net4mac - Social network service for Mac users

net4mac is a brand new social networking service on the interwebs. Just when you think that there can’t be any more social networking services, a new one comes up and surprises you. net4mac is a bit different and it’s solely for Mac users. If you want to register an account, you can’t do it from the web browser as you usually would. Instead, you have to download standalone Mac OS X application that is kind of like a small web browser and then you will be able to register and use all features. This is good in my opinion because only Mac users can register. The bad thing is that the application works only on Tiger and Leopard but not on Panther.

When you install the application, you will be prompted to fill in your profile on where you will be asked about the Mac hardware you own and some personal info. It’s kind of annoying so you can skip it and finish it later after you explore the whole thing. Upon registration procedure, you should look for some friends and join user groups that interest you. The usual features include: events (which looks like iCal), Chat, and Classified Listings where you can sell or buy mac related things by posting an ad which other people can see.

So what’s good about net4mac? Well, I spent two days testing it and apart from mac os x only application that I really love, I haven’t found anything that would take net4mac out of other social networking services. On the contrary, it has less features then Facebook or Myspace and it can’t be compared to Linkedin. net4mac should be for all Mac only professionals and enthusiasts, but I can’t see a single thing to justify that. There is plenty of room for improvements, and I want to believe that the team behind net4mac will realize that, and add some more features to it’s service.

iPod touch in brief

I got my 16GB iPod touch last Thursday as I already reported in my previous post. When I first opened it, I was quite surprised to see that the iPod was already jailbroken straight from the box! The box was sealed and it was a brand new although it was not bought directly from Apple. It came with 1.1.4 firmware but I did not have apple apps on it (mail,weather and google maps). I only had YouTube and a few third-party apps on it. People recommend that I restore my iPod and jailbreak it again and I did so. 

After that, I had all apple apps and a third-party one as well. I had to manually install chat client from sources. Here is a good tip, if you miss a chat client on your ipod touch, just install Mobile Chat client from sources by navigating to: “http://twenty08.com/installer”. This will add a new category “Twenty08” in installer app. from where you can install mobile chat on your iPod touch. I want to thank my friend Peter and people from Mac Format magazine forum who provided very helpful suggestions and tips. I am sure I will be writing more about iPod touch tips and tricks, and I am also preparing a video presentation of some cool hacks I discovered.  

Youtube: Sex,lies and videotapes

It has been months now since youtube announced that they will increase video bit rate but that hasn’t yet happened. I was just browsing some videos on youtube (movie trailers mostly) to see if the videos are now in better quality. I haven’t noticed much of a difference. I am sure that Internet nowadays is capable of streaming higher quality video material so I don’t quite understand as for why YouTube is hesitating on improving the system? I was really looking forward to streaming high quality videos on my computer, the Wii and on iPod, but it does not look promising so far? Other youtube type websites like Daily Motion are much more advanced when it comes to the video quality but they are still less popular with users. YouTube, what the heck are you waiting for?

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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Kill -myspace

I wish there was a command like this! I really hate Myspace social networking service. I have an account on myspace which I created ages ago because I had some friends on it at the time. I have never really used it because it wasn’t fun at all, but if you want to view other people profiles, you have to be logged in. Over the years, myspace has become more popular with teenagers who were enjoying (and still do) decorating their myspace profiles with all the things that are considered a big no-no in the world of web design. That includes bulky animated backgrounds of 2+ MB photos, background music that plays automatically when the page loads up, unreadable fonts and screaming colours. Apart from the fact that a page looks incredibly ugly for the eyes that are sore from all the colours and flashing, it also takes ages for a page like that to load even on the high-speed Internet connection.Finally, I’ve decided to delete my myspace account. I did not want to use the service anymore and I wanted to remove all the profile information that I had on it. Every social networking site that allows you to create an account on it also has an option for a user to delete it if one do not want to use it anymore. The procedure is very simple. All that has to be done is to enter an e-mail address that the account was registered with and when you get a return e-mail, you need to click on the link to confirm account termination. Guess what, myspace has it too! Does it work? No! I have gone through the procedure of terminating the account over and over, but I can still log in to myspace with my username or password. Here is how myspace describes the whole procedure of how to delete your account:

How do I delete my account?If you wish to permanently terminate your MySpace account, start by clicking “Home” in the top navigation menu from any MySpace web page. From your personal home page, click the “Account Settings” next to your default picture. From your “Change Account Settings” page, click the “Cancel Account” link, found just above the “My Account Settings”. On the “Cancel My Account” page, click the “Cancel My Account” button. Check the email account that you used to create your account. Follow the instructions in that email to delete your account. Keep in mind, cancelling your MySpace account will PERMANENTLY REMOVE all of your profile information from MySpace, including your photographs, comments, blogs, and your personal network of friends. This information cannot be restored. You may re-register with your current email address after canceling, but you will need to rebuild your personal network from scratch.

