Ricky Says

If you own an iPhone 3G as I have for several months, then you're probably used to a daily battery charging routine. I usually charge my iPhone every morning and sometimes again during the day.

I also travel a lot and like to listen to music while flying, so I often get off the plane with a dead iPhone battery and can't check email or find where I'm at using Google Maps/GPS.

That all has changed after receiving a treasured Father's Day gift from my son, that's tripled the amount of time I can use my iPhone in between charges.

Sure, Apple provides several tips for conserving power and extending iPhone battery life, but they all follow a similar approach that basically involves NOT using important features like Wi-Fi, 3G wireless network speed, GPS location services, etc.

Basically all the features that drew me to the iPhone in the first place, and convinced me to trade in my Blackberry for one, are the ones Apple recommends I stop using in order to extend battery life. No thanks - I'm not about to turn them all off just to add a few minutes to an already short battery life. I would have stuck with my Blackberry if that was the end of the story. Fortunately it wasn't.

The gift I received from my son was a Tekkeon MP1800 lithium-ion rechargeable battery pack that gives me 2 1/2 iPhone charges, so I can stay powered up even when I don't have an outlet nearby.

Question: I emailed myself a video I took from my blackberry curve. When i try to play the video on my computer it says it can't find the file extension. What is the deal?

Answer: The deal is that you either need a program installed on your computer that can play the video file, or a program that will convert it to a common video format like Quicktime or Windows Media.

I'll cover both approaches, and will introduce you to some free and low-cost programs that'll handle the video viewing and converting. I'll also show you how to convert Quicktime or Windows Media videos into a format that can be viewed on a Blackberry, iPhone, or virtually any mobile device that supports video.

Video Players

Most computers come with some form of a video player, such as Windows Media Player that plays video files with a .wmv extension. You can also get the Quicktime video player for free from Apple that plays .mp4 video files.

However, videos that are recorded from a mobile device will usually have a different file extension, such as .3GP for movies recorded on Motorola RAZR phones. These videos won't play in Quicktime or Windows Media.

You'll need a video player designed to read the video format that your specific mobile device uses, or better yet - one that can play a wide range of video formats so that you'll still be in luck if you switch phones in the future.

Rather then look for a universal video file player, look for a video file converter. Not only will you get the ability to view all kinds of video files, but you'll be able to convert them to be viewable on other devices or other computer systems like a Macintosh. Two for the price of one.

Video Converters

Question: My auto-play stopped working. When I plug in my iphone to my computer now, it only opens itunes, not the auto-play anymore.

How do i fix that please?

Answer: Autoplay is configured in your Windows Control Panel, which you can access by clicking the Start button, and clicking "Control Panel" on the right side of the applications menu.

In Vista, you'll see an Autoplay icon, which will open the settings for how your computer should handle things like mobile devices connecting to your computer, or CDs getting inserted into your CD drive.

In the Autoplay settings screen, scroll all the way down to the bottom where you'll see options for how to handle iPhones.

Choose the option to "Ask me every time", save your changes, and then try plugging your iPhone in again.

This time you should get the autoplay screen, asking you if you want to import pictures, etc.

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.