Make Tech Easier » iPhone/iPod Touch

How to Easily Mount Your iPhone As An External Drive in Ubuntu

Damien — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:27:35 +0000

For those who own an iPhone/iPod Touch and at the same time is an Ubuntu (or Linux) users, here’s is a good news. You can now easily mount your iPhone in your Ubuntu without having to jailbreak your phone.

In the past, the dirty but effective way to access the iPhone from your Linux system is via SSH. This requires you to jailbreak your phone and it voids the warranty. With iFuse, you can now mount your iPhone/iPod Touch under Linux with just a USB cable. You can also view/edit/cut/copy/paste the file just like any USB disk drive.

Installation

Open up your terminal, type the following to open up your APT sources file

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Insert the following lines to the end of the file

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/jonabeck/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/jonabeck/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

The above is assuming that you are using Ubuntu 9.04 (Jaunty). For any other version, simply replace the jaunty by the respective version name (hardy, intrepid, karmic etc)

Save and close the file.

Back in the terminal:

sudo apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com F0876AC9
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install ifuse

Once the installation is done, connect your iPhone to your computer via the USB cable.

Open up your Nautilus. You should see the iPhone/iPod entry at the side pane. This show that it is already mounted in your system.

Click on the entry to view the filesystem.

Things that you can do

1. View/copy/download photos.

You can now manage the photos that you have taken with your iPhone without iTunes.

2. Create folders, upload/download files

You can now use your iPhone as a USB drive and use it for file storage. To allow confusion/conflict with the other system files, it is best to create a custom folder (and name it My Folder) and store all your files there.

3. Managing address book/calendar (upcoming)

Work is underway to sync the contact data with Conduit.

What you cannot do now

Manage your music database

Apple uses a cryptographic signing algorithm to encrypt all the music files. While you can access the music folder, there is no way that you can transfer your music over and get it to work in your iPhone.

Note:
1. iFuse is not Ubuntu-specific app. It works for most Linux distro as well.

2. Mac users can also use iPhoneDisk to achieve similar functionality.

How to Easily Mount Your iPhone As An External Drive in Ubuntu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Set Up Push Notification For Gmail in iPhone

Damien — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:41:37 +0000

Few days ago, Google announced that they have released the push notification support for Gmail for mobile devices such as iPhone and Windows Mobile. Today, let us show you how you can set up a push Gmail account on your iPhone.

By following this tutorial, you can also configure it to sync your contact and calendar.

Before you start, please note that Google sync only work with iPhone firmware 3.0 and above.

Getting Started

1. Tap on the Settings.app icon on the home page

2. Scroll down and open Mail, Contacts, Calendars.

3. Tap Add Account

4. Select Microsoft Exchange.

5. In the Email field, enter your Gmail address.

Leave the Domain field blank.

Enter your Google’s Username and Password.

Once done, tap Save. You might see the “Unable to verify certificate” error message. Select Accept.

6. A new Server input field will now appear. Enter “m.google.com“. Tap Next to continue.

7. Select the Google services that you want to sync. For me, I activated all the available synchronization services. Tap Done.

Your Google sync Push notification services is now set up.

To activate the push notification, you need to turn the Push feature on in the iPhone Settings section.

At the Mail, Contacts, Calendar section, tap Fetch New Data

Make sure that the Push is turned to ON.

Done.

Few things to note:

1. Google sync requires you to be constantly connected to the Web. You have to keep your 3G or WIFI connection ‘Always ON’ for the best result.

2. The push notification can be very draining on your battery life. If you value your battery life much more than the push technology, turn the Push feature OFF for optimal performance.

How to Set Up Push Notification For Gmail in iPhone originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Access StumbleUpon and Stumble Through Websites in an iPhone

Damien — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:10:27 +0000

In the past, if you want to access StumbleUpon on your iPhone/iPod Touch, you will know that it is not an easy task. Back then, SU only exists as a Firefox extension and does not plays well with any of the mobile devices. However, with the launch of the SU web toolbar, anyone can now access StumbleUpon on any browsers without having to install any applications/extensions. The best thing, it works fine in iPhone/iPod Touch too.

In your iPhone, open the safari app.

