How To Create A Ringtone For An iPhone

May 20, 2011 By Pete O'Shea

I thought I would try something a little different this week. I have been asked a few times how to create ringtones for the iPhone from music that you already own.

It is pretty simple but not all that well advertised how to do. I think the reason for this is that there is so much money to be made from people buying ringtones that they don’t want to make it too easy for the user to create their own…

Anyway I thought I would write down the process so if I get asked again then I can just point them at this post. I am also hoping that at least some of my readers may have an iPhone and so may be interested in this as well.

The only things you will need for this is an iPhone, a computer, Mac or PC, with iTunes installed on it and some music.

Lifestyle

Upgrading to an iPhone 4 and Unlocking My iPhone 3

May 13, 2011 By Pete O'Shea

I recently got myself a nice new iPhone 4 with Orange. I have been with O2 for a few years now and one thing that really bugged me was the fact that you couldn’t get a proper PDF copy of your bill. Billing was all done online but the only way to view the bill was on their website. There was a download button but all that did was display a new trimmed down webpage with far too little information to be considered an actual bill…

So after many requests for them to change this I decided I had had enough and started looking for a new place to get my next phone from. In the end I decided to move to Orange as their package seemed to be pretty good value for money.

Anyway just before I actually made my move to Orange, O2 decided to implement a proper billing system and I was able to get my latest bill in PDF format. In fact I could download all my historical bills in PDF format as well… Looking back was this even a good reason to switch supplier anyway?

Lifestyle

The 4-Hour Work Week Review

May 6, 2011 By Pete O'Shea

I have recently read The 4-Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. The main concept of the book is pretty staggering when you think about it. Working for just 4 hours a week seems impossible so it must be a bit of a get rich quick style sales strategy. At least that was my initial thoughts when I first heard the name of the book branded about…

The basic premise is that you can set up a business and after a certain amount of time you can whittle the amount of your time required to maintain the business down to about 4 hours per week. Explained this way it already seems a bit more obtainable.

Anyway I thought I might as well give a quick review of the book that has inspired the use of the term Lifestyle Design all over the internet.

Photography

Photos From Wales

April 29, 2011 By Pete O'Shea

Every year Shirley and I try and take the whole family away for a week. Last year we went down to Cornwall. This year we rented a huge cottage near Carmarthen in Wales.

The cottage was connected to the Three Rivers Hotel & Spa so we even had the use of their swimming pool, sauna and gym. This was a great little bonus even though the walk back up the hill afterwards was a bit of a killer…

The weather held out again and I think it’s fair to say we all had a great time…

Here are a handful of photos from the trip showing off some of the wonderful places close to where we were staying. I know this post is a bit late but what with the distraction of the Royal Wedding I didn’t want to rush things…

Lifestyle

Comment Spam Is Worse Than Email!

April 22, 2011 By Pete O'Shea

I am still officially on holiday so this is just going to be a short post today. When I sat down to write this post I logged into WordPress and as usual there were hundreds of comments marked as spam…

I was about to start writing about the Family Holiday and post some photos thereof but seeing all those spam comments made my heart sink. Previously I used to check through all of these messages to make sure there were no real comments that slipped through the net. In the very early days there was a message or two that ended up in the spam list. Since then though I haven’t had a single false positive result.

So why should I still check through all of those spam messages. Well the answer is that I’m not going to bother any more…

Lifestyle

Read Any Good Books Lately?

April 15, 2011 By Pete O'Shea

I have recently finished reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris and have just added a short comment and rating for it on Goodreads. I do plan on writing a bit more of a thorough review in a post in the near future but that isn’t the point. When I logged in to my account on Goodreads I noticed that it says that I have 0 friends…

It is never nice to be told you have no friends so I thought I would try and do something about it.

That gave me the idea for this post. I would like all of you bookworms out there to join up and hopefully my number of friends will slowly creep upwards…

Photography

Lowepro Fastpack 250 Camera Backpack Review

April 8, 2011 By Pete O'Shea

I have just been getting my camera stuff ready to take away on the next Family Holiday. Let’s hope the weather was as good as last year…

Anyway what struck me was just how perfect my camera backpack is for a trip like this. With all it’s little pockets and compartments it is great to stash all the little bits and pieces that may come in handy if the need arises.

So this led me to the idea that I should write a little review of my Lowepro Fastpack 250 Backpack.

The fact that I can get access to my digital SLR while on the move simply by sliding the bag off one shoulder, even with a hefty zoom lens attached, makes the bag amazingly useful. Then there is the added bonus that I can slip my laptop in the back when travelling to and from my destination.

Technology

Shockwave Flash Problems

April 1, 2011 By Pete O'Shea

I have been using Google Chrome as my main browser for a while alongside Mozilla Firefox which I also use fairly regularly. Internet Explorer is only used as a last resort if sites do not function correctly.

Recently though I seem to be inundated with plug-in crashes in Chrome.

Mozilla has recently updated Firefox to version 4.0 so I thought it would be good to try switching back. I still get the occasional crash though and when they happen in Firefox the whole screen goes blank and eventually comes back with a message that the video card driver has recovered from a problem…

Lifestyle

Travel Hacking

April 1, 2011 By Pete O'Shea

I have recently come across the idea of Travel Hacking. This is basically a way to get the most out of the free upgrades and free flights around the world available from the different airlines by collecting Frequent Flyer Miles.

I used to collect AirMiles many years ago as my credit card used to ward them to me just for using the card. I think I got a free flight or two to Europe over the years but nothing to write home about.

Then the credit card company stopped giving away the free miles and my AirMiles account just lapsed…

Recently I came across the Travel Hacking Cartel. This is a paid for membership site which provides information on how best to collect and use your miles with regular new deals being posted with some great opportunities.

Lifestyle

Monthly Review For March

March 25, 2011 By Pete O'Shea

After a chat with a good friend of mine I have realised that sometimes I am spending far too much on this blog! Some of the posts have taken me a whole day to write…

That was fine when I was working in the 9–5 lifestyle as I had some time to kill in the mornings anyway… Right now though I am trying to get my business off the ground and so I should be spending more quality time creating…

Time management is still proving something of a challenge but I can see drastic improvements recently. The trick was to reduce what I am trying to do. The simpler the list of jobs you have to do the easier it is to concentrate on them one at a time and get some good quality work done.

Don’t panic I still plan on posting every week but I am giving myself a much stricter time frame to get each post done. One thing that is going to change though are these monthly reviews. Read on for details…