I was very proud to own the gadget that cost me a few months of my salary, because only a few people could afford cellphones in those days, and not all cellphones from that era could play monophonic ringtones. Most could only beep.

Now, the ringtone technology has gone way beyond monophonic. Polyphonic is also outdated. Even cheap China-made phones used by the street fruit and vegetable sellers – who walk the damp narrow alleys of poor third-world countries – can use MP3 songs as the ringtones.

While you could buy ringtones for your cellphones if you want to, creating one feels more rewarding. As a bonus, you could show off to friends and relatives your unique ringtones that nobody else has. And if you use an iPhone, your path to being able to create one of your own ringtones is very clear.

Grabbing goods from Garageband

Maybe there are many Mac users who are not aware that they have a tool to create their own quick and unique iPhone ringtones: Garageband. This easy to use music creation software comes free with every purchase of a Mac unit as part of the iLife suite.

To create your own ringtone using the latest version of Garageband – v ‘09, you just have to choose the “iPhone Ringtone” menu from the start up screen, then choose either Example Ringtone (to use and edit pre-made sample), Loops (to use and build a new one using Apple Loops) and Voice (to user your own voice as the ringtone).

The next step would be giving a name to this project and choosing the place to save it. Unless you speak music language, I suggest that you not meddle with the song adjustments (tempo, signature, and key). And actually you don’t need to because we wouldn’t deal with complicated song building anyway.

For those who chose Example Ringtone, you’ll see the 17 second sample. Click the play button to listen to it. Should you want to use it, you could export it as a ringtone (more on this later).

The same thing applies if you choose Loops. But here you could enhance your tone by adding more loops from the loop library on the right pane.

Recording your own voice

Voice option will give you two pre-configured tracks: Male basic and Female basic so you don’t have to adjust anything to optimize the recording.

There are many other voice configurations available from the track info pane on the right.

You’ll also have an alloted 20 second loop to use, but you could adjust this by dragging the end of the yellow loop bar to the time position that you’d like.

Actually, the one that we call the ringtone could be anything from a standard song to a spoken word. If you have a deep broadcaster voice, for example, you can just speak out your own ringtone. But Voice option is also a good place to start if you could sing (or not) and want to record a mini-choir of yourself as the ringtone. Garageband allows its users to create songs from many tracks like Voice 1, Voice 2, Voice 3 etc.

To add tracks, go to Track –> New Track menu or use Command + Option + N

Using songs from iTunes

I personally would like to choose part of an existing song from iTunes as the ringtone. So after the main Garageband window opens, I’ll just delete the existing track (Command + Delete) and choose the Media Browser from the lower right corner of the window.

Then I dragged and dropped a song from the list to the main pane.

The song was converted into Garageband track and ready to be edited.

To determine which part of the song will be converted into a ringtone, I adjusted the loop bar to the position that I prefer. This loop bar time should be 40 seconds or less.

Exporting to ringtone

To export the part of the song into the ringtone, I went to Share –> Send Ringtone to iTunes menu.

Another conversion and export process will take place and…

The ringtone will be placed under the ‘Ringtone’ folder in iTunes as a m4r file and will automatically be synchronized to iPhone the next time it connected.

Non-iPhone users could also use Garageband to create their own mp3 ringtones, but that process requires a different method and enough to be written as another article for another time.

Have you tried to use Garageband to create iPhone ringtones? Share your opinions using the comments below!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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All you have to do is visit Make Own Ringtone and follow these easy steps. And when I say easy steps, I mean really easy steps. Your Grandma could do it!

Once you arrive at the site, you will see something that looks like this:

Next up you will need to upload your audio file. Make sure you know where it is located and hit the upload button. Once you click this button your file browser will pop up.

Select the audio file you want to use as your ring tone and hit open. Don’t worry if you only want to use the chorus or a small part of the file we will get to this shortly.

Once you click Open the file will be uploaded to the remote server for processing. All the editing will happen in your browser. This makes everything VERY easy! You will see a progress bar that looks like this:

Once the file has been successfully uploaded you will see the audio layout of the track. There is a time line so if you will know how far in the part you want is – this is the best way to do it. You can also play it here and when you find the start and end point of your ringtone, mark them with a simple click.

The first click marks the beginning and the second click marks the end – simple right? Go ahead and set yours when you are ready move on to the final steps.

The Make A Ringtone button is a little hidden if you have a small monitor so scroll down and find the button. There are also buttons to normalize the sound (make it all one volume) and to fade in and out at the beginning and end.

Once you click the Make A Ringtone button you will see the following screen allowing you to download your free ringtone and either email it to your friends or share it with them via your favorite social network!

