current composition. It also adds a feelgood factor by seeing a "chat" with a friend. However, the disadvantages are that, without an outbox, it's easy to miss that fact that you haven't sent a message (which I did on New Year's Eve and realised three days' later). Also, if you reply in quick succession to a message it only displays the time that the "conversation" started unless there's a reasonable amount of time between messages so you can't always be sure when you received/sent a particular message.

My other gripe with chat system texting is that you can't add a new recipient in the middle of a chat. If you receive a message and then want to reply with the same message to more than one person you have to start a new message and individually add each person. This is time consuming because you can't multi-select and add recipients.

MMS
iPhone current supports no MMS. If you receive one you get a text directing you to a website. However, the O2 website is not enhanced for mobiles so you have to zoom in - O2 should fix this. It seems likely that Apple will update the OS to incorporate MMS in the near future.


Email
Emailing is good, using Gmail IMAP so that I have access to all my folders. Doesn't currently allow push (immediate) email unless you're on MS Exchange, yahoo or Mobile Me (a subscription service) but it's thought that push email will soon come for google mail. You can view attachments such as MS Word, MS Excel and Adobe Acrobat but there's no way of saving them.

Contacts

Contacts can be synced with Windows Contacts or Outlook but not Windows Live Mail contacts. I had hoped to sync with my google calendar but instead used Outlook and synced that with google.

Camera
Camera is 2MP but much quicker and therefore more effective than the 3.2MP autofocus on my Samsung U600. The quality is good enough for snapshots taken out and about but not of a high enough quality for serious photography. But, I always think you'd want a proper camera if you're going to get that serious about photos.

Web Browsing
3G is pretty fast as long as you find yourself in an area with a 3G signal. However, web browsing is not that fast using the phone's in built Safari browser. Even on a WiFi connection is takes a while to load the pages. This is particularly noticeable when loading content heavy pages such as guardian.co.uk. No preferences can be set for the browser so there's no obvious way of clearing cookies and history. Without a 3G or Edge, web browsing is excruciatingly slow.

Battery Life
According to some reviewers and bloggers battery life has been improved in OS 2.2 but I can't compare it. Battery life is not long but it's to be expected considering the fact that it's essentially a small computer in your palm. Battery life is dependant on use and will last longer without 3G and WiFi. As it's still new and I've had some time off I've spent a lot of time using the phone which requires me to charge it every day but if I used it less frequently or "normally" I'm sure it would last longer.

iPod
I've only used the headphones which come in the box but the sound is an improvement on the Ipod photo I previously owned. There's greater depth of sound, even in traffic. It will also ring and play message alerts when listening to music, fading out and in accordingly. Alternatively, the phone can be set to silent/vibrate so that it won't disturb your playback.

Navigation is much quicker than on the old iPod but that should go without saying.

The iPhone and more recent models allow for gapless playback, eliminating the annoying half a second gap which would occur on live albums or Sgt Peppers.

General Use
There's not much of an instruction book and you need to watch the demo video on the Apple website to get the best use of it. The phone is easy to navigate with the touch screen which responds very well. It's only when using the slow web browser that it can be a little infuriating.

Applications
Applications can be downloaded directly to the phone over WiFi or 3G. It's extremely slow or impossible to download Apps on a slower connection but they can be downloaded via iTunes on your Mac/PC and installed. Some apps are pre-installed on the iPhone running 2.2 OS:

Maps has GPS and directions. Useful, but slower is you only have a 2G connection.

Podcasts can be downloaded over 3G provided that they're less than 10MB, otherwise it's WiFi only - just like purchases from the iTunes store. These purchases will transfer to your main library when you sync with your PC/Mac.
On a PC, at least, the syncing is quite slow. It's good that it creates a backup of the phone (and you can cancel this facility) but it seems to take much longer than it does an older models to update music. [Note, since writing this, syncing is much quicker following an OS upgrade]

I bought it from the O2 shop and Visual Voicemail was not set up by default. I had to check the o2 website to find out how to activate it. The server seemed to timeout when I initially tried to set up my password but worked after a while. I never get a great deal of voicemail but it's a really useful function - provided that the caller hasn't withheld their number.

No speed-dial by number but you can have a list of favourites and select from there - but this doesn't seem as speedy as opening the keypad and holding down a number (of course, that system requires that you memorise 8 numbers because you can't override 1 (voice mail) or 0(+ symbol).

Other info
BBC iPlayer can be watched over WiFi (only).

DVDs can be converted using software from the internet or you can by/rent from the iTunes store but only from a PC/Mac.
A lot of youtube is available but I don't think it's not as quick as when using a PC/Mac.

