I have been enjoying various message ringtones on my iPhone recently – very happy that iOS5 finally brought customisable message tones into the mix.

I don’t like many funny phone call ringtones, but message tones can be great as they are short, sweet, and you don’t have to pick up your phone or take it out of your pocket when one goes off.

There have been many amusing incidents during the last few months, when in a serious conversation at work, an important meeting, out to lunch with friends or even just in the lift with strangers, when from my pocket Gene Hunt shouts “Shut It!“, or Droopy exclaims drolly “You know what, that makes me Mad” or when Baron Silas Greenback‘s pet, Nero, simply goes “Oowwwaaaaaaarg!” Timing is everything, and they’ve often been a conversation starter or stopper just at the right moment. Plus my kids just love them, though I had to change one to stop them just going round saying “Shut It!” all the time.

Without further ado here is a selection of my favourites for you to have fun with:

Danger Mouse

First set is from Danger Mouse, one of my all time favourite animates series; featuring Danger Mouse (aka David Jason from Only Fools an Horses) and Penfold (aka Terry Scott) among others.

danger_mouse.zip

Gene Hunt

Second up are some great quotes from the tough 1970′s Mancunian Copper Gene Hunt (aka Philip Glenister) from the brilliant BBC series Life on Mars, , and the follow-up Ashes to Ashes.

gene_hunt.zip

One quote I’m missing from this batch is my favourite “Freeze, you’re surrounded by armed bastards!“. If anyone has this audio file let me know!

Tex Avery

Finally these classics from various Tex Avery cartoons, a man born over 100 years ago whom still influences our culture today; featuring Droopy and many more bizarre but fantastic cartoon characters from many years ago.

tex_avery.zip

Format and installation

The files are in .m4r format, meaning all you have to do is drag and drop the unzipped files into iTunes then sync them with your iOS device (see the ringtone tab for your device in iTunes). This is exactly the same as .m4a format – just need to rename the file.

I apologize for not including many big garish flashing florescent banners and text advertising “FREE RINTONES!” to attract your attention. I really do hate those type of sites!. And I can guarantee these zip files contain no viruses or malware – though you’ll obviously just have to take my word on that!

All copyrights remain with the original artists/companies etc.

Enjoy!

And if they do eventuate in any amusing stories, feel free to share them in the comments here…

I thought it was abut time I reviewed my year old Say Goodbye post to see what has changed since and what’s the state of play now. That post was (when written) going to be my last post, but – as I said things come and go in waves…

Apple’s iCloud Control Panel for Windows clearly states its minimum requirements are Microsoft Windows Vista SP2 or Windows 7 (and for good reason I think, see below…). If you try to install it on Windows XP you get a message saying it won’t work on that version. Some people are stuck on XP for various reasons. For me, my work place is very slow or reluctant to upgrade, sadly. I see on various posts about iCloud and Windows XP the (pointless) discussion going on about – well you should simply upgrade Windows!

You can of course still sync your iDevice direct with your Win XP PC; and with iOS5 you no longer need to plug it in so can be done over your Wi-Fi connection in the background. And of course you can access your iCloud email etc via http://icloud.com.

There are a couple of other ways you can integrate iCloud with Windows XP that I’ve discovered, one is simple synced access to your mail and one is a simple hack of the iCloud Control Panel for Windows:

Run your me.com email via IMAP on Outlook

You can easily set up your iCloud / me.com email address as an IMAP email account in Outlook (and other email programs). This gives access to your Mail folders and Notes, and any changes are synced across your devices.

Settings to use for this in Outlook are:

Add a new Internet mail account, and “Manually configure your server and settings”"

Username, if your email is abcde@me.com, it will be abcde.

Password is obviously your iCloud password

Account Type: IMAP
Incoming Server: imap.mail.me.com
Outgoing Server: smtp.mail.me.com

If these servers don’t work for you, can also try:

Incoming Server: p99-imap.mail.me.com
Outgoing Server: p99-smtp.mail.me.com

Or

Incoming Server: p03-imap.mail.me.com
Outgoing Server: p03-smtp.mail.me.com

It may be these different servers are suited to different countries – I don’t know

Go to “More Settings”

On the Advanced tab:

Incoming Server (IMAP). set Port to “993“, …encryption connection select SSL
Outgoing Server (SMTP), set Port to “587” …encryption connection select TSL or Auto

On “Outgoing Server” tab
Check box “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication” leave “Use same settings as…”

To view & sync special iCloud IMAP folders:

To access the iCloud special folders: Sent, Archive, Drafts, Junk or Trash in Outlook 2010 (which initially creates its own version of these folders): Right click the Mailbox, select “IMAP Folders” and then “subscribe” to the folders you want to see.