Mark previously showed us how to make free ringtones using Audacity. How do you make ring tones? Let us know in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Unfortunately, mixing audio not only entails picking the tracks to mix, but also downloading beats, sound effects, and an audio mixing program. Sometimes, doing all that is worth it, but if you’re looking for something simpler, like an online audio editor already packaged with beats to mix, then give the following websites a shot.

DubStep Studio

Previously known as Electro-House Blender, DubStep Studio’s interface is beautiful and extremely simple, and it includes a decently sized sound library for your mixing pleasure.

To add a track to a song, simply click the “Add Sounds” button, and a panel will pop up that splits the available sounds into further categories, such as “Keyboard” or “Sound Effect.” The tracks are not named according to how they sound, and there is no search box, so you may need to preview all of the tracks before you find the right one. Adding the track to the song is as simple as clicking the plus sign next to its name, and then clicking the beats in which you want the it to be heard. From the workspace, you can delete tracks, change the volume of each track, and control whether the track is heard primarily from the left or right speaker.

You can try DubStep Studio to mix your own music without registering, but in order to save or open files, you must register. Even so, users cannot upload their own music into the mixer, nor can they export the song so it can be accessed offline. Despite these shortcomings, DubStep Studio’s ease of use and polished presentation make it a worthwhile app to check out– at least, for someone who wants to try mixing music without any heavy duty commitment.

Jam Glue

Though Jam Glue is not the eye candy that DubStep Studio is, its wider range of features outshines DubStep Studio in every aspect. Not only does the search function exist, but it also gives the user the option of searching by the song’s approximate tempo.

Registered users are allowed to either upload a .mp3, .wav, or .wma file, or import audio from an URL, although there is a large statement warning the user not to upload copyrighted material.

The process of editing is virtually the same in both webapps – there is no option to scale the size of the track to inspect the waveform more closely, and Jam Glue’s “snap clips to beat” feature replicates the effect of clicking where youwant your track to go in DubStep Studio. However, Jam Glue has the added functionality of being able to scale the speed of any track and sync the tracks to a user specified beats-per-minute. Jam Glue also allows users to rearrange the order of their tracks, making editing overall a much smoother process than it would have been in DubStep Studio.

After you have completed and saved the track ( assuming you are a registered user), Jam Glue gives you the option of downloading the track. However, this option is hidden in the bottom of the mix details page and is only accessible after the song has been “published” to Jam Glue’s database.

After you have tried these two webapps to mix your own music, perhaps you will decide that DJing is indeed your forte. In that case, I would highly recommend Audacity, the tried and true software for editing music, or the previously covered Mixxx. Or, if you’re just looking for a simple editor to make ringtones, check out Zedge or Make Own Ringtone. Both are browser based, although Zedge requires registration before use.

Have you tried any of the aforementioned apps? Do you have your own secret weapons, to be deployed when you suddenly decide you really really want to mix music? Lets hear about it in the comments!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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However, with its extremely large user base and plenty of tools at your disposal, few may argue that YouTube is the place for your videos to be.

Some time back we showed you some YouTube URL tricks that allow you to change how the player behaves. Right now, allow us to present forth some of the most popular tools out there to go along with YouTube and the super cool stuff you can do with them.

Rip Audio

If you are only interested in the audio of a particular YouTube video and want to rip it off quickly, you can do so using ListenToYouTube. Paste in the URL of the YouTube video that you want the audio extracted, allow it to do its thing and then download the audio as a MP3 file.

Mac users may find that iExtractMP3 performs the same function.

Create Ringtones

If ListenToYouTube allows you to grab the audio, MadRingtones allows you to play with audio. It enables you to make ringtones from YouTube videos or MP3 files from your computer. Creating ringtones is quick and easy: simply navigate to the site, enter the URL of the video or MP3 file and click ‘Load’. Listen through, and it lets you specify the tone’s start/end points and then download it to your computer as MP3, AMR, OGG or M4R file.

Splice and Chop!

There are times when you only like a certain part of a video. You could use the “#t” URL trick to skip to the interesting part. However, if it is more than just viewing the interesting part of the video that you are trying to accomplish, you should check out TubeChop or Splicd. Both these sites allow you to specify a YouTube video URL, the part you want to keep and cut the rest off. You can then embed the “chopped” video on your blog/website or share it with your friends.

Remix or Dub videos

Want to add an MJ track to your dancing kid video? YtDub is a cool video dubbing app which lets you easily dub any YouTube video with audio from another video. Works easy, simply enter YouTube IDs of the video you want to dub and the video you want to use as the background track, hit ‘Dubbo’ and you will get a link to your newly dubbed masterpiece. Play it, share it or do whatever you like.