On the address bar, enter www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar

That’s it. The StumbleUpon toolbar will appear and it immediately stumbles you to one of its pages.

To stumble through websites, simply tap on the Stumble button, like how you always did on your computer browser.

Adding to bookmarks

To save the effort of having to retype the URL everytime, you can save the SU toolbar in your bookmark.

Everytime when you access the StumbleUpon toolbar, it will start stumbling and append the destination URL to its own, resulting in an URL like http://www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar/#2LpQMi/maketecheasier.com/8-useful-and-interesting-bash-prompts/2009/09/04/topic:Linux%2FUnix.

I am sure you won’t want to save this long URL in your bookmark, unless you want to save this particular page for future reference.

Here’s how you can change it.

On any StumbleUpon page, click the + at the bottom screen to save the current URL to Bookmark.

Change the title to StumbleUpon (or any name you like). Note that you won’t be able to change the URL here.

Save to Bookmark.

Back in the Bookmark screen, tap on the Edit (at the bottom left corner) button.

Press the StumbleUpon bookmark entry to go into Edit mode.

Change the URL to www.stumbleupon.com/toolbar. Save.

That’s it. Everytime you launch this bookmark, it will start stumbling.

Personally, I found that using StumbleUpon on my iPhone drained my battery much faster than normal browsing. I am not sure if it is only me, or this is a SU issue. If you have such issues too, feel free to voice it out in the comments.

How to Access StumbleUpon and Stumble Through Websites in an iPhone originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Speed Up Your Web Search With Inquisitor

Damien — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:10:52 +0000

Most, if not, all browsers come with a search bar at the top right hand corner of the window. To perform a search, you simply type in your search term and press Enter. The browser will automatically load the search engine result page with your search term. As easy as that.

Now, the question is: can this search process get any easier?

The answer is Yes, if you are using Inquisitor. You’ll be surprised how much faster, quicker and easier you can now search with the search bar.

Inquisitor is a browser plugin that extends the functionality of the search bar. It makes the search bar more intuitive, responsive and much easier to use. As you type in the search bar, Inquisitor starts to search the web and brings back the result on the fly, and enabling you to access to your search result faster.

Inquisitor is owned by Yahoo and is compatible with Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer 7, 8. It also works in Mac, PC and iPhone.

Once you have installed the respective extension for your browser, it will automatically replace your search bar. To perform an intuitive search, simply type in the search bar. A list of suggestions will appear as soon as you type. The initial result is based on your browser history, but as you type, the list get refined and brings in more relevant result for your search term. In most cases, I am able to find what I want without having to complete the search terms.

Inquisitor also comes with several configuration options that you can set to suit your preferences.

Options that you can configure include:

Auto-complete settings

Inquisitor will attempt to auto-complete your search term as you type. You can either make it auto-complete the entire phrase, current word or do nothing. Personally, I have found that choosing the “auto-complete current word only” option gives you better control of your search results.

Instant result setting

In the dropdown list of suggestion, you can You can choose how the result is displayed, whether website result first or keyword suggestions first.

Display count

Number of website results and keyword suggestions to display in the dropdown list.

Search Engine

The default search engine is Yahoo. You can also set it to Google.

A thing to note here: If you set the search engine to Google, the website result search will cease to work. You will only see keyword suggestions in the dropdown list.

Display links to additional search engines

If you are frequently using Wikipedia, Flickr or any other search engines to perform your search, this is where you add in the additional search engine to the dropdown list.

Conclusion

Depending on how often you use your browser’s search bar, this plugin can be useful/useless to you. For me, it has definitely improved my productivity and enabled me to get my search result much faster and easier. Being cross-platform/cross-browser compatible also make it a highly versatile tool, not to mention that it works great in iPhone and iPod Touch too.

What do you think?

Speed Up Your Web Search With Inquisitor originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Open Your Web Links In New Tab In iPhone’s Safari Browser

Damien — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 12:15:55 +0000

When you are surfing the Web, opening URL links in a new tab is often the best and efficient way to navigate between sites and not to lose focus on the current one. When I am doing research for my writing, I depended heavily on the tab functions of the browser. However, when I am on my iPhone, I am often frustrated by the fact that mobile Safari does not allow me to open a URL link in a new tab. It is quite ironical to me that it supports tabs function, but does not allow you to open a link in new tab. What’s the point of having a tab function if you have to manually type in the URL all the time?

