DeepAurelia

Today I got the wired keyboard with numpad and Mini DisplayPort to VGA adaptor for my MacBook. Hooked it up with my 26″ widescreen monitor and was scratching my head on how to get the external display to work when the MacBook lid is closed. Then I came across this article regarding the Closed Clamshell mode.

Note: I had some trouble with it and then came to realise that this only works if the power adaptor is plugged in. Without the power adaptor, the external display will keep on “falling asleep” after a few seconds no matter how many times you try to wake it up.

I got the Belkin TuneCast Auto. It’s a pretty handy device that plugs into your car’s cigar lighter receptacle (aka cigarette lighter socket) and broadcasts music from your iPod or iPhone to a vacant FM frequency. You can then tune in to that frequency and listen to your music via the car radio.

One of the main advantages of the TuneCast Auto is that it automatically scans and searches the best frequency for you, so that you don’t have to look for one yourself. All you have to do is press the scan button and it will display the frequency and you tune in (your radio) to that frequency. Compared to some of the lower or other brands/models you have to look for a vacant frequency manually and then set the device to broadcast at that frequency.

For testing, I cruised around from Southport to Broadbeach and back after 9 pm and the quality was amazingly good. The only problem was when I travelled to Brisbane CBD in the morning between 7:30 and 8:30 am the TuneCast Auto had to be scanned every couple of minutes due to interference.

It’s a plus that the TuneCast Auto recharges your iPod or iPhone while you are playing music from it in the car. This is definitely a must-have if you are planning on long road trips and your car does not have native iPod support. One of the downsides with the TuneCast Auto is that it is priced at a ridiculous AU$99.98 however, if you already own an iPod Nano, iPod Classic, iPhone 3G and an aluminum MacBook, you probably won’t worry too much about it.

I’ve signed up for a 60-day free trial acount with MobileMe to sync between my MacBook and iPhone.

For AU $119 a year you get a total of 20GB of storage plus 200GB of monthly data transfer. That’s way enough for my everyday needs.

It’s pretty handy since any update (specifically mail, calendar and contacts) you make on any device is pushed to the “cloud” and then automatically updated in all other devices in realtime. Plus you get to access everything online at www.me.com.

I came across How to make your own iPhone ringtones.

1. In iTunes, right click on the song you wish to use as a ringtone and select “Get Info”.
2. Under the Options tab select both “Start Time” and “Stop Time” and enter the desirable values (eg. 0:00 – 0:40). Note: maximum is 40 seconds, I haven’t tested it out but that’s the information I was given.
3. Once you have done this, click “OK” to close the dialog box.
4. Rick click on the same song again and this time select “Create AAC Version”.
5. Shortly, the song will be created to AAC and added just below the song (obviously with the same meta data but different time duration).
6. Right click on the new AAC version of the song you just created and select “Show in Finder”. This will open Finder and browsed to the location of the file.
7. Rename the file extension from .m4a to .m4r. You will receive a confirmation asking whether you are sure to do so, select “Use .m4r”.
8. Back in iTunes, go to File > Add to Library and browse and select the file you just renamed.
9. If you have done all of the steps above correctly, you should see a “Ringtones” directory added to the Library. Now all you have to do is sync with your iPhone and make sure “Sync ringtones” is selected in the Ringtones tab when you have connected your iPhone.