Dump the default interface

Searching and then clicking to view a video is all fine and dandy, but there is always room for a little change. Bored of the Youtube interface? Then check out:

• YouFlow – which adds a coverflow-like interface and allows you to play multiple videos in a single browser tab.
• YouCube – which lets you map YouTube videos on to the faces of a cube and then share it with others. You can spin the cube to switch between the videos.

• Darao and InfiniTube – let you enter a keyword and returns a playlist of the search result. Hit Play and you have got yourself a non-stop video viewer

Use the cutting edge features

TestTube is like Labs for YouTube. It is a place where you can test drive the latest from YouTube developers. At the time of writing, TestTube includes – CaptionTube – to add captions, Video Annotations, Active Sharing – to show other people what you are watching, Streams – to chat with others who are watching the same video, Warp – a tool to visually browse videos and a demo of the HTML5 Video Tag. There are new ideas added (and taken down) from time to time.

Find sites that have embedded your videos

YouTube provides you excellent tools to track statistics pertaining to your videos. Here, we explained how you can use the tools to track which sites are embedding your videos.

Set a video alarm

A simple online alarm clock that wakes you up with a YouTube video of your choice. Set the alarm time in simple English (tomorrow at 7am, in 45 minutes) and pick any YouTube video you want. No-registration required.

Add Subtitles to YouTube Videos

Ever wanted to add subtitles to Youtube videos and share them with friends? Subyo is a web service that can help you with that. Before anything else, you’ll need to register and get yourself a Subyo account. Next, copy and paste a YouTube video URL into the provided field and click on “Add Subtitles”. Then video will load in the Subyo editor where you can start adding subtitles.

Watch flagged videos without logging in

There are lots of videos on YouTube marked as inappropriate by users. Due to this, YouTube restricts viewing of these videos to registered users only. If you do not have an account (or you don’t want to add a video to your history) and want to view a flagged YouTube video, check out NSFWYouTube. BE WARNED: Due to its niche (if I may call it so) the site has explicit NSFW content, discretion adviced!

Turn Youtube links to videos

Use the Videoembed Greasemonkey script that reads links to video sites on any website and embeds the corresponding video right next to the link so you don’t have click it or visit Youtube to watch the video. It works for a number of other video sites as well.

Get rid of distractions

QuieTube is a cool browser bookmarklet which allows you to view any YouTube video all by itself on a page, removing the surrounding bells and whistles (somewhat like the “Turn down lights” in Youtube). Just drag & drop the provided bookmarklet to your browser toolbar/bookmark bar and click it when viewing a YouTube Video.

Add text, graphics and links to videos

KickLight is a tool that lets you add text, graphics and links to your YouTube video without obscuring it any way. The application inserts a space just below a video and then lets you add your content (text, images and links) there. It also allows you to customize how and when added content should be shown.

Download Videos

There are scores of tools, tricks out there that let you download videos from Youtube. From Firefox extensions, to greasemonkey scripts to complete applications to specific sites — when it comes to downloading, there are probably more than what is required. We covered the best, have a look.

Come Again?

Did I hear you murmur a name we missed? Well go on, use the comments to flame us! Tell us about it. If you have used any of the tools we’ve listed, do share your experiences.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Who knew that your career would end to the song you moonwalked to at your junior high dance?

How about getting a ringtone that actually sounds like a real phone? Remember those Bakelite behemoth’s that used to hang on the kitchen wall or the rotary that sat in your dad’s den? Ahh, those were the good old days – when the Weather Channel was known as a window and a leaf blower was known as a rake.

With a good, “real phone” ringtone, you’ll probably find that you don’t get as many strange looks when that electronic ball and chain goes off in public. People are still used to the ordinary phone ring and find it less offensive than hearing about your humps, your humps, your lovely lady humps.

Here’s some of the best free, “real phone” ringtones I could find online. Most of them were found through forums where people said they made the recordings themselves. I presume since they put them on the forums, they are free and royalty free.

Universal Phone Ring -

This one should sound familiar to almost everyone as it is the phone ring used most often in old movies and TV shows. Thanks to Hollywood Lost and Found for this one.

Black Rotary Phone Ring -

Sounds just like the one that your dad might have had in his office, doesn’t it? Those were the days.

Candlestick Phone Ring -

Ever seen those old phones where the earpiece hung on the main phone that looked like a candlestick? This is the ring from one of those.

French Rotary Phone -

Looking for that certain je ne sais quoi? This one is the ticket. C’est bon!

Classic British Phone -

I like the distinctive double-ring of the UK phones. Reminds me of old episodes of Coronation Street.

Higher Tone UK Phone -

Here’s the same kind of UK ring, but with a little higher pitch.

