There’s quite a market out there for ring tones and if you want you can even make your own. All you need is iTunes, a computer (PC or Mac) and a song that’s not protected by DRM. If you didn’t buy it off iTunes, you should be able to make a ring tone out of it. Here’s what you do:

1. Open iTunes.
2. Find the song that you want to make into a ringtone.
3. Listen to the song and find the part of it you want to use. The chorus may be a good place to start.
4. Write down the start and stop times of the clip.
5. Right-click the song and select “Get Info.”
6. Click the “Options” tab.
7. Type in the start time of your ringtone in the text box next to “Start Time” in the minutes:seconds (i.e., 1:23) format.
8. Type in the end time of your ringtone in the text box next to “Stop Time.” Make sure the ringtone is no more than 40 seconds long.
9. Click “OK.”
10. Right-click your song again and select “Convert Selection to AAC.” Wait for iTunes to convert your song. It will create a duplicate version.
11. Right-click the ringtone and select “Delete.”
12. Click on the “Keep Files” button.
13. Find the file. It’s usually in your User folder under “Music > iTunes > iTunes Music” and under the band’s name. It will have an extension of m4a.
14. Replace the m4a extension of your ringtone with m4r. You can either double-click slowly to rename your file, or right-click and select “Get Info” on a Mac or “Rename” on a Windows PC.
15. Click “Use .m4r” or the PC equivalent when the system warns you that the change may affect the use of your file.
16. Double-click the ringtone file. ITunes will automatically add it to your ringtones folder in your iTunes Music Library.
17. Connect your iPhone and sync your ringtones.

Try it a couple of times just to make sure you’ve figured out how to do it. You can use this technique to create ringtones from whatever clip you like, whether it’s your favourite song, an advert for prenate dha or your kids crying. The world is your oyster, so head off and start creating!

Hi there. First of all, congratulations on your new phone. It’s a nice little device and there’s lots you can do with it. The signal strength on the phone is one of the things that has got a lot of media attention recently; especially as you can impact the strength by the way you hold your phone. There’s has been a recent update to the software on the phone to try and help with this, and this will come down to your phone automatically.

If you’re still having problem, one thing you can do is get a case for your phone. This protects the external antenna from external contact and may make your phone more reliable. It also serves to protect the phone from dumps and scratches, so it’s always a good idea. One such case is the iPhone 4 Air Case, currently on sale from Buy.com for under $7 (including shipping). It’s only 1mm thick and weighs 0.2oz which allows it to protect your phone without getting in the way. It’s not ugly and complements your phone, so check it out!

I haven’t had an opportunity to play with an iPad, but I’ve researched your problem and here’s what I found.

To set up mail

1. Tap Mail
2. Select your account type. Tap Other if your account is not listed.
3. Enter your account information and tap Save. Mail configures most email accounts automatically. Otherwise, you will be prompted for any additional settings.
4. Once your account information is saved – you can start sending and receiving email.

You can configure additional accounts by tapping Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > Add Account

Check SMTP settings

1. Tap Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars. Under Accounts, tap the account from which you’re trying to send mail.
2. Under Outgoing Mail Server, tap SMTP.
3. Tap the SMTP server for your email account and verify the settings are correct.
4. If you have multiple email accounts on iPad, try using an SMTP server from another account. Tap the SMTP account and Select On on the On/Off slider.

There you have it; not as easy as turning on the porch lights, but not hard either.

Enjoy your iPad!

The webcam you choose really depends on what you’re after. Webcams are fairly similar in nature, but there are some differences, for example the newer models can capture HD video and have features that enable them to focus automatically on the subject in front of the camera.

So, I had a look at some different models, and if it were up to me, I would choose the Microsoft LifeCam HD-5000 Webcam. It’s a cute little webcam that has all the more recent features, including the ability to take HD video. It has a microphone built in, so can be used for video conferencing and recording any video your want. I like the fact that it has autofocus too, which means that you don’t have to stay playing with focusing the camera, just concentrate on what you want to record.