One can use the GPS to geo-tag photos.

Home key returns everything. Seems to allow only one application at a time. Don't seems to be able to navigate through different open apps. If you're using one App and you get a text, once done with that text you have to press the home key and then open the App again. It remembers your last position but it would be good and quicker (albeit more resource hungry) to flick between active apps.

Volume rocker on the side is convenient for pocket use, rather than unlocking an iPod and then turning the wheel.
Headphones come with a built-in speaker/remote. When listening to iPod one-click pauses and two-clicks skips tracks which is particularly handy if you're shuffling through 3000 songs. One click will also answer the one and it serves as the hands-free speaker. However, my clicker has now become a bit fussy about what it will and won't do.

Comes with a a few basic ringtones but it's simple to create your own for free. Apple UK isn't yet set up to create your own from the music that you've bought but there are videos on youtube which tell you how to get around this.

Alarm clock doesn't seem to wake up from sleep, like other phones do. If you don't want to be woken up by a call in the night you can switch to Airplane mode which turns off the phone function of the iPhone but sometimes you'd just like to turn it off overnight. A lot of people (me at least) use their mobile as their alarm clock.

Clock is set automatically (and accurately) unlike other phone which purport to do this but don't.
No crashing yet although I did have a couple of Apps which crashed but worked on re-install.

In A Market Down In New Orleans

Today was largely given over to a hangover. I met a friend for a couple of drinks last night but he had to go home fairly early. I saw a friend in the pub across the road and joined him. I played darts with him and his friends. At the end of the night I got up on stage and mimed Brown Sugar. There was no one in the room to see it.

I've only got 100 pages left of Don DeLillo's Libra. I've really enjoyed it. Now watching MOTD in bed but might read more after it finishes.

This morning's run

Where I went this morning:

Premiership Predictions

Saturday, 25 April 2009
Bolton v Aston Villa, 15:00
Next season's Champions League is clearly beyond Villa's grasp. They're only a point ahead of Everton and have a weaker goal difference but they're nine points clear of seventh place West Ham. Bolton will like the comfort of getting the magic number of 40 points (enough to stay up in most seasons) and should present a challenge to a tiring Villa.
1-0

Everton v Man City, 15:00
The Toffeemen don't seem to give up. If they had more money to spend I could see them challenging the top four. Man City are a farce, especially on the road. Hughes's prospects of being their manager next season are dim.
2-1

Fulham v Stoke, 15:00
Roy Hodgson has turned Fulham from relegation battlers to being a comfortable Premier League side. His problem in future might be keeping his better players. As it stands, his side are good enough to beat Stoke who are almost safely in next season's Premier League.
2-0

Hull v Liverpool, 15:00
What price 4-4? Liverpool's midweek game was full of thrills and spills but mostly spills in the form of defensive errors. Before Arsenal scored it looked as though The Gunners weren't that bothered and that Liverpool would eventually score. A lapse by Mascherano lead to the first goal and opened up the contest. Liverpool might be emotionally drained from that game but it's hard to see Hull capitalising on that. I was in Hull this time last week.
0-3

Man Utd v Tottenham, 17:30
Spurs haven't won at Old Trafford since 1989. I think Redknapp has a good record against Ferguson. A loss for United would open up the title race once more but with the trophy within touching distance I can't see the Champions slipping up.
1-0

West Brom v Sunderland, 15:00
West Brom have no chance of remaining in the top flight. For all Mowbray's pragmatism about playing good football he hasn't got the results. Being at home, against a Sunderland side who are almost safe, might yield three points for the Baggies.
2-0

West Ham v Chelsea, 15:00
East meets West as the Hammers taken on the Blues. Chelsea could only eek out a stale draw midweek and will not relish the trip across London. Chelsea's title hopes are all but over but they should be keen on a second place finish.
1-1

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Sunday, 26 April 2009
Arsenal v Middlesbrough, 13:30
A win here would still leave Boro in the bottom three. That won't happen so they might as well save their energy for next season's Championship battle.
3-1

Blackburn v Wigan, 16:00
I would love to see Big Sam get relegated. He's an obnoxious Cry Baby. Therefore Wigan to win.
0-2

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Monday, 27 April 2009
Newcastle v Portsmouth, 20:00
The Magpies are counting on winning their remaining home games to stay up. It would be incredibly humiliating for Alan Shearer if he becomes the man to take them down. With the roar of the crowd and a Portsmouth team who will now have a keen eye on their summer holidays, Newcastle should get three points here.
2-0