Now for some famous classic phone rings…

Maxwell Smart’s Shoe Phone Tone -

This is the ring that Agent 86’s shoe phone made.  Yes, there was a TV show of Get Smart before the not-so-good movie.

Our Man Flint/Austin Powers Phone Ring -

This one is my favourite! It seems not many people under 40 know that the phone ring from Austin Powers was taken from the Our Man Flint movie, starring James Coburn. It was also a sort of spy-spoof movie.

Counter Terrorist Unit on 24 Phone Ring -

Apparently this is the ring tone from Jack Bauer’s CTU unit on 24. Honestly, I’ve never made it through a full episode of this show, but the ringtone is pretty cool.

If what we have here doesn’t fill your boots, there is one other really good source for classic real phone ringtones that I found over at BeepZoid’s Vintage Phone Ringtones. With over 60 different ringtones in MIDI, MP3 and iPhone formats, there’s a good chance you’ll find what your looking for.

What do you think of “real phone” ringtones versus all the clips and top 40 stuff out there? Got a favourite ringtone to share with us? Drop us a line in the comments below. I’ll have my people call your people.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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Is there a better way of making a cool statement than with a device that’s now a part of our anatomy? I guess not.

So without further ado, let’s take a look at ten websites which let us browse, select and download the choicest free mobile phone ringtones – without pinching a penny.

In mentioning these free websites, I have gone for the ten which lets us download free mobile ringtones to the PC rather than send it through the data carrier (in most countries for downloading data, carrier charges apply). So you can download the ringtone to your PC and then transfer it to your mobile phone – 100% free.

Some of these sites are inclusive of other nice things (themes, wallpapers, games, etc.) too, for your mobiles.

1. Zedge

14 million users sharing their stuff through a slick interface. The site is powered by the community of users who make and upload the ringtones. The ringtone collection, 300,000 strong can be downloaded to the PC or the phone without the free signup. Check out the site’s Phone Specifications and Zedge Content Compatibility Index (it’s a huge list) if you are not sure about the downloads not working with your mobile. The site also supports iPhone ringtones. An added plus are the online tools to make ringtones, themes, wallpapers and screensavers.

2. Mobile9

Another site with the community behind it. Get all the goodies – free downloads of themes, wallpapers, ringtones, screensavers, software, games, videos and logos. With 100,000 MP3 ringtones, it’s a wide collection. A free signup entails you to download without a 10 second wait. As in any web community, members can have their own profile pages, can comment and share. You can check the compatibility of your model in the Phone section of the site though a cross-section of makes are supported including the iPhone.

3. TonesAll

TonesAll.com is a MP3 ringtone user-sharing community where all content is licensed with the Creative Commons Public Domain license. The site mentions the following supported brands – Nokia, Motorola,  Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG,  BlackBerry and iPhone. The ringtones are pigeonholed into categories; some like Pets & Animals, Sayings or News & Politics you may not find anywhere else. The free signup makes you a community member and gives you instant download without the 20 seconds of wait. Members can also create groups which is an assortment of ringtones.

4. MadRingtones

This web service is slanted as an online ringtone creator. You can create a personalized ringtone from your favorite MP3 song or YouTube video in just 3 clicks. But to avoid even that labor, you can download a ringtone from the over 300,000 already available. The ringtones work with almost all the phones and gives you the option of four formats – mp3, amr, ogg and m4r (for the iPhone). Embed and share on your blog or on social networks like Facebook.

5. Mobango

A mobile sharing community with the same flavor as the earlier mentioned sites. It’s a click worthy destination for all types of mobile content especially applications and games. The other unique social aspect is that you can search for users by age, sex, country and make and model of phone. Connect to them through the site and share your media. Mobango also offers 2GB of free storage for your mobile content. You can also flag you uploaded files as public or private.

6. CellMind

A well designed mobile social site on the growth path. Though it has an infinitesimally small ringtone collection, it is well structured and worth a look see. You need to register (free) to download wallpaper, themes and ringtones. The site also features online wallpaper, ringtone and screensaver makers. The other plus is the online storage provided by the site for your uploader/created files.

7. MyTinyPhone

With over 125,000 ringtones in its database, the site is not tiny. All ringtones are free to download on your mobile or PC. A feature is the Flash based ringtone maker which lets you upload a MP3 file (max size of 8MB) to create your own tones. With a free signup, you can store the tunes and share it with your friends. The only irritant is the popup ad which keeps opening up in a window.

8. MobileToones

Not very different from the other mobile social network communities except in its interface. It comes with a mobile discussion forum, a mobile review section and a blog. To download the MP3, Polyphonic or AMR ringtones one has to go through a short free registration. The collection is limited (approx 400+).