You can get more value for your coupon with this item, because it’s currently on sale for around $30. It will work automatically with any instant messaging software, video manipulation software; and you can even use it to record a video for Facebook. Check it out.

If you back up your machine at the moment, your Internet Explorer Favourites will be backed up also. Backing up your machine is really important, so making sure you have a regular backup is key to bringing it back if you have any problems.

If it’s just your Favourites you want to backup, these are stored in your Profile under a folder called Favourites. You’ll find all your Favourites there, whether they are links to the best gadget sites, page that tell you how to fade stretch marks or link to some of the most addictive games on the web. You can zip this up and place it on a USB stick

It’s really amazing how much music we tend to collect over the years, whether it’s on cassette, vinyl or CD. I still have stacks of CD boxes lying around the house, even though I don’t listen to that music any more. It’s almost a pity you can’t return the CDs back when you don’t want to listen to them any more, and trade them for new music.

Anyway, back to the question at hand, how do you convert your vinyl records to a digital format? There are hardware solutions that can help, record players that can plug into your USB port and help you convert your music into MP3s. One such device is the Audio-Technica AT-LP120 USB Record Turntable that’s currently on sale at Buy.com for around $200. It includes a software package called Audicity which will let you create MP3s from the records that you play. It even includes a pre-amp that lets you connect it to your standard sound system.

Just keep in mind that you should be tagging and labelling your new MP3s are you create them; otherwise it’s easy to end up with a huge collection of music that you can’t find your way around. Better to take the hit up front.

I got this question from Beth who’s looking for an upgrade to the .Net Framework running on her computer. This .Net Framework is an application framework that Microsoft ship with later versions of Windows, but you can still download it for Windows XP. You can download this here

The .Net Framework is quite necessary to run any programs that have been built with Microsoft’s new languages; whether it prototype 37c or a large program, it’s a platform that lets developers build applications quicker in a more sustainable way.

There are a few things you can do to make your boot time quicker. One thing you’ll notice is that as your computer gets older and you install more software, it tends to get slower and slower. Part of this is due to the organisation of the hard disk and part of it is caused by all the different things Windows needs to load up. There are a couple of things you can do; removing software you’re not using any more, defragmenting your hard disk and running a clean up program (I like CCleaner, it’s free and very effective)

One other thing you might want to consider is moving your boot disk to a faster device. Solid state disks are lots faster than mechanical drives and are getting more and more popular especially as they get cheaper. One such device is the Kingston SSDNow SNV125-S2/30GB Solid State Drive. It’s on sale from Buy.com for $75 and is much quicker than a normal hard disk. Using this as your boot disk will improve your start up times considerably, so it’s worth considering.

It’s an interesting option, though would require quite a bit of effort to implement. It will make a huge difference though, so check it out.

A mirror is a different website that has offered to make a download available, sharing the work of transferring the file. The idea behind calling it a mirror is that it should be a perfect reproduction of the first site.
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As long as the link to the mirror is from a reputable site such as Sourceforge then there is no need to fire up your radar detector and start worrying. If you are given a choice it is a good idea to pick a mirror as close to you as possible but, as the difference in speed is negligible, don’t worry too much about making the decision.

Increasing the size of your recycle bin is relatively easy. Right-click the Recycle Bin icon on your desktop and choose Properties. A window will appear allowing you to choose what percentage of the hard disk’s total space can be occupied by deleted items: use the slider to increase this, then click Apply and finally OK to save the setting. I’m assuming you DO have free space on your hard disk; some of these smaller netbooks actually don’t have much space available.

It’s important to clean out your recycle bin when you get a chance. The purpose of the this is to provide a 2nd chance in case you delete something by accident. You sound like you’re using it as a backup location for your files. It’s better to use a USB disk or optical media for your backup. Or you can check out an online backup solution like Dropbox. It’s always great to be covered.