How To Create Free Ringtones for IPhones.

So for my brother's birthday, My family and I decided to give him an Iphone and since I was adding him to my current phone line, I needed to upgrade my phone line so I got an Iphone as well

Once I activated my Iphone, I decided to see about getting some ringtones and I found out that not only do you have to pay for the song ($0.99) you also have to pay to create a ringtone ($0.99).
Well after searching around the internet, i came across several websites on how to create your own ringtones for free.

I also have several colleagues who own Iphones that didn't know this was possible so I created this cheat sheet to help them and anyone else who is interested in creating their own ringtones.

How to create ringtones for the Iphone

• Add the song to itunes.
  
• Right-click the song and select “Get info”
  
• Click the “Options” tab.
  
• Select the start time and end time (song can only be between 30 & 40 seconds long) and click ok.
  
• Right-click on the song again and select “Convert Selection to AAC”.
  
• Create a folder on the desktop called “Ringtones”.
  
• Copy the song and place it on the “Ringtones” folder.
  
• Go to the “Ringtones” folder and click Tools > Folder Options and click the “View” tab.
  
• Uncheck the box titled "Hide extensions for known file types".
  
• Right-click the song and select “Rename”, replace the "m4a" extension of your ringtone with "m4r".
  
• Confirm when the dialog asks if you really want to make the change.
  
• Double-click the ringtone or add the file to itunes.
  
• Sync your Iphone and select ringtone tab to select which ringtones you want.
  
• Done.
  
  Hope this can work out as best for you that it did for me.
  - Highlighted part you only have to do this one time.

Summer Reading Week 6

With the release date of volume 2 quickly approaching and the volume 1 hardcover out in a few days (Oct 22,2008), I properly introduce you to The Umbrella Academy.

The Umbrella Academy vol 1 : The Apocalypse Suite written by Gerald Way with art by Gabriel Ba' and Covers by James Jean

For those who is not familiar with the writer, his main occupation is lead singer of My Chemical Romance, but don't let that push you away if you are not a fan of his music.
With his first publish work, Way knock it out of the park, The story centers around a group of superheroes who are reunites after the death of their adoptive father who collected them shortly after birth and trained them to save the world from any threats.

The beautiful art is done by Gabriel Ba' who with his brother Fabian Moon are become big names in the comic industry and are by far one of my favorite artists
he just brings out the characters and puts us right in the action.



This series was a big surprised to everyone but it is a really great read, and just this past summer the umbrella academy was awarded an Eisner(which is an equivalent to an Oscars) for "Best Finite Series/Limited Series".

Summer Reading week 5

With Fall TV Schedule in full effect and old shows are coming back for new seasons I'm ecstatic to bring to you a continuation of a TV Series that may be better than the series that was on TV.

This week I introduce you to Buffy: The Vampire Slayer Season 8

Buffy: The Vampire Slayer Season 8 - The long Way Home written by Joss Whedon with art by Georges Jeanty

For fans of : Buffy(of course), Horror.

Written by the series creator Joss Whedon, The Long Way Home brings us in a 1 1/2 after season 7.
The story sets us up as Buffy and the rest of the crew are stationed in Scotland at a slayer training ground, with the world more dangerous the group has expanded to over 500 slayers.



the writers of the series really capture the tone and the voices of the each characters, and one would think that having to draw actors would be a breeze, but it is actually really hard but the artist Jeanty pulls it off beautifully.



If you were ever a fan of the show or you were interested but never got a chance to watch the show, I greatly recommend trying this out.

Summer Reading week 4

This week let's put a serious tone on our reading, coming out of one of my favorite independent comic companies, Onipress comes a book about espionage, political thrillers and personal struggles.

Queen and Country : The Definitive Collection Vol. 1
Written by Greg Rucka, Illustrated by Steve Rolston, Brian Hurtt, Bryan Lee O'Malley, Christine Norrie and Leandro Fernández.



Queen and Country : The Definitive Collection Vol. 2
Written by Greg Rucka, Illustrated by Jason Alexander, Carla Speed McNeil, and Mike Hawthorne.



For Fans of : James Bond, The West Wing

Now I have been a huge fan of Greg Rucka before reading these and I never thought of picking this up even after reading the two novels based on the main character.I have also heard on plenty of podcasts (Ifanboy, Around Comics, etc) that this was a great series and I could wait any longer to pick this up.