9. Brinked

A free online ringtone sharing community which is very similar to MadRingtones, though with a sober interface. You can create ringtone from a song or a YouTube video. Though the collection is not as vast, it is a neat site on the growth curve. Browse for ringtones among the Reggaeton, Raggae, Techno, Rock, Rap, R&b, Pop, Original, Country and TV & Movies genres. Download in MP3 / WAV / OGG / M4R format or share it in the social networks.

10. Tonzr

If you still haven’t got the ringtone you want then why not do a simple search. Use Google, Yahoo or a specialized ringtone search engine like Tonzr. Presently it has indexed nearly 10,000,000 ringtones. Search with a keyword and on the results page you can select the mode of download. The nice little tidbit are the suggested like tones just below your selection.

The supported carriers are – Sprint, Nextel, AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon, Alltel, US Cellular, Cellular South, and Cricket. The SMS and MMS features are also for these selected US only carriers. Tonzr is presently testing for compatibility with iPhones.

It is true that mobile downloads is a world within the world of the web. For every paid site, there are a clutch of free options. The 10 websites for free ringtones I have put down here just add to the previous ones we have brought for you at MakeUseOf.com. You can check out a few like MyxterTones, ToneShared and the really unique Ultrasonic-Ringtones.  Or if you feel like making your own ringtones, Mark shows you how to do it with Audacity.

Our ringtone section features a lot of online tools and apps if you want to make your own ringtones.

Which website or mobile social network is your most frequented? Do you like to make your own music or are you happy with a download? Let us know!

Image: Geek and Poke

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Unfortunately, when it comes to our cell phones and computers, the cool sounds that came along with those old Trek gadgets simply never became a reality. Our computers beep and alert using all of the standard operating system sounds, our phones ring or buzz in various ringtones – but what ever happened to those cool Star Trek sound effects that our “communicators” are supposed to have? We’ve achieved some of the Tricorder technology with our GPS gadgets but where are the metallic beeps and chirps?  MakeUseOf has always offered some of the best sound resources for readers, such as a FindSounds, or a review of the Soungle – free sound effects website. While Star Trek sounds are certainly hard to find and exist only in some of the most obscure places on the Internet – today, I offer MakeUseOf readers a few useful sources for Star Trek computer sounds.

Finding Star Trek Computer Sounds

If you’ve been a Trekkie for years, or you just became a new member of the Trekkie community after the last film, you’ve probably learned pretty quickly that finding funky sounds for your mobile phone or your computer isn’t exactly the easiest task in the world. If you perform a Google search, you’ll quickly discover that most of the best files are buried deep in someone’s web server archive. For some reason, many of the Star Trek fans don’t seem to be the most advanced webmasters, so quite a few of these sites are hard to navigate. The following list offers some of the coolest Star Trek computer sounds, movie effects and even audio quotes that most Star Trek fans will immediately recognize from their favorite Star Trek generation. Without further ado, let’s “Make it so.”

Pimp Out Your Mobile Phone with Star Trek

While most folks go to the Next Pimp website to pimp out their phone with various hip-hop ringtones from Beyoncé or Justin Timberlake, Trek fans can go to the Star Trek page to download from a list of ten very cool Star Trek computer sound effects.

These are mostly a collection of various short computer sound effects from the various Star Trek series. One of my favorites is the Torpedo; but dooropen, Communicator and Incoming Message are also great for different functions of a Windows Mobile device, like an incoming email message or an appointment due. There aren’t many options for ringtones here, but when you’re done downloading all of these sound effect, your phone will be transformed into a device that will probably turn a few heads.

Composer Juan Portela Shares His Love of Star Trek

While digging through various forums and obscure web sites for some of the best Star Trek sound effects, I came across a link to a ZIP file, hidden within the website of composer Juan Portela.  Oddly, I couldn’t find a single link to this file from his actual site, but the link from a forum post worked great. Clicking on the link will immediately open the ZIP file. After extracting it, you’ll have a selection of 9 awesome “alert” sound effect files that you can use to totally trick out your PC’s various sounds such as errors, email messages, just about anything else.

I’ve used a few of these on my own computer – I think in terms of Star Trek computer sounds for various Windows alert events, this collection is perfect.  These are essentially various sound files which Juan edited mostly from the airlock sounds. I’ve set all of my appointment settings to use these sound files whenever an alarm is due, and I still grin every time it goes off. After a while, you’ll feel like you’re living in the middle of your favorite Star Trek episode.

Download Star Trek Ringtones from CellSea

Personally, I’ve found the best mobile phone ringtones and sound effects just by doing a search for “Star Trek” on CellSea. Just a few examples from the list of free ringtones available there include the Enterprise computer voice saying “Command Functions are offline,” a ringtone made from communicator beeps, and even one made from the Star Trek TNG main theme song.

