Back in the day when I bought my first GPS device, a Garmin eTrex rigged to my old Compaq iPaq running a TomTom application, GPS devices were not exactly common. Cars didn’t have them build in yet and a simple receiver like the Garmin eTrex was considered hi-tech and wasn’t really able to do any sensible route planning like we see now a days.
In this article I’ll try to explain how GPS works, and I’ll show some examples of devices and uses of GPS.
Making your own Ringtone isn’t difficult, but it can be a bit daunting at times how to exactly do it.
In this article I’ll show you how you can create your own ringtones, from music files like MP3’s or even from movie files like AVI, MP4, etc. For this we will use WavePad which is available for Windows and MacOS X for free (for home use).
Note that if you only want to create ringtones from an MP3 that’s already on your Android phone, an app like RingDroid (free) can do the editing right on your phone as well.
iPhone users can read these 2 articles for doing exactly the same: Windows and MacOS X make Ringtones from MP3 or Movies.
Unfortunately, creating a ringtone for an iPhone can be surprisingly daunting … and in my opinion that doesn’t exactly match the Apple philosophy … oh well. It’s even more difficult than with the good old flip-phone, so much for “smart” phones.
After writing an article how to do this under MacOS X, utilizing iTools and QuickTime, I of course had to write an article for Windows users as well.
In this article: How to make a ringtone for your iPhone, from an Audio file (WAV, MP3, etc) or a Video file (AVI, MP4, etc), trimmed to the desired length and uploaded to your phone using totally free tools.
Creating a ringtone, back in the day, from an existing MP3 for my good old cellphone(s) was relatively easy. Trim the MP3 and copy it to your phone, either directly or by email.
These days however, with these “wonderful” smartphones like the iPhone, using an MP3 as a ringtone seems more complicated than ever.
In this guide I’ll show you how to quick and easy create and install a MP3 ringtone under MacOS X. The source can be basically any audio or video file with the trick we show here.
For those of you who buy their moves from iTunes, you might run into a little snag when trying to view the movie (or rental) on your TV, Android devices or otherwise non-Apple device. I even heard that playback from an Apple MacBook (over VGA) to your TV doesn’t work. Well that sucks …
I fully understand the need for minimizing the illegal copying practices of music, movies and TV series, but come on! You should be able to watch the movie you purchased on your TV or any other non-Apple device!? Isn’t this kind of protection promoting illegal downloads …? After all those would be free and come with zero hassle …!?
In this article I’ll show you how you can remove iTunes DRM from your legally bought iTunes movies for MacOS X.
Windows users should read the “Windows – How to remove DRM from iTunes movies” article.
For those of you who buy their moves from iTunes, you might run into a little snag when trying to view the movie (or rental) on your TV, Android devices or otherwise non-Apple device. I even heard that playback from an Apple MacBook (over VGA) to your TV doesn’t work. Well that sucks …
I fully understand the need for minimizing the illegal copying practices of music, movies and TV series, but come on! You should be able to watch the movie you purchased on your TV or any other non-Apple device!? Isn’t this kind of protection promoting illegal downloads …? After all those would be free and come with zero hassle …!?
In this article I’ll show you how you can remove iTunes DRM from your legally bought iTunes movies for Windows.
MacOS X users should read the “MacOS X – How to remove DRM from iTunes movies” article.
VNC, a tool that allows you to remotely access the desktop of a computer, has a long history and has been available in many shapes and forms. Not entirely surprising, plenty of free VNC Servers and VNC Clients are available for Windows and Linux, but the selection for MacOS X appears rather limited.
Sure, there are a lot of VNC clients for MacOS X … but hardly any of them are free,… but why install yet another application when you already have a VNC Client and Server installed?
In this article, we will use the build in VNC Server and VNC Client … it comes with your Mac … for free!
You might have an old iPhone laying around doing nothing just catching dust. That’s really a shame,… these phones are actually pretty capable “computers”, have a reasonable screen and a camera build in. So why not Go-Green and recycle these iPhones for a different purpose?
In this article I’ll show you 2 ways of repurposing your old iPhone as a so called IP Camera, or Security Camera, with free tools/Apps.
Note : This is not the first article I post on how to repurpose your old iPhone – Look in the category Repurpose old iOS devices for more ways to give your old iPhone or iPods (running iOS) a new life.
You might have read the articles on using your old phones as IP Camera monitors (Android, iPhone), so you can imagine that it didn’t take me much time to set them up as IP Camera’s as well. After all: these smartphones are pretty capable devices and do come with a build in camera, often better than the camera’s build in dedicated IP Camera’s like my Foscam IP camera’s.
In this article I’ll show you how to repurpose your old Android phone as an IP Camera, so you can remotely monitor for example your house, your baby, etc.
Copying an Audio CD to MP3’s (a.k.a. Ripping) can also be done quite easily under Linux. Applications like iTunes and Windows Media Player do not exist under Linux, but that doesn’t mean that the Linux community is without means …
In this article I’ll show you, based on Ubuntu and ASunder, how to copy Audio CD’s to MP3 files.
With the average “life-span” of a cellphone (the time we actually use the phone) of 1 to 2 years, a lot of folks should have “old” phones in their drawers.
Quite a few of those could be smartphones, which can in fact be seen as computers. They most certainly outperform my first PC’s with ease so wouldn’t there be good ways to repurpose our “old” smartphones?
I already used this kind of setup for my old iPhone – so I decided to do the same thing for one of my old Android phone (the Samsung has a much nicer screen than my old iPhone).
With the average “life-span” of a cellphone (the time we actually use the phone) of 1 to 2 years, a lot of folks should have one or two “old” smartphones laying around collecting dust. Quite a few of those most certainly outperform my first PC’s with ease. So wouldn’t there be good ways to repurpose our “old” smartphones?
Without realizing, I kind-a already did this when I started using my 1st generation iPhone as a monitor for my Foscam IP camera’s.
In this article I’ll show you how I’m using my old iPhone (1st generation) as a monitor for my IP camera’s, and hopefully this will be the first of many articles in which we repurpose our old cellphones.
If you have Internet at home, then you’re probably having a so called “home” network, maybe without even knowing.
In this longer than expected article, I’ll explain some of the basics of a home network – the key elements in it, what their purpose is, and some of the lingo.
For non-experts: this is a good place to start to get a reasonable understanding of your network at home, which you’ll benefit from when trouble shooting network/Internet problems.
I’m pretty sure most of us have at least one laying around that we might like to convert MP3’s so we can listen to the songs on our Smartphone, MP3 Player or Media Center appliance,…
We will be converting our Audio CD with the use of iTunes – it is free and actually does a great job when it comes to ripping and collecting meta data (thumbnail image, proper titles, etc.). I will also show you how to do this with Windows Media Player that comes with your Windows.
Note for XBMC users: XBMC has Audio CD Ripping functionality build in.
Most 3D printer use a heated bed to make sure printed objects stay in place (amongst others).
The principle is based on keeping the object at a certain temperature, so that temperature differences between printed layers will not cause “warping” and even pop your object loose from the bed … and as a result of that screw up your print, and in bad situations even start dragging your object all over the place. (reference)
The time it takes to heat a bed however can take a long time, and frankly, I’m not that patient. So I use a super simple and cheap trick to speed up the heating process of the heated bed. It’s pretty much free and easy to use. I assume this will work for all 3D printers that print with plastics like ABS, but I have only used it with a LeapFrog Creatr so far.