Not anymore. With Tabulate, you can now easily add ‘load in new tab‘ function to your iPhone’s Safari browser, without any hacking. (it works in iPod Touch as well)

Things you need:

Mac/Windows
Safari browser (The desktop version of Safari, not the one in your iPhone)
iTunes

Go to Tabulate website. Drag the bookmarklet to the Safari bookmark bar.

Connect your iPhone/iPod Touch to the computer and fire up your iTunes.

In your iPhone device options, click on the Info tab. Scroll down and mark “Sync Safari Bookmarks”.

Click on Apply to sync your iPhone.

Once it is done, in your iPhone, connect to the Internet and load your mobile Safari.

On the page that you want to open the link in new tab, tap on the bookmark icon at the bottom of the screen. Scroll to Bookmark Bar ->Tabulate.

You will now see a orange icon at the top left of your Safari browser. This indicate that the tabulate is active on the current page.

Now, click on a link. A toolbar of 3 icons will appear. The first one represents “open the link in current tab“. The second one (the one with a plus sign) represents “open the link in a new tab” while the last one means to flag the link to open later.

That’s it. You just have to click on the second icon to open the link in a new tab.

How To Open Your Web Links In New Tab In iPhone’s Safari Browser originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Trapster: Alerts For Speed Traps On Your Handset

Ivan Beres — Tue, 19 May 2009 22:40:35 +0000

Trapster is a free service and client for avoiding speed traps for iPhone, BlackBerry and java enabled phones. Another great thing about Trapster is that it’s community driven: anyone can report speed traps so the maps are updated all the time.

Trapster combines technologies such as GPS and wireless location, voice transcription, geocoding, reverse geocoding, and SMS, with a central database server. It communicates in real time, using the Internet. Since the traps are often moved from one position to another it is vital to get real time information about their location. You can set notifications up on your Garmin or other navigation device if you don’t want to check your phone while driving.

The iPhone application is very detailed and customizable. The displaying of speed traps can be set so you only see a given type on the map. You can even connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts to interact with other Trapster users and to send updates.

After downloading Trapster from the App Store you need to create an account. It will ask you to allow location services to scan your surroundings for speed traps. As you see there are no traps at my current location. But on the highway there are two fixed cameras that I didn’t know of. Trapster uses google maps and the information from users for placing traffic cameras on it.

I was skeptical if there are enough users to keep the database updated but Trapster just reached 200k Blackberry users. You can record your trips and share them or keep them to yourself. If you notice a speed trap of any kind you can easily add it to the database by selecting the type and pin pointing on the map. The setup menu gives real depth to Trapster. You can customize every aspect of the application: notifications, alerts, sounds, etc. The main menu has a bunch of settings and a help section so you won’t get lost.

I have a dock in my car for my iPhone so I have no problems checking it regularly. I’m planning to set Trapster up with my navigation system thought because the iPhone’s battery is drained easily.

Connecting to Facebook account is fast and embedded into the application while for setting up Twitter you need to go to Safari.

Everyone of us know that speeding is dangerous, but not everyone want to keep to the speed limit, especially on highways. While Trapster is not an app to advocate speeding, it enables you to drive (and speed) without worrying about getting caught by speed traps. Radar or laser detectors are no good against modern police equipment. These devices often alert too late and you have no time to slow down before reaching the speed trap. Trapster has updated information and alerts you miles before you would get to the trap. You can also see the traps on the map, which could potentially save you lot of money (paying fines).

Trapster currently works in iPhone, Blackberry and various mobile phone that supports Java J2ME. A Windows mobile version is also coming soon.

Trapster: Alerts For Speed Traps On Your Handset originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Create An iPhone Ringtone Using iTunes For Free

Sharninder — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:50:21 +0000

The iPhone is an awesome smartphone and I’ve been in love with it ever since I got it.

The iTunes app store is just one of the many benefits of using the iPhone and it is amazing to see and use all the innovative applications being developed by third party developers.