After listening to the Star Trek TNG and experiencing a lot of great childhood memories flooding back – it’s now my new mobile ringtone. This assumes that you can use MP3 ringtones on your phone, as that is the format of most of these.  Obviously, since they are MP3 files, you can use all of these awesome Star Trek sound files for your computer sound effects as well.

Hundreds of Star Trek Computer Sounds at the SoundBoard

SoundBoard is probably one of the best sources for Star Trek sounds that I’ve seen. A search for “Star Trek” at SoundBoard results in two pages of results. Each of those results features about a dozen tracks or so of some of the best Star Trek sound bites or sound effects that you’ll find anywhere.

The SoundBoard features this very cool player that lets you test out all of the tracks within each category before you download it to your computer.

If you’re looking for Star Trek WAV files, a fan from the UK created a “Matt’s Movie Sounds” page, and there’s an entire collection of over fifty audio quotes from the original series as well as The Next Generation. Another obscure source of Star Trek sounds is Frank’s Radio, where there’s a directory of over 100 Star Trek WAV files that include computer responses, beeps, sound effects and quotes.

Do you know of any other valuable resources for Star Trek sounds? Share them with other Trekkies in the comments section below!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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iRinger is a shareware program that will take any non-protected music file (explained later) and turn it into a ringtone that is ready for your iPhone.  Normally I don’t use a lot of shareware, but iRinger seems to find the right balance between useful and naggy.  There is a banner ad displayed beneath the application at all times, but it doesn’t get in the way of normal operations.  Also, there is no timer.  Works for me!

Let’s play around with it. For this demo I selected “The Twitter Song,” better known as “You’re No One If You’re Not On Twitter,” by Ben Walker.  It’s a really geeky song and it’s pretty darn accurate about the world of Twitter. You should definitely check out his work if you haven’t already.  Anyway, let’s make the tagline into a ringtone for my iPhone.

Downloading the program is very simple.  From the website you can either pick the complete “.exe” file up or get a small installer that aims it at the desktop.  Personally, as neurotic as I am, I put it into my program files and made myself a desktop shortcut.  Remember it can just be deleted to uninstall, though, so don’t get hung up on any program file you might create – just delete it.  Either way, you’ve got it installed now.

First, open up the program and check out the interface:

As you can see, the basic options consist of “Import,” “Preview” (or Play, basically), and “Export.”  I’ll get to the others in a minute.  First, click Import and bring up your song.  I’ll bring up The Twitter Song:

When the song is entered into iRinger, the waveforms come up on the viewing pane. These are actually kind of handy because when the song gets quiet or has a break, the waves show it pretty clearly.  The pane shows exactly 30 seconds by default, but you can adjust that in the first slider. In the second slider you can control volume. I suggest you leave this one at 100% since you can always turn down your ringer volume.If the ringtone is MUCH louder than the rest of your others you might want to go back and “remaster” it though.

The fader is pretty handy as you can choose to fade your tones in, out, or both in and out.  It works very well, but you can only fade a single chosen percent of the song, so it’s better to either fade the beginning OR the end.

In terms of the effects, I was really unimpressed with them.  They mostly sound like the silly little sound effects that come with free music mixing software – very juvenile.  Try them at your own reputation’s peril.

Once you’re happy with your selection and any other alterations you’ve made, it’s time to export. Go ahead and click the export button and see the dialogue box appear.  First you can specify your export location (which will be remembered for future exports).  The title will be the name you see on your iPhone’s ringtone list.  Looping is only relevant for previewing the ringtone over and over and is largely irrelevant.  The easiest thing to do is to choose “export to iTunes,” which will send it directly to your Ringtone category.  The SCP option is kind of strange and I was unable to understand the virtue of it (maybe for cracked iPhones?).  Let me know if you figure it out in the comments.

You’re done! All you need to do is go into iTunes, make sure your iPhone is set to sync the ringtones you want (under your iPhone’s “Ringtones” tab).

If you want more help, want to unprotect your music legally, or simply want another explanation of some of the features, check out the tutorial videos that iRinger made up on YouTube – they’re most helpful! Let US know if you have any questions by leaving them in the comments!

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For some reason I had it in my head that making ringtones from the music that I had in my iTunes program was going to be easy. Fail! As it turns out, no matter what Steve Jobs and the rest of that gang over at Apple tells you, it’s not that easy of a task.

Let’s follow along as I show you what I discovered and you will learn how to create an iPhone ringtone out of any audio file on your hard drive.

To start with, you CAN use iTunes to make a ringtone for you from existing songs in iTunes. Just right click on the song and select “Create Ringtone”. Fail! If you picked a song that you loaded from somewhere other than the iTunes store, you get the message: “You can create iPhone ringtones only from songs purchased from the iTunes store.”