Following this you can modify Outlook to use the iCloud folders for Sent and Trash instead of newly created default: Go to Email Accounts, Change, More settings and make the changes in the “Sent Items” and “Deleted Items” tabs. Noting that Outlook it sees Trash as “Deleted Messages” and Sent as “Sent Messages” – but they are the same folders.

This is an essential thing to do if you don’t want two different “Sent Items” (Outlook) and “Sent Messages” (iCloud) folders.

How to hack iCloud Control Panel for Windows to run in Windows XP

There’s a simple hack I found here to get the iCloud Control Panel for Windows to work on XP. I have this running fine on Windows XP and Outlook 2010 (for the moment anyway). This gives me synced access to Contacts, Calenders, Reminders and Bookmarks. It also can be used to set up your me.com mail as above:

[Update April 2012] Here’s the files you need:

Following files are modified iCloud installation files:

• iCloud.msi (Modified iCloud installation file)
• iCloud64.msi (Modified iCloud installation file for 64 bit systems)
• iCloud-exe_extracted.zip (The full extracted version of iCloud.exe, with all other msi files, including the two modified files above)
• iCloudSetup.exe (Original unmodified file from Apple, October 2011)

If you want to do it yourself, know what was done to these files, or just know how it works, read on:

Requirements:
iTunes 5.10
Unpacking program e.g. 7-Zip or WinRar
Orca MSI editor

The iCloud setup hack for Windows XP:

1. Download iCloud Control Panel for Windows. (Update: Apple version may be updated since this post – links to copies of the original version/files are above)
2. Open iCloudSetup.exe file with WinRar or 7-Zip and extract.
3. Navigate to and open the iCloud.msi or iCloud64.msi (for 64bit systems) with Orca.
4. In the left table select LaunchCondition. Then change in the right table “VersionNT>; = 600” to “VersionNT>; = 200” and Save.
5. Run modified iCloud.msi and install. (Modified copy of this file ; and 64 bit version ;)
6. Run iCloud Control Panel, located in the Windows Control Panel, and set up as you want.

And you’re done.

Good luck!

PS: Why doesn’t Apple support Windows XP?

Well, in my opinion, why should they? Even though iCloud works on Windows XP with this easy hack, which is to simply fool the installer that it is compatible with XP, I can fully understand why they don’t want it to be officially compatible. Yes, they could just change the installer at the source and make it compatible – probably not hard… But, think of the numerous issues and support queries that everyone running XP could come up with related to iCloud running smoothly – whether they be the fault of the iCloud software or (more likely) an issue with Windows XP itself, or very specific installation/configuration of XP and the machine it’s on, or just the user’s misunderstanding. Then imagine the resources to reply and deal with those queries if it was officially supported. I would certainly rather Apple leave behind legacy systems (as they often do) and focus on new and future products, wouldn’t you? As Steve Job’s said, death is life’s greatest invention, out with the old to make way for the new…

As new technology is developed we say often say goodbye to the old, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes with fond memoires. Most recently but not surprisingly, the original Sony Walkman hit the dust. I was more surprised to find out it was still being manufactured up until now! I’ve still got one sitting somewhere of course, along side an original Sony Minidisc player. The 1/4″ floppy stopped being manufactured this year (a fantastic ice scraper for your car btw). Being a hoarder I’ve got quite a few things sitting around, including one of the the first real touch screen devices, the Pilot 5000 (and a few of its descendants), the device that went on to become Palm and inspired a revolution, but faded itself – or is still fading.

Bigtrak is back!