It looks straightforward when you read it but in reality it wont work. I did everything as written above not once but more then ten times, and I still have an active myspace account. I thought maybe I need to give it some time (say 48 hrs.) for the system to terminate my account, but that hasn’t happened. Some services would automatically delete your account if you are not using it for a long time. As I am a Mac user, I thought that I might try the same procedure on my Windows PC. I’ve tried it from Firefox and IE 7 but no avail.Considering all this, it turns out that myspace is abusing their own users by not allowing them to cancel their account in any way. How legal is this I wonder? If you have any workaround of how to delete myspace account, please, post a comment. For the record, News corp. sucks!

How to: Create a custom search engine with Google

Did you know that you can create your own search engine using Google CSE. Google custom search engine beta enables you to specify web sites that you want to search rather then searching the entire web. For instance, I’ve created a search engine that will search only popular social networking websites and embedded it into my iGoogle page. So here is how you can create your own search engine in just a few steps:

1. Click here to go to CSE start page.

2. Before you begin, you have to name your search engine, write a brief description of it, select preferred language and websites you want to include.

3. You can also specify whether or not to display google ads on your query.

4. Once created, you can try it out by typing a keyword in the search box.

That is all that has to be done! Easy huh? You can also customize the look and feel of your search box and you can embed it into your blog or a website.

How to: Get help online

What if you have a computer problem and you don’t know how to solve it on your own? You want to buy a new gadget, a mobile phone or a gaming console but you are not sure which would be the best one for you? So what can you do to get your question answered? The answer is simple - The Internet! In the pre w.w.w era, people were using BBS (Bulletin Board System) to exchange informations. Nowadays, the most popular way of online communication is an Internet forum. An Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. Advantage of participating in an online forum is that you have a quick and easy access to a huge amount of useful stack informations. Most of modern online forums will require you to register for their servers by creating a unique user-name and password. Before posting on the forum, it’s recommended to read forum guidelines so you don’t break any rules. When you ask a question on the forum, you sure want to get it answered as soon as possible. Here are a few guidelines on how to post your question.

Let’s say that you have a problem with your computer. It does not properly boot or it won’t boot at all:

1. When describing a problem, try to provide all information about your computer first. Is it a mac or a pc, what kind of operating system you are running, how much RAM memory do you have installed etc.

2. Don’t write too much about irrelevant things. Focus on what is important and keep it short. If you write two pages describing your problem, it’s very likely that you will turn off people from reading your post and thus your question wont be answered. People will ask you to provide additional information if they need it.

3. Remember that not every forum member has to be a geek and know everything so always read all replies before deciding which one is the best. Ignore spammers and bots.

4. You have to be patient. It sometimes takes days to get a reply to your question. You are not the only one posting and people are not always online so be patient. Always search the Internet (google, yahoo…) before posting on the forum because maybe your question has already been answered.

Another scenario is that you want to buy something and are asking for advice. It does not matter what you are buying you have to say how much you are willing to spend and what you need. If you say buying an MP3 player, it’s important to say what music file-types you prefer (MP3, WMA OGG), what features you need (do you need video capable mp3 player, do you need an FM tuner built -in etc.). Online forums wont tolerate cursing, insulting other members, uploading illegal files or music. If you don’t want to be banned, you need to follow the rules. If you are a forum newbie, and you want to do something that you think it might be breaking terms of service, ask the forum moderator if you can do it first.

External links:

Netiquette: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netiquette

PC Guide forum: http://www.pcguide.com/vb/

Mac OS X forum: http://forums.osxfaq.com/index.php

Linux forum: http://www.linux.org/user/

Music related: http://forums.ilounge.com/

Sir Elton John wants to “Close down the Internet”

In a story from the British newspaper “The Sun,” Sir Elton John is calling for the internet to be closed down. How can someone who never used the Internet say that the Internet should be closed down because it’s “destroying good music”? Sir Elton John admits in the interview that he doesn’t own a mobile phone, an iPod or anything tech. related. Let’s say I don’t watch television at all and then I say ” Hey, let’s close all TV stations down because they are not good for our children”, but I never watched anything on TV. Sir Elton John is trying to stop music piracy in a very ugly way but he has a website of his own and posting on his forum requires a $40 fan membership. I am also against illegal copying and distribution of music but I can’t say that i would close down the Internet because of that. Sir Elton, please concentrate on writing music and leave technology to people who know about it.

My Nabaztag tag has finally arrived

Ready to unpack it…

Almost done…

Weather: Sunny!

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VLC: Quick Tip

We all know that VLC (Video LAN Player) is one of the best multimedia players available. It’s a multi-platform player that can play everything you can think of and more. Did you know that you can stream your own audio and video material online using VLC? It’s enough to run “Streaming / Exporting Wizard” and it will walk you trough steps of streaming your multimedia to network or saving streams to your HD. That’s not all, if you go to File -> Services Discovery, you will be able to access live movies,videos,TV and radio streams, podcasts and more. Broadband connection is required for streaming high-quality video material.

VLC website