OK, fair enough, I suppose. Even though I hated the idea of paying for a ringtone from a song that I already owned, I figured I’d do it just so I could have what I wanted. So I went to my “Purchased” Playlist and select a song and right click on it. Pretty soon it starts to process the song, but then I get this message:

“The name of the song” by “the artist” can no longer be made into a ringtone” Fail!

When COULD it be made into a ringtone? Who knows and at this point I am steamed….

So, I did some research and discovered that the default settings for iTunes imports songs into the library as AAC encoded, which gives the songs an m4a extension. Ringtones have an m4r extension. Hmmm, would changing the extension create a ringtone? As it turns out it does!

So here is how to create ringtones for iPhone in iTunes:

You do want to limit the length of the song to 30 seconds and it turns out that iTunes will do this for you. Pick the song that you want, right click on it and select “Get Info”. Then under the “Options” tab you can select the start time and the stop time in seconds. Be sure to check both boxes. This method is crude in that you can’t preview the selection until after you hit ok and then go listen to the song.  By trial and error you will eventually get the right 30 seconds.

Then you have to locate where the song is stored on your hard drive so that you can change its extension.  Go back to “Get Info”.  On the “Summary” tab you will find “Where” which gives you the path to the song.  You can also see if it has an m4a extension here as well.

If the song was purchased from iTunes and saved with AAC encoding, then you have to strip the DRM from it first.  There are third party software apps that will do this for you, but it’s just easier to create a new playlist in iTunes, put all the songs that you want to turn into ringtones into that playlist and then use iTunes to burn a CD. Once the CD is burned, import the songs back into iTunes using AAC encoding. You can select how a song is imported from a CD by going to “Edit”, then selecting “Preferences”, then select “Import Settings”, then select “AAC Encoder” under “Import Using”

If you have the songs saved as mp3, follow the same instructions as above.  Put them into a playlist, burn to CD using iTunes, and then import back into iTunes using AAC encoding.

After you have imported the songs back into your iTunes library you are almost done. Double clicking on the newly named file will cause iTunes to load it as a ringtone. If it didn’t already exist, a new folder called Ringtones is established and then the new ringtone is stored there.

Then all you have to do is to sync your iPhone with iTunes being sure to tell iTunes that you want to sync the Ringtones as well.

Now your ringtones are on the iPhone. Select a contact, hit edit and you can choose the ringtone to associate with that contact.

Whew!  Thanks Steve, that was fun!

These instructions work with Windows. Presumably the same concept will work on a Mac, although the exact steps will be different. I know that there are programs that you can buy to do this and that there are websites that will do it for you, but I wanted to do it for free and with what I already had on hand.

How about you? Do you have an easier way? If so, tell us about it!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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This podcast is available through iTunes so don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast if you have an iPod, or in another podcatcher if you have a different MP3 player.

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Audacity is used to cut the MP3 down. Your average MP3 is around 3 minutes in length and is around 3 megabytes in size. There’s no need to have the whole MP3 on your phone as your ringtone as you’re not going to let the phone ring that long are you? So I used Audacity to cut the MP3 down to the first minute in length and 1 megabyte in size only. In doing so, I saved myself some space on the phone and since I normally pick up the call after the first few rings, I still have my nice cool ringtone.

So here’s how to edit your MP3 using Audacity. Being a bit of a geek, I wanted to make a Star Wars ringtone so this is what I did (Star Trek The Next Generation is next!)

After opening Audacity, open the MP3 file you want to edit :

Next, go to Edit-Select-Start To Cursor

Then from the beginning, drag your cursor along until you highlight the amount of the file you want as your ringtone. I chose the first 60 seconds. You may want more, you may want less. But be honest, when your phone rings, how long do you wait before you pick up? Do you really need more than 60 seconds? Will the caller wait longer than 60 seconds? I don’t think so.

Then to save that section of the file as its own file, go to File-Export Selection As MP3. It will ask you for a “lame_enc.dll” file before it can export as MP3. If you don’t have this file, you can download one here from my website. It’s a tiny file (220KB) but necessary for MP3 exporting.

The selected portion will now be downloaded to your computer as a MP3 file.

Getting it onto your phone now requires the software that came with your phone and with that, I can’t help you as the software with each phone obviously varies. With my Sony Ericsson, it was a case of starting up the software file manager and dragging / dropping the MP3 onto the file manager. The phone was already connected via the cable and the MP3 was instantly transferred. But it may differ for other phones so check your manuals. My girlfriend has a Samsung for example and for her it’s MUCH different.

How do you make YOUR mobile phone ringtones? What software do you use? Do you make your own ringtones? Tell us what ringtones are on your phone when someone calls!

