Ricky Says

If you've done any traveling, or just needed directions to a nearby restaurant, I'm guessing your iPhone has already saved the day a few times over with it's built-in GPS navigation system.

You can hone in on your current location by tapping the GPS locator button on the lower left of your Google Maps screen.

And you can search for nearby locations, and the iPhone will give you step by step instructions for getting there from your current location.

I've used the iPhone's GPS in several major cities across the US, in Zurich, Switzerland, and in a couple weeks I'll have the chance to try it out in Frankfurt, Germany on my next business trip. It's kept me from getting completely lost on more than a dozen occasions.

That's all fine and dandy, but just how accurate is the GPS for tracking your current location?

I did a little test today by walking around the block at my office in downtown Portland. The trip around the block is exactly 0.2 miles, and I took screenshots of the iPhone every few seconds while the GPS tracked my position.

Then I put the screenshots together into a video using Camtasia (which I highly recommend), and uploaded the video to YouTube.

As you can see in the video, the GPS tracking system did a pretty good job of tracking my movements around the block.

With the iPhone's built-in iPod music player, you'd think it would be easy to select a music file and set it as your default ringtone, or as a custom ringtone for one of your contacts. But as you've probably already discovered, it doesn't work that way.

Sure, you can right-click on a music file that you've purchased from iTunes and select "Create Ringtone", but you'll be charged another 99 cents for the conversion. Not cool, imho.

Fortunately, iTunes has everything you need to create your own custom ringtones from music you already own, and without paying any money. Here's how to do it using iTunes 8.0.2 (will also work with earlier versions, but the screens and menu names might be slightly different):

Step 1: Configure iTunes to convert music to AAC format.

AAC is the standard ringtone music file format, and you tell iTunes to use this format by configuring it's Import Settings (the same settings you use when importing music from a CD).

Open iTunes and select the "Edit" >> "Preferences" menu.

Click the "Import Settings" button and choose "AAC Format".

Step 2: Trim the song length.

Music files that are converted to ringtone format will not be recognized by your iPhone if they're longer than 35 seconds.

Select the song in iTunes that you want to convert to a ringtone, and select "Get Info" from the pop-up menu. Select the "Options" tab and change the Stop Time to 0:35.

This step must be completed before attempting the next step, or the file length will be too long.

Step 3: Convert the song to AAC format.

Right-click on the song in iTunes, and select "Create AAC Version".

iTunes will create a copy of this song in AAC format, but it will be trimmed to 35 seconds.

I often have friends, coworkers, and even business clients ask me how I make money online with my blog, and here are a few tips I've learned over the last couple of years.

I've actually learned more from my failures than anything else, but if you follow these tips you can avoid the mistakes I made early on, and can turn your blog into a money making machine.

Get Traffic

This is easier said then done, but is one of the most important aspects of monetizing your blog. Your chances of making money from your site increase as the number of visitors consistently increases (assuming you follow the other tips listed below).

Long term, steady, growing traffic comes from your articles finding their way higher up the search engine results, which happens when:

1. Your articles contain useful content that gets them listed high up on the search engines results.

2. Your articles are linked to from other sites that are high up on the search engine's results.

Bottom line, if your site isn't getting much traffic, then it won't make you much money either. Some blogs just weren't cut out for making money, and if your blog isn't getting a lot of traffic then don't bother trying to monetize it.

Get Bookmarked

The majority of my site traffic comes from Google search results, and from social networking sites that link to my articles (Digg, Delicious, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Diigo, etc, etc)

Knowing that most of your long term traffic will come from search engine results and social bookmarking sites, why not jumpstart the process by submitting your own articles to these sites?

Question: I have a Sony DCR-TRV-320 camcorder. I have been trying to make DVDs from my videos. I can load the movies onto my computer using windows movie maker. I am learning how to edit the movies and add music. But I cannot get the movie to burn to a DVD that will play in anything but a computer.

Do I need some other kind of program to be able to make this happen? If so can you please tell me a good one to buy and hopefully be easy to use. I don't have alot of computer knowledge. Thank You for any help you can give me!

Answer: If you have Windows Vista Home Premium, then you can use Windows Movie Maker to burn your videos to a DVD format. If you have a different version of Windows or are using a Mac, then there's a DVD Creator program from Aimersoft that will also do the same thing.

Making DVD Movies with Windows Movie Maker

Open your video file(s) in Windows Movie Maker and click the File >> Publish Movie menu. Select the option for "DVD - Publish for playback on your DVD player or computer".

You'll be prompted to save your project and open Windows DVD Maker.

In Windows DVD Maker (again, Vista only) you can choose the DVD menu style and can edit the menu text to your liking.

Click the Burn button on the lower right side of the screen, and it will ask you to insert a writable DVD, and will burn your movie to the DVD.

Once it's finished burning the DVD, you'll be able to plug it into your DVD player and watch the movie on your TV.

What if I don't have Windows Movie Maker, or have a Mac?

This week Mother Nature decided to dump a few inches of snow on Oregon, and another 4 piled up this morning while my kids and I built a huge igloo in our front yard.

I pulled out the camcorder after it was finished and recorded a few minutes of video to capture the moment, and then uploaded it to YouTube.

Of course, the best way to share a video with your friends is to post a link to the place where all your friends are connected, which of course is Facebook.

Here's how you can post a YouTube video to Facebook:

First, click "Profile" to visit your Wall.

Next click "Share Link" and paste in the link to your YouTube video (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/v/IZ2oyvVyFzQ).

Facebook will figure out that it's a YouTube video and will post it to your Facebook account.

That's all there is to it, and you can even choose a picture to use for the video.

All your Facebook friends will see that you've posted a video link (shown below), and they'll be able to view your YouTube video by clicking the link that's posted.

Here's the YouTube video of our igloo project. We used recycle bins packed with snow for bricks, each row set in a couple of inches for a dome effect. Then we capped off the top with a piece of plywood that we covered with snow.

Now, where's that bottle of Advil for my back?? :-)