However, if you talk about Apple as a company, they’ve had a pretty tight control over the iPhone platform and that is my only gripe with it. Apple’s control over the iPhone ecosystem is so much that they charge you to even create ring tones for the iPhone even if you have purchased the song legally through iTunes, and for a lot of people paying for ringtones is the only way to get ringtones for the otherwise excellent phone.

In today’s tutorial we’ll show you how you can create a ringtone for your iPhone for free using nothing but iTunes and a little perseverance.

To start with creating your own iPhone ringtone, open iTunes and select the song that you want to make a ringtone out of.

Right click and select “Get Info“. Go to the “Options” tab select a “Start Time” and “Stop Time” . This will ensure that iTunes will play the song starting from the “Start Time” to the “Stop Time”. Make sure that the stop time doesn’t exceed the start time by more than about 40 seconds. To be on the safer side, I usually keep the length at 30 seconds.

You can uncheck the start and stop time settings after you’ve created your ring tone.

Now, go to Edit->Preferences and in the General tab click on Import settings

And make sure that the AAC encoder settings are set to the following.

Now, right click on the song that you’d selected in the beginning and create an AAC version out of it.

You should now see two songs with the same name in iTunes but one of them would be of 30 seconds duration (or the duration that you chose for the ringtone), while the other one would be the full original song. We’re almost done now.

Select the newly created 30 second AAC version of the song in iTunes and press CTRL+C. Paste the song on your desktop (or any other folder) using the CTRL+V shortcut. This AAC version of the song will have the .M4A extension. Change it to .M4R.

Now, with the iPhone connected to your computer. Simply drag this file to the iPhone icon in iTunes.

That’s it. Your newly created ringtone should now be visible in the iPhone and you can start using it rightaway.

How to Create An iPhone Ringtone Using iTunes For Free originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Enable Emoji Icons On Your iPhone For Free

Damien — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:49:18 +0000

Unless you are having a Japanese iPhone, chances are your iPhone does not come with the attractive and interesting Emoji icons. Like any other Emoticons on mobile, the Emoji iconset allows you to insert smily faces and many other icons in your notes, sms and any other text entries.

If you are affected by the fact that your iPhone does not has the emoji function, don’t worry, here is a simple trick that you can use to activate the emoji iconset in your iPhone.

Go to the AppStore in your iPhone.

Tap on the Search and type in “spell number”

Install the application

From your Home screen, open the Spell Number application and key in 9876543.21 (including the decimal point)

Exit the application.

Go to Settings. Navigate to General -> Keyboard -> International Keyboards.

Scroll down to Japanese. Tap on it.

Swipe the Emoji option to ON.

Back to your Home screen, turn on your Notepad (or any other application that requires keyboard) and create a new note. On the keyboard, you should see a globe beside the Space button. Tap on it and it will display the Emoji iconset.

I am not sure how long will Spell Number stays free. In the event that it charges you for the download, there is another way that you can activate the Emoji icon for free, but it requires you to jailbreak your iPhone.

- Jailbreak your iPhone.

- Load Cydia. Tap on the Section. Navigate to Tweak -> Emoji.

- Install it.

You can now activate the Emoji icon via the Settings page.

The above tricks will work for iPod Touch as well.

What other iPhone tricks do you want us to cover? Tell us in the comment.

How To Enable Emoji Icons On Your iPhone For Free originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Perform Copy/Paste Function In iPhone

Damien — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 13:34:00 +0000

Even though your iPhone/iPod Touch allows you to install, run and perform many applications, there is just one simple function that is most sought after, but is not available – Copy/Paste.

Yes, iPhone/iPod Touch does not come with Copy/Paste function and despite countless pleas to Apple to implement this feature, there is still no news that this function is going to be included in the future firmware upgrade.

Nevertheless, if you are willing to jailbreak your iPhone/iPod Touch and void the guarantee, you still can get the Copy/Paste to work. For those who are yearning for the Copy/Paste function, here is how you can get it working on your iPhone.