(By) Mark O’Neill is a blogger, professional freelance writer and the editor of Make Use Of. Check out his personal blog at BetterThanTherapy.net

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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iPhone StartPages

The idea behind the iPhone startpage is to bring all essential applications on one iPhone-friendly page. These apps can be anything, ranging from news sites to To-Do lists, Office apps, IM clients, VoIP services, Calculators, and more. All iPhone friendly and easy-to-navigate through.

*Leaflets – features in-built search tools (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Wikpedia, … ), Feedreader, Flickr, del.icio.us, App list (directory of iPhone apps), and more.

*AppMarks – iPhone-friendly, well-categorized directory of iPhone applications. (Categories include: Cooking, Financial, Games, Email & Chat, etc.)

*More Similar StartPages: iPhoneAppr | MockDock | iPhoneAppsManager | Mojits | Gridgets

iPhone App Collections

In case the above mentioned startpages don’t include the application you’re looking for than check out one of the following sources. These are standard directory-like websites so don’t try accessing them from your iPhone.

* iPhoneApplicationList | iPhoneWidgetList | iPhoneTopSites

Couple of cool iPhone Tools

* iFuntastic – simple tool that lets you add/remove ringtones, change carrier logos, and rearrange the home screen icons. Currently only runs on Intel Mac’s.

* iPhoneDrive (Mac) – lets you use iPhone as portable hard drive, ensuring that you always have important info/software with you. To get started check out our massive list of free portable apps. (Note: iPhone drive isn’t a freeware, costs $9.95)

iPhone WallPapers, iCons and Ringtones

• Gizmodo’s – iPhone Wallpaper Collection
• ThemeMyPhone – more wallpapers
• iPhone Candy – and some more wallpapers
• iPhone Ringtones – collection of original iPhone ringtones.
• Apple’s – iPhone icon collection (by Apple)
• iPhoneDesktops – and wallpapers again.

Fun Stuff

• iPhone Musical [go2web2.blogspot.com]
• What the iPhone Could’ve Been [techeblog.com]
• Will iPhone blend [willitblend.com] – check it out below.

(6) iPhone HowTo’s

HowTo: Create iPhone ringtones from iTunes previews [tuaw.com]
HowTo: Add custom ringtones/system-sounds to iPhone (intel Mac only) [hacktheiphone.com]
HowTo: Send MMS messages on iPhone [hacktech.wordpress.com]
HowTo: Replicate iPhone Buttons the ‘-webkit’ way [launchpadhq.com]
HowTo: 17 powerful bookmarklets for your iPhone. [lifeclever.com]
HowTo: Turn your Windows Mobile phone into an iPhone [lifehacker.com]
HowTo: Emulate iPhone’s features on your everyday handset [techcrunch.com]
HowTo: Activate iPhone Without AT&T [nanocr.eu]
HowTo: Set up your iPhone as a prepaid account [tuaw.com]
HowTo: Use the IPhone with a Business or Prepaid Account [reghardware.co.uk]
HowTo: Port ‘ineligible’ mobile numbers to AT&T and iPhone [appleinsider.com]
HowTo: Make iPhone work with old Cingular SIM (intel Mac only) [hacktheiphone.com]

iPhone Reviews

in-depth reviews:

• iPhone review [Engadget]
• No BS iPhone review [Gizmodo]
• iPhone in depth: the Ars review [ArsTechnica]

guided video tours:

• iPhoneGuided Tour [Apple.com]
• iPhone interface complete walkthrough [Engadget]
• iPhone keyboard walkthrough [Apple.com]

things you should know before buying iPhone:

• A list of iPhone dissapointments [HowardForums.com]
• 10 Things that “absolutely suck” about the iPhone [MacRumors.com]
• 10 Things you should know before you buy an iPhone [Gizmodo]
• 10 Reasons why you shouldn’t buy an iPhone [extremetech.com]
• What the iPhone Doesn’t Have [gizmodo.com]

comparative reviews (iPhone vs…):

• iPhone vs Treo, BlackBerry, N95, Ocean, LG Prada [wirelessinfo.com]
• iPhone vs Samsung BlackJack, BlackBerry 8800 and Treo 700P [WSJ]
• Apple iPhone vs Nokia N95 [cnet.com.au]
• Engadget iSwitchers [Engadget Mobile]
• Apple iPhone vs Nokia N95 and Samsung BlackJack [mgopinath.blogspot.com]

stress tests: (bunch of tests to check how the device handles abuse)

• The Original iPhone Stress Tests [PC World]
• Stress testing the iPhone [macrumors.com]

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on MakeUseOf ? Get cheat sheets and cool PDF guides @ www.makeuseof.com/makeuseof-downloads/

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