My favourite old bit of technology in the house is my still working 1980′s Bigtrak (white, UK model). My kids now love this if I let them have a go. But wait, 30 years on say hello! Bigtrack is Back! Some things to return – if they were good enough and loved enough…

Apple is the donkey’s carrot on the string

Steve Jobs is often quoted as wanting to “Change the World”. And he has. And no doubt will continue to. Whether you like Apple or not everyone gets excited about the “Just one more thing…” But in developing the next thing and leading the way they are often strongly attributed killing off technologies they see as obsolete. The obvious one that everyone is writing (too much) about is Flash – Adobe Flash that is, not Flash Memory (Steve Jobs: “Flash? We love Flash memory!”). Now we see Microsoft is giving up on Silverlight in favour of HTML5. Apple lead, everyone follows (eventually). Consider instead of a carrot on a string leading the donkey, it’s a tastier apple leading the tech world – they all want a bite, never quite reach, but it keeps them going. There are other leaders of course, but Jobs and Apple get the media attention – aren’t they good at that? Though, they aren’t perfect of course – I don’t like iTunes’ interface for browsing content – too slow, and what’s the point in Ping?

There are many others, in decline. MySpace keeps trying to revamp itself, but will it go anywhere? I doubt it. I just deleted my account. Yahoo – the next big thing, the internet phenomenon of the 90′s – well, they also keep trying to revamp too, but will they keep it up?

Say Goodbye to…

What will we say goodbye to next, what will stay?

Flash will fade away
Silverlight will go the same way
Google Earth is here to stay
As is Wikipedia
though I must say
I prefer h2g2
Yahoo take two steps forward, three back
MySpace, sorry, but following you lack
America On Line – gone off-line
the phoenix has phizzled
Ping just pongs
Syonara Symbian
Beebo’s a dodo
IE, who uses that?
Linux for servers and die-hards
Less about the OS, more about the Apps
iPhone will just get better
iPad and iPod will follow suit
What happened to the old fashioned letter?
now that point is mute
Moores law will carry on, or double
Palm – who? They’re in trouble
CDs – a year or two
DVDs – maybe five
Digg dug its grave
Twitter will grow a bit more, flatten out and dive
(unless they add something new)
Facebook will get bigger but not forever
It is to the naughties what Yahoo was to the nineties
Riding the peak of the wave
Something else will come and it will fade away
A Modern Messaging System?
Not impressed, not excited, 5/10, could do better
Everything comes and goes in waves, except Google Wave – that just went
Waved goodbye before saying hello
Social networks become anti-social networks – why not just talk to people?
Get outside and go
Camping, get back to nature, move to the country (the next big thing?)
Skype n Facetime – Video and VoIP good for us
Google talk – only in the US
Say hello to Graphene – that’s one to watch
Blogging is old hat (so why am I doing that?)
Perhaps I should stop.

SugarSync now rules…

SugarSync is now, by a far my favourite for online cloud storage and syncing files. Great new features on iPhone App, and excellent support and updates. They also give you 5Gb free to start with. I’ve also just installed and used their Outlook add-in which makes emailing big files a sinch.

Zumodrive unfortunately has had no updates in a long time; It has crashed on my iPhone several times when accessing files; I’ve encountered blank files in linked shared folders updated by others.

Old ZumoCast Article (Sept 2010):

ZumoDrive is was my favourite for syncing files across multiple computers, and accessing them anywhere on your iPhone. For me this one, to date no longer, tops dropbox, sugarsync and Mesh (update: Mesh is dead).

Now they’ve just added ZumoCast, which enables you to access any file and stream your media (music & video) on your computers or macs either online or on your iPhone or iPad, anywhere, without uploading/syncing the files first (provided your computer is switched on of course). There are other programs that have done this, like orb, but ZumoCast has implemented their free iPhone app very elegantly – and this is their first iteration of their app. I will find this most useful for accessing work project files anywhere on the go without having to download/sync them – which with the number and size of them would be impossible anyway.

• Setting a folder on your PC to be “ZumoCast“- simply right click “Add to ZumoCast” Also works on network drives and folders
• Same log in as your ZumoDrive
• Sorts out all your music into Albums, Artists, Playlists etc, and filters out your Videos to show individually.

I’m won’t comment too much on speeds and quality of media streaming to the iPhone, as there are so many variables to consider that will be different to everyone, your computer, its network, Zumo server’s your iPhone/iPad’s network, the size/quality of file streamed. But as I sit here and write this I’m listening on my iPhone to Adam and the Ant’s “Ant Music” without interruption (third time lucky), streamed from the computer I’m typing on all around the world back the the iPhone next to it over 3G… You do get the option to download the media files and when selecting the songs can filter for only those you’ve downloaded.

This little app fits into the categories they make it work for me: simple, elegant, easy and quick to use, so fuss, no hassle and works.