1. Jailbreak your iPhone

2. On the home screen, you should see a Cydia icon.Tap on it to run the installer application.

3. On the Cydia main screen, navigate to Sections-> Keyboards Extension. You will find hClipboard. Tap and install it.

4. Once you have finished the installation, exit Cydia and go to Settings. Navigate to General ->Keyboard->International Keyboards. You will see the hClipboard function. Slide the button to turn it on.

5. Now, go to any text application (such as Note). On the keyboard, you should see a globe button. Tapping on this globe button will turn the keyboard to the Copy/Paste mode.

Now type some text on the Note. Go to the Copy/Paste mode. Tap on the first icon (on the right) to copy all the text. To copy only a portion of the text, first place the cursor on the starting. Tap the second icon. You should see a sentence “Select from here…”. Next, move the cursor to the end of the selected text. Tap the second icon again. The selected text should now be copied to the clipboard.

To paste the text, simply tap the entry on the copy/paste keyboard. To delete, simple swipe the clipboard entry to the right.

You can also save the copied text as a template so you can use it over and over again, without having to retype it.

That’s it. Enjoy the Copy/Paste function in your iPhone/iPod Touch.

Note: Another application that gives you the Copy/Paste function is Clippy. You can find it in the Cydia installer.

How To Perform Copy/Paste Function In iPhone originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Google Earth for the iPhone Reviewed

jamesyeang — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:53:05 +0000

Google Earth’s ability to take a satellite camera and zoom down to practically any country, city or street in the world arguably made the common atlas obsolete overnight. Previously only available as a desktop application, you can now carry around Google Earth in your pocket! The iPhone/iPod touch iteration of this app is absolutely free, and serves up most of the functionality which we have grown to love with the desktop version.

It takes advantage of the iPhone’s hardware capabilities using a pinch and slide interface for zooming in and out, as well as the accelerometer for tilting terrain in 3D. Not only that – you can also check click on Panoramio and Wikipedia entries which are embedded in relevant locations within the map so you can check out photos and learn more about the area which you’re viewing. All in all, this app is a MUST have for anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Check out the following video for more details.

Do you like Google Earth? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!

Google Earth for the iPhone Reviewed originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

The BEST Way to Read News on Your iPhone

jamesyeang — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 13:25:31 +0000

Free RSS readers on the iTunes app store are a dime a dozen. Most of them however, are not worth even a second look. So what IS the best way to read your news and get yourself up to speed on an iPhone?

Well one app clearly stands out head and shoulders over the crowd, and it’s Net News Wire for the iPhone.

It’s powerful. It comes with a plethora of customizable options, which lets you completely customize your reading experience. At the same time, it’s simple to use. If you don’t care for customization, it works out of the box beautifully. It even syncs up with your online newsgator account so the feeds you read on your laptop will be in sync with the feeds you read on your iPod.

The best part? *Drumroll* ….Offline reading.

While almost all other free RSS readers rely on a net connection to function, NetNewsWire will download the feed onto the phone so you can read it offline. That way you never have to worry about having a decent 3G connection. If you’re using an iPod touch, it is truly a Godsend to be able to read feeds offline because you no longer need a Wi-Fi hotspot to get your daily news fix.

Do you read news on your mobile device? Tell us about it in the comments!

The BEST Way to Read News on Your iPhone originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Sync iPod Touch With Win XP Virtual Machine In Ubuntu Intrepid

Damien — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 11:17:42 +0000

Syncing your iPod Touch with iTunes on your Mac or Windows is a no-brain job. Simply plug in your iPod, fire up your iTunes and your synchronization will be done in a minute. However, since there is no Linux version of iTunes, there is almost no way that you can sync your iPod Touch with your computer. If you are using an Ubuntu system and you don’t want to create a Windows/Ubuntu dual boot just to sync your iPod Touch, here’s a tutorial that teaches you how to sync your iPod Touch with a WinXP virtual machine in Ubuntu Intrepid.

(This tutorial was tested using a iPod Touch 1st generation. I have not tested iPod Touch 2nd Gen, iPhone 2G/3G, but I guess they should work as well.)

