My DigitalZone

Here’s a quick way of creating and sending your own ringtones to your Verizon cell phone. It’s not that difficult. You need a sound editor program to crop the source mp3 file and to change the format. I used GoldWave, which costs $49.00 for one user; however, you can download and install free software, audacity, from here. If you choose to use audacity, you also need to download and install the mp3 codec, Lame 3.96.1.

Once you picked a song and installed software, do the following.

1. Open the song in the sound editor and trim the song so that the song length is about 20 seconds.
2. Save the file as an mp3, 22050 Hz, 160 kbps, stereo. You can choose a lower kbps and mono but the quality will not be as good. The file size should be somewhere between 250kb to 350kB.
3. Close the file and change the file extension to mid so Verizon protocol will think it’s a file in a midi format. [Note: I am using LG enV3, and it worked without changing the extension.]
4. Log in to your email account. (I used my Yahoo email.)
5. Start a new email and attach the file to the email and send it to yourself.
6. Forward the email to your cell phone. The recipient’s address should be:
   XXXYYYZZZZ@vzwpix.com
   where XXXYYYZZZZ is your cellphone number including the area code. (You may need to have a Verizon pix place for this to work.)

I tried some other ways and software before but I am satisfied with the quality and ease of making/sending my own ringtone this way.

[Note]
If you are not a Verizon user, you can refer to this page for some additional info on other wireless carriers. I’m not sure how up-to-date this page is, though.

I upgraded my FireFox from 3.0 to 3.5 and noticed an irritating change. For some reason, right-clicking of the mouse didn’t work at all. It didn’t bring up a set of options. After searching some more info on it, I found out that Yahoo Toolbar was the cause. So, I removed the Yahoo Toolbar by:

• Clicking on the Tool menu and choosing Add-ons, and
• choosing “Extensions” and selecting Yahoo Toolbar, and
• choosing “Uninstall.”

Now things are back to normal with FireFox.

Windows Safe Mode is very useful when you want to troubleshoot your PC’s problems. Your PC may misbehave for various reasons. The cause could be the software or hardware you just installed or a virus. You may encounter an almost disastrous situation where your PC refuses to boot up in a normal way. In all of these circumstances, booting into a Window safe mode will let you have a chance to fix the problem.

What is Windows Safe Mode
When you boot your computer into Windows safe mode, Windows load the minimal sets of software so that the administrative or diagnostic tasks can be done. You can choose what sets of software/drivers to load at the startup of safe mode but I recommend that you just use a default safe mode boot. It means that your network connection and display drivers, etc., won’t start. So, the screen looks very rough.

How to boot into safe mode
You may need to use a different method for some computers (e.g., Dell computers) but typically you need to F8 key to get into safe mode. When you first power up your computer, the machine’s screen is black and you will see some texts scroll up (e.g., keyboard, hard drive…). Don’t do anything yet because it is a list of hardware installed on your machine and a program on the motherboard is checking them. Right after the list of equipment, you may see “starting Windows.” At this moment, you need to start tapping the F8 key until you see the safe mode menu screen. As I said earlier, just booting into a regular safe mode is recommended.

What can I do once I’m in the safe mode?
Well, you can uninstall the software you just installed if you think it’s the cause. You can run an anti-virus software if your PC is likely to be infected. In the worst case scenario where you think you may need to reinstall Windows, you can move all of your important files to a removable disk just like I did a while back.

An uninterruptible power supply (UPS), or a battery backup, unit provides emergency power supply and typically protection from power surges. It comes in handy if you live in an area where power supply is not stable or thunderstorms are common. I moved to a part of the U.S. where there is a thunderstorm season that lasts for a couple of months and was amazed with its frequency. The particular area where I moved also had lots of housing construction going on, and I experienced frequent power flickers. Losing unsaved data because of a second of power loss is not fun at all. So, I went ahead and bought 2 APC UPC units. My 2 desktop PC are connected to them and I no longer have to worry about data loss due to power loss/fluctuations. Most of my other stuff, i.e., my laptop, are connected to regular (not-so-cheap) surge protectors.

I chose APC because it is the most reputable manufacturer of UPC and reviews for their products are consistently good. The unit I bought is this one.

It has 10 outlets with 5 being backed up by a battery. The other 5 outlets have surge protection only. I’ve had numerous power outages since I bought this and it never failed to operate. It also has an alarm that tells you when the power is out. I guess the alarm is useful because I don’t always notice a power failure during the day. If the duration of power failure is long, it can be turned off.

All in all, I am quite satisfied with this product.

Text message spam is becoming problematic worldwide. I’ve already gotten a few. Just a few junk messages are not much of a problem for me at this time but I don’t like it nonetheless.

SMS spam is much worse than an email spam because it’s more costly for people who don’t have a text-messaging add-on to their cell plan. For those who don’t have a text message add-on, it cost at least $0.05 per message. I remember we used to be worried about junk faxs. Now we are worried about junk text messages.

In the U.S., two senator propsed m-SPAM act in April this year. (m-SPMA stands for SMA spam.) We don’t have to wait until the bill passes. AT&T and Verizon have already added some features to block unwanted text messages from their customers’ inbox.

Verizon
Log on to vtext.com using your regular Verizon username and password. You’ll see “Text Messaging” menu on the left. Then go to “Preferences” and “Text blocking.” There are different ways to block different types of text messages there.

AT&T
Go to mymessages.wireless.att.com. Choose “Preferences” and go through text-messaging and alias options.

Hope this helps.