Anyway, try it out ourself to see – it’s won’t cost anything but a moment of your time.

• They’ve acquired the domain flavours.me which now mirrors everything at flavors.me – excellent for us British English speaking users
• It no longer runs on Flash – so now iPhone and iPad browsers can view sites
• They’ve improved their customer support over on Get Satisfaction

They’ve had a few teething problems updating feeds quickly and the like, mainly caused by the massive number of users signing up to use the service – I don’t think they expected their success to be achieved so quickly.

There’s a few minor things that can be improved – such as viewing a site on an iPhone – the background picture doesn’t stay put so white text on a dark background becomes invisible if you scroll down the feed. Though now they’ve solved two issues/ideas I had (flavours & iPhone) I get the feeling they are listening and trying their best to provide a great service both to the paid accounts and free ones.

Thanks go to the guys and girls at flavors.me (flavours.me). Keep up the excellent work.

Here’s my my personal flavours.me page and ones I very quickly created for BBC’s Digital Planet and The Now Show to consolidate their feeds and links for fans.

I’ve been watching Parajet’s Skycar development since January ’09 when I heard about what the flying car they had developed and their planned expedition to fly from London to Tombouctou, on Chris Evans’ BBC Radio 2 Show Podcast. Back then they were testing it out and preparing for the expedition.

It was mentioned on the show, a few key things that immediately caught my undivided attention:

• To fly it you only needed a Paragliding licence
• The car would be fully roadworthy to drive around town
• It takes about 3 minutes to self launch the Parafoil wing
• Runs on standard fuel (prototype ran on biofuel)
• And the key thing – they were planning to make these cars and sell them at a low price of ?50,000 (British pounds)

?50,000 for a car you can drive around and fly and without a full private pilot’s licence (PPL)? Wow!

I followed the expedition on their website as they travelled the 9000km in the car which was fantastic.

All fell silent for a while – I guess as they were in development of the production version. Well 18 months later, I see they have a new website and are taking deposits for the first 50 SkyCars right now, at yep – ?50,000. A ?10,000 deposit will secure you one the of the first to roll off the production line (or workshop) planned for delivery late 2010. If I wasn’t renovating my house right now, and I had a bit more money to spare, I’d be signing up for sure! Mind you, for double that price you can go into space with Virgin Galactic… but that’s only for a few minutes – this will give you years of fun.

This is an amazing piece of engineering, in some ways simple but very effective idea, and with an affordable price (for some).

Just fantastic.

There’s no need for me to give you more detail here as I’d be just be copying what you can see on their website, but I will point you at the Wikipedia page which also references some of the history and other good news links from last year’s expedition. The pictures above are taken direct from their website – I hope they don’t mind.

SugarSync now rules…

SugarSync is now, by a far my favourite for online cloud storage and syncing files. Great new features on iPhone App, and excellent support and updates. They also give you 5Gb free to start with. I’ve also just installed and used their Outlook add-in which makes emailing big files a sinch.

Zumodrive unfortunately has had no updates in a long time; It has crashed on my iPhone several times when accessing files; I’ve encountered blank files in linked shared folders updated by others.

(Old Article updated 28th October ’10)

I’ve tried and tested 4 different apps for online file storage / syncing across computers and accessible by iPhone:

• Dropbox
• SugarSync
• Zumodrive
• Live Mesh [UPDATE - MS has discontinued this service - replacing it with Windows Live Mesh - which requires Windows 7 or Vista]

Each one can be used to sync files between Mac / PC and the Cloud – i.e. are stored on a remote server accessible via a web browser. All work very well, are secure and sync no problem, and all except Mesh have a dedicated free iPhone App. You can share files or folders with anyone else people (privately or publicly) and most main features are similar.

Please note I’m not comparing any priced plans here, criteria is free storage and free iPhone app, so if 2Gb is not enough for you (5Gb with Mesh) then you’ll need to review current priced plans by these guys to see what’s suitable, or count on getting several referrals.

And the Winner is (still)…. Zumodrive

Having tried them all for a while now – all syncing similar folders across my home Mac and work PC, the clear winner as of today’s app features is ZumoDrive – it has a couple of key features that set it apart from the others.