Install Virtualbox

(skip this step if you have already installed Virtualbox in your system)

Add the Virtualbox repository to your Apt list. In your terminal:

gksu gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following line to the end of the file. Save and close.

deb http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian intrepid non-free

Add the gpg key

wget -q http://download.virtualbox.org/virtualbox/debian/sun_vbox.asc -O- | sudo apt-key add -

Update the repository and install Virtualbox

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install virtualbox-2.0

During the installation, you will receive a prompt to ask you to add users to vboxusers group.

click OK to continue.

You will then receive the next prompt to recompile the kernel for vboxdrv

click OK to continue, follow by Yes to compile the vboxdrv kernel.

When installation is completed, you need to add yourself to the vboxusr group.

Go to System -> Administration -> Users and Groups

Press the Unlock button. Enter your password and Authenticate.

Press Manage Groups.

Scroll down until you see the vboxusers. Highlight it and click Properties.

Check your username and click OK. Close everything.

Remember the Group ID (in this case, the group ID is 127). You will need to use it later.

Back in the terminal,

echo “vboxdrv” | sudo tee -a /etc/modules

to start the vboxdrv module during bootup.

Configuring the USB support

The following is to configure the Virtualbox to detect any USB devices that are plugged into your system.

gksu gedit /etc/fstab

Add the following line to the end of the file

#usbfs for virtualbox
none /proc/bus/usb usbfs devgid=GROUP_ID,devmode=664 0 0

Replace the GROUP_ID by the group ID that you have recorded just now.

Recompile the kernel USB support

In the terminal, type

uname -r

You should see something like this

Next, using the kernel information you just obtained, install the source code of the kernel

sudo apt-get build-dep linux-source-2.6.27
sudo apt-get install linux-source-2.6.27 build-essential

Once it is done, type the following to the terminal, line by line

tar -jxvf /usr/src/linux-source-2.6.27.tar.bz2 cd linux-source-2.6.27/drivers/usb/core perl -pi.bak -e 's/16384/131072/' devio.c make -C /lib/modules/`uname -r`/build/ M=`pwd` modules strip --strip-debug usbcore.ko sudo install -m644 -b usbcore.ko /lib/modules/`uname -r`/kernel/drivers/usb/core sudo depmod -ae sudo update-initramfs -u

Reboot the computer.

Install Windows XP in your Virtualbox. (skip this step if you have already done so).

Connecting iPod Touch to Windows XP VM

Plug in your iPod Touch using the USB cable.

Ubuntu will detect it and ask if you want to open it with F-spot manager. Click Unmount

Next, open your Virtualbox and boot up the Windows XP VM.

Install iTunes in your Win XP VM.

Activate the iPod Touch by going to Devices -> USB Devices -> Apple Inc. iPod

The WinXP VM should recognize the USB device and configure it for usage.

Open your iTunes. You should be able to sync it like you do in a native Mac or Windows environment.

That’s it.

Note: I have tested this with a iPod Touch 1st Generation. I have not tested this with iPod Touch 2G and iPhone, but they should work as well.

[Reference: Ubuntu Forums]

How To Sync iPod Touch With Win XP Virtual Machine In Ubuntu Intrepid originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How To Add Subtitles And Convert Video For iPhone In Windows

Damien — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 06:28:40 +0000

Imagine that you are going to convert an avi video files to mp4 format so that you can sync it with your iPhone and watch it on the go. Now, if you have the subtitles files, wouldn’t it be great if you can embed it in the converted video as well?

XviD4PSP is a video encoder/decoder that allows you to convert your video files from one format to another. Originally created to convert video for PSP, now it is able to convert video for a wide variety of devices, include iPhone, PS 3, Xbox 360, Blackberry, DVD player etc. There is also a subtitles feature where you can embed your subtitle file in the video.

Let’s get started.

Download XviD4PSP here

Windows XP users need to install the Micosoft .Net framework 3.0. Vista users need to turn the UAC off or set it to run in quiet mode. Here are some ways that you can turn UAC off without compromising your security.

Once you have installed the framework, run the Xvid4PSP installer. When it comes to the Choose Components page, make sure you select all the components.

Launch Xvid4PSP

Open your video files (Click on the Open button in the menubar)

The left pane is where all the configuration options are situated. If you are proficient enough, you can click the ‘E‘ button beside the dropdown to configure your own setting. For the rest, the preset options are good enough.