The series is centered on Tara Chace, an operative of the Special Operations Section of SIS or the "Secret intelligence Service" of United Kingdom, known as the Minders.
It shows us the ins and outs of the Agency with all the bureaucracy and politics and the occasional missions of the spy genre.

I recommend these books to anyone who is interested in a smart, exciting character like Tara and stories filled with action, adventure and intrigue.

Welcome to the 1st Annual Windy City Comicon

Chicago has always been a comic book town, Chicago has hosted one of the largest show in the Midwest, even before it was purchased by Wizard Entertainment.

But truth be told, Wizard world Chicago is kind of a False Advertisement with not actually being in Chicago, WW Chicago has been running in Rosemont for several years, even joked about in many podcasts.

So When I got a newsletter from one of my Favorite Podcast, Around Comics telling me that they are sponsoring the 1st Annual Windy City Comicon is coming this October, i couldn't to write about how excited I am for this.



So far the list of creators is starting to look very promising...

Special Guests are:

Gene Ha
Gene is best known for his work on Top 10 and Top 10: The Forty-Niners, the Batman graphic novel Fortunate Son, The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix, Global Frequency and his many Wizard Magazine and Marvel covers.



Jason Howard
After years of drawing pictures for a variety of independent comic publishers, Jason Howard met up with writer Robert Kirkman in 2005. Together they created The Astounding Wolf-Man. Launched on Free Comic Book Day 2007.



Chris Burnham
Don't let the smile and the beard fool you, Chris was not a member of the folk rock group, America. He has however worked on Nixon's Pals, X-Men Divided We Stand 2, Fear Agent and Elephantmen.



Mike Norton
In February 2007, Mike signed an exclusive contract with DC Comics and has worked on the All New Atom, Green Arrow/Black Canary, Countdown to Final Crisis, Blue Beetle and DC's weekly series, Trinity.



Skottie Young
Skottie is best known for his work on New Warriors, Human Torch, Spider-Man Legend of the Spider Clan and New X-Men. He's currently working on an adaptation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for Marvel Illustrated.



And Many More...

If anyone is interested you can go to The Windy City Comicon website, and I hope to see everyone there, I will be the one with the cheesiest smile.

P.S.

I forgot to mention that it's only $5 to get in.

Summer Reading Week 3

Since there was a delay in my summer reading blog post, with this blog I offer you TWO First Volumes trades to read and hopefully enjoy. The two trades are Y: The Last Man Vol.1 & The Walking Dead Vol. 1




The first trade is Y: The Last Man Vol. 1 - Unmanned written by Brian K Vaughan with art by Pia Guerra, first volume was released in Sept 2002.

The story is about the only man to survive the mysterious simultaneous death of every male mammal on Earth. It starts on July 17,2002 where every mammal with the Y-chromosome is simultaneously killed except for a young escape artist slacker named Yorick Brown and his monkey Ampersand.

The story continues for several years as we try to find out how "the Plague" came about all the while we follow Yorick to Australia to find his girlfriend Beth. Along the way we meet allot of interesting characters like the ultra feminist group calling themselves The Amazons and Agent 355 who was sent by a mysterious US agency to keep Yorick alive to find out why he was the last man.

The Story just recently finished with issue #60 and with all 10 volumes out on trades and I can assure you that once you read the first trades, you will not stop until you read the whole series.

Also, they are releasing the whole Y: The Last Man in 6 Hardcovers volumes The first one will be out in 10/28/2008 you can pre-order it here.
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The second Trade is The Walking Dead Vol.1 - Days Gone Bye written by Robert Kirkman with art by Tony Moore

The Story is about a police officer named Rick Grimes who wakes up from a coma to find that a plague of the dead has swept through all civilization and the living dead walk the earth now. With ammunition and a squad car, he heads to Atlanta to look for his Wife Lori and his son Carl only to find that most of the major cities has been overrun by zombies.

We follow the stories of Rick and the survivors he comes across trying to live and survive in this new world, The story has always been about survival, we never find out was causes "the plague" but in the end, that doesn't matter because as rick says
in the end of volume #4 by making the assertion that they, not the zombies outside, are the Walking Dead.

the story is an ongoing series with the 8th volume(Made to Suffer) just came out in June of '08 with the rest of the trades coming out about every 6 months.

Hope you guys can enjoy these series as much as i have.