Key features for me:

• Caching files on iPhone for offline viewing
• Syncing any folder
• Don’t have to sync same files on different computers
• Works on Mac and Windows
• Back-up / file revision management (keeps old copies)

Caching files on the iPhone – that is saving them directly on your phone for offline viewing; rather than having to download them every time you want to look at it and using up your data plan, or costing a fortune if international roaming. Saving them on the iPhone also makes accessing the files much faster.

Review

Live Mesh Beta soon to be discontinued in favor of Windows Live Mesh looses as it has no useful iPhone app yet – the website has been saying “coming soon” for mobile for ever – though you can access via your mobile browser and it does give you 5Gb free storage. Any folder anywhere can be specified as a Mesh synced folder and they don’t have to match on each computer.

Dropbox is one of the older apps and therefore popular because it’s been around longer. Disadvantage is you create a single Dropbox directory to sync, so can’t simply sync random directories on your computers. You can do some very fiddly things (for most people) to make it sync other folders – but it’s not easy. iPhone file caching is was done by setting files as favourites [Update: New iPhone app allows file caching, allowing local storage of up to 1Gb (setting a single memory limit for all files) so you have to pick which files you want to keep on your iPhone to view offline. 2Gb free + 250Mb for each referral (now up to 8Gb).

SugarSync has a couple a lot of good features and the best “looking” iPhone app – well the front page at least. You can sync any folders on different computers and also has the “Magic Briefcase” – a dedicated folder like Dropbox. 2Gb Free + 500Mb more for referrals. Doesn’t store files on your iPhone as far as I can tell after the app is closed, so will always download each time you access them – slow and uses up your data.

Zumodrive appears as an extra drive on your Mac or PC, which is a useful representation. You can add files to this drive, or you can set “Linked folders” anywhere on your computer including network folders – these are linked/synced and also appear in the Zumodrive under “linked folders” directory, then a subdirectory for each machine. iPhone App update: All files downloaded to the iPhone are stored locally (cached) for easy access anytime. You can see the full list of downloaded files, how much memory they are taking up and remove any of them from the iPhone. You can download several files in one hit and view the transfer queue. The settings in the iPhone app – the killer app feature for me - you set the amount of iPhone space to use for files/photos/music (each limit set separately), so whenever you download a file it immediately stored into the iPhone memory until you reach this cache limit. I use 500Mb for Files for example… It will download the file again if it has been changed elsewhere, and the file’s icon indicates whether it is stored on your iPhone already. You start with 1Gb – but a few quick simple steps in the Dojo soon gets you up to 2Gb. Zumodrive also give an extra 256Mb for each referral for up to 5Gb extra.

Another great feature of Zumodrive is its back up or Revision Management – you can set it to keep ALL past revisions of files as they change. This enables you to revert to an old version of a file at any time. It is limited to “All revisions” or none, and old revision copies go against your storage limit, which if you have a big file you change regularly, it could soon add up. I’d like to be able to set it to keep X number of revision of files, rather than all or nothing, but it’s a great extra feature to have.

Zumodrive also has virtual folders on the iPhone where it pulls (indexes) all your music or all your photos from any synced folder, presenting them like a play-list, or photo albums. So you can play your music or slideshow your photo folders right in the app.

Though Zumodrive has won today, so please note the date of this entry and its updates. I keep all these apps running in parallel for and monitor updates and improvements to the iPhone apps etc, as these can change quite quickly.

You can of course embed a Cooliris wall in your website – and today I read on Techcrunch they’ve updated/improved Cooliris Express, so it’s even easier to do so. The wall below took all of 2 minutes to create and it looks fantastic and works beautifully. Create your wall and install on your site – lots of options here to link straight to your pages on facebook, wordpress, blogger etc etc. Or simply copy and paste the code and embed anywhere, change width and height of the object to suit your page. Click on the full screen button in the wall below below and have a play. You can quickly link / pull-in your photo albums from many sources including Facebook, Picassa, Flickr, YouTube, or any media RSS feed. Worth noting I’m running the wordpress plugin Exec-PHP which enables me to simply embed the flash player code direct into a WordPress post or page as follows:

Another very simple to use, simply fantastic tool. Thanks again Cooliris – keep up the good work.

• h2g2
• aardvark
• IMDb
• ReQall
• Twitterfeed
• Dlvr.it
• Duck Duck Go
• Movie Clips
• iPhone icon Generator
• Blubrry
• Many WordPress Plug-ins

Always happy to answer any questions on these topics or those on my initial list. Just ask!