Under the Format dropdown bar, select MP4 iPhone or Touch.

Under the Video encoding dropdown bar, you can choose between Turbo, Extreme or Ultra. If you want to have a fast encoding process, pick Turbo. If the video quality matters a lot to you and you don’t mind to wait double the time for the encoding to finish, select Extreme or Ultra.

Next, you have to prepare your subtitle file. Subtitle files usually come with a .srt file extension. There are always numerous version of subtitle files for a particular movie, so you may want to check first before you start the encoding. If you are looking for a subtitle file, there are plenty of websites that offer free subtitle files for download. You just need to google for it.

On the menubar of Xvid4PSP, click on Subtitles-> Add. Navigate to the directory where your subtitle file is kept and select it.

To check if the subtitle file is correct for your movie, click on the Play button to start playback the video. You will be able to see if the subtitle matches the timeline of the show.

When you are done, click on the Encode button on the menubar. A window will prompt you to select the location to save your file. Navigate to the folder you want to save the file and click Save. The conversion will now start.

The conversion process will take a few hours. You might want to sit back and relax or go for a coffee break. When you are back, you should see your newly converted video at the folder you have specified.

How To Add Subtitles And Convert Video For iPhone In Windows originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Copy Files To/From Your iPhone

Damien — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 02:30:27 +0000

While you can use your iPod as a portable hard disk, Apple does not allow you to transfer files to/from your iPhone. Although there are several apps that allows you to copy files, they are no free solutions. If you have jailbroken your iPhone, you can customize it to connect to the desktop and copy files to/from your iPhone.

For those who have not jailbreak their iPhone, here is a tutorial on jailbreaking your iPhone the easy way.

For Mac users:

In Mac, you can make use of AFP to access iPhone/iPod Touch via the Finder.

To do this, you have to first install Netatalk via Cydia.

On your jailbroken iPhone, go to Cydia. At the bottom, go to Sections. Navigate to Networking -> Netatalk. Click install on the top-right corner of the screen.

Once you have installed Netatalk, on your Mac desktop, open up Finder, you should find your iPhone entry on the left pane, under the ‘Shared‘ section. Click on it. You should see a blank screen with a ‘Connect As‘ on top of the screen.

Click on the ‘Connect As‘ and enter the following:

Name: mobile
Password: alpine

For some reason that you can’t find the entry in the Shared section, you can go to Go -> Connect to Server. Under the server address field, enter afp://your-iphone-ip-address. Mine is 192.168.0.102, so I entered afp://192.168.0.102. (You can find your iPhone IP address on Settings->Wi-Fi->Your network connection)

The Connecting to Server window should open up, and then ask for your user name and password.

Fill in the above login credential.

That’s it! You can now access the iPhone straight from Finder!

Most of your personal files will be in private/var/root/Library or private/var/root/Media. And of course installing applications is as easy as dragging the .app into your /Applications folder!

For Windows users:

iPhoneBrowser is a windows based file browser for your iPhone. It features drag and drop uploading to our phone, automatic and manual backups of files on your phone, previews of text and picture files and very cool icons.

Download SetupiPhoneBrowser.1.7.exe from http://code.google.com/p/iphonebrowser/downloads/list

Run the installer on your Windows XP (May not work well on Vista).

Upgrade your iTunes to 7.7.1 (it works on iTunes 7.7 as well).

Open the iPhoneBrowser and connect your iPhone to the computer via the USB cable. The iPhoneBrowser should detect the iPhone and show the file structure on its screen.

You can now drag and drop files to the iPhone.

For Linux users or any other platforms:

In any platforms, as long as you have a FTP program, you can easily transfer files to/from the iPhone via OpenSSH.

On you iPhone, go to Cydia. Tap on Section on the bottom pane and scroll to Networking->OpenSSH. Tap on the Install button to install it.

On your desktop, open up your FTP program (it doesn’t matter which one you use. For me, I used Filezilla because it is free and easy to use).

