Christmas tree 2007

Christmas tree 2007 – via Flickr

How To: Replace .Mac services with the free alternatives

In my opinion Apple’s .Mac service is rather slow, somewhat unreliable and it’s quiet expensive. Did you know that you can have all .mac-alike services for free? Truth is, they wont be all in one place and as integrated in the Mac OS X, but they will do the job just as well.

Bookmarks Synchronization: Many people love the bookmarks synchronization offered in .Mac.Free alternatives:

Bookmarks Synchronizer 1.0.1: Bookmarks Synchronizer is a Mozilla Firefox extension that let you connect to an FTP/WebDAV server and synchronize your bookmarks that are stored in an XML file. Setup is easy; just write in your FTP/WebDAV server address, username, password and a name for the XML file. Safari users read this and this. I am sure there is a better way of syncing your Safari bookmarks. You can (if you are adventurous) make an apple script that will back up all your bookmarks to remote server.

Web Design: NVU is a complete Web Authoring System for Linux desktop also available for Mac and Windows. NVU doesn’t have fancy templates but it has some really nice and powerful features. Plus, you can download free templates from the Internet, import them in NVU and customize the way you want it. Alternatively, read this.

E-mail: .Mac e-mail is the most popular feature in the whole .Mac story. You have to admit that .mac mail is often too slow and it can be irritating. My personal favourites when it comes to e-mail messaging are gmail and yahoo mail . Both services will offer over 1 GB of storage space and they are very reliable. They can be configured easily to work with Mail. app or any other e-mail client.

Exchanging files: Exchanging files can be done by opening a free FTP account and then use your favourite FTP client to manipulate your data online. But why bother when you can open a free account at http://www.box.net for your backups and the file exchange. Box.net also has a widget that can be embedded into a website or a blog for easier file sharing.I have already explained how to share your iPhoto images in my previous articles, but I would recommend you to use Flickr for hosting your images. All you need is one of the free iPhoto plug-ins to export all your albums directly on the web.

More plug-ins… I think that now you’ve got everything that .Mac offers for free or almost free as you may find some software to be shareware application. If you still prefer .Mac simplicity and features, go to http://www.apple.com/dotmac/ and buy a copy.

How to: Creating your own ringtones

Many people online are asking where they can download free ringtones for their mobile phones. Mobile providers are usually charging ringtones and they are getting more and more expensive every day. Did you know that you can make your own ringtones on your mac very easily using the software that is free? In this article I’m going to show you how to do it in a few easy steps.

Software you will need: iTunes (It already comes as a part of iLife app. just check if you have newest version installed- 7.0.1) Audacity (Free open-source audio editor and recorder) iTunes -LAME encoder (The iTunes-LAME Encoder combines the simple interface of iTunes with the high quality of the LAME encoder)

Step 1: Preparing a song: Now when you have all the software that you will need, you are ready to start preparing your music. You can either rip your song (s) from an audio CD using iTunes or you can use an mp3 song that you already have on your computer. If you are ripping songs from your CD’s, I’d recommend you to do it with iTunes Lame encoder rather then using just iTunes app. Your ringtone does not have to be in a full MP3 quality so you can lower the bit-rate to 48Kbps when encoding. If you already have an mp3 song in your iTunes music library, make a copy of the song and re-encode it.

Step 2: Additional Tweaking: When you have prepared your song to be used as a ringtone, you can now use Audacity software to “fine tune” it. In Audacity you can trim the parts of a song that you want to use ( if you don’t want to use a whole song), or you can add echo and other cool effects to your ringtone.

Step 3: Sending ringtones to your phone: Now when you have made your ringtone and if you are happy with how does it sound, you will need to upload it to your mobile phone. Depends on your mobile phone model, you can do it either using Bluetooth or DCC (Direct Cable Connection). For more information’s about your phone features, visit the website of your mobile phone maker.

What if my phone does not support MP3 format?: In that case, you’d need some ringtone converters which enable you to converting your rintones into various formats ( polyphonic – midi ) that are supported by your phone. “Coding Workshop Ringtone Converter” is a good one. ($US 18,95).

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Are you ready for the Holiday season? [The geek edition]

It’s the Holiday season! We are busy buying presents and putting up Christmas decorations. If you are a geek, there is so much more to it. Here is the quick list of what every geek should do to make sure that has everything prepared for the upcoming holidays. Ho, ho, ho!

1. Make sure to update software. There is a software we don’t use every day and thus forget to update when the new version becomes available. You can use versiontracker.com to see if the new versions are available. Some software has “check for updates” option, so use that instead.

2. Redeem your wii points and if you are an XBOX fan, don’t forget to extend xbox live subscription. You will be playing more over the holidays with your friends and family.

3. Check your local TV guide and make sure you have your TiVo’s and PVR’s ready. There will be a lot of holiday specials that you might want to record.

4. Hand-make holiday cards for your geek friends. You can even use old computer parts to do it.

5. If you can, organize pre-Christmas LAN party. Geeks like those.

Drink and eat responsibly and enjoy the holidays. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Vinyl [photo]

Do you still like vinyl records? Some of my favorite ones… Via Flickr.