On Filezilla, go to File->Site Manager

On the left, click New Site

Rename the site to ‘iPhone‘

On the right, enter the following:

Host: Your iPhone IP address
Servertype: SFTP – SSH File Transfer Protocol
Logontype: Normal
User: root
Password: alpine

Click ‘Connect‘

You will be shown a confirmation message asking if you will accept key exchange / connection with the device with the iPhone’s address. You’ll need to click OK for it to connect.

Connected mode:

Once connected, you will see the familiar Explorer-like navigation structure. Simply drag and drop the files to and forth the iPhone.

How to Copy Files To/From Your iPhone originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Jailbreak Your iPhone/iPod Touch Easily With QuickPwn

Damien — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 02:47:33 +0000

The iPhone-dev team has recently released a QuickPwn tool that enable users to jailbreak iPhone and iPod Touch without having to reformat the whole unit. If you have not jailbroken your iPhone/iPod Touch, thinking that it is a difficult process, here is where you can learn to jailbreak your unit the easy way.

The QuickPwn is available for both Windows and Mac platform. There is a difference though. The Windows version of QuickPwn supports any 2.0.x firmware while the latest Mac version only supports 2.0.2 firmware. If you are using a Mac, you will have to upgrade your unit to the latest 2.0.2 firmware before you can use the QuickPwn tool.

The following tutorial will teach you how to jailbreak your iPhone/iPod Touch on your Mac. The step for Windows will be the same.

Some points to note;

1) This tutorial is illustrated with an iPod Touch and assumed that you have already upgraded your firmware to 2.0.2.

2) If you have not, simply connect your iPhone/iPod Touch to your iTunes and select the ‘Download and Install’ option when it prompts you to upgrade your firmware. Make sure that your iTunes is of version 7.7 and above.

Step 1:

Download the QuickPwn for Mac from the iphone-dev site . This is a torrent file. So make sure you have a torrent client (such as Transmission) to download the program.

(The above link is only for Firmware 2.0.2. If you are using firmware 2.2 or later, check out the iphone-dev blog for the latest QuickPwn download link.)

Step 2:

Connect your iPhone/iPod Touch to your iTunes and perform a backup sync. Even though the jailbreaking process is relatively safe and shouldn’t break any data, it is still better to do a backup and safe guard your data. Sometimes, you just can’t trust technology.

Step 3:

Once you have sync with iTunes, quit iTunes completely. This will prevent iTunes from interfering the jailbreaking process. Unzip the QuickPwn_1.0.0.tbz using Archive Utility to a convenient folder (say your Desktop). Do not use any other decompressing application. You should see this red icon with a pineapple.

Step 4:

Double click QuickPwn to open it. A warning screen will appear. Once you are WARNED, click OK to continue.

Step 5:

QuickPwn will now attempt to identify your iPhone/iPod Touch unit. If you have not connected your iPhone/iPod Touch via the USB cable, do it now.

Step 6:

Once QuickPwn successfully identifies your unit, it will ask if you want to receive update on startup. There is no harm in doing so, but if you are uncomfortable with application running in the background, then choose No.

Step 7:

QuickPwn will now scan your Mac for the 2.0.2 firmware that you have downloaded and automatically build the jailbreak firmware. There is nothing for you to do in this step. Just let the application run on its own.

Step 8:

Once the custom firmware is built, you have to switch the iPhone/iPod Touch to DFU mode (aka Restore mode) so that QuickPwn can modify your unit’s firmware. Make sure you have closed your iTunes completely. Follow the onscreen instructions to set your unit to DFU mode. (This can be rather tricky. You might have to try a few times to get it to DFU mode)

First, turn off your device by pressing the Power button for 3 secs and slide the slider to the right to power it off.

Now, hold the power and home button together for 10 seconds.

Release the power button and continue to hold the home button for another 10 seconds.

Your iPhone/iPod Touch will now be in DFU mode. If it fail to reach DFU mode, unplug and reconnect your unit to your Mac and repeat the above procedure again.

Step 9:

QuickPwn will now send the modified firmware to your unit. There is nothing to do in this step except to wait.

Once it is done, it will show the reboot warning. At this moment, don’t touch anything on your iPhone/iPod Touch. Let it run and reboot itself. It will take around 3-5mins. Just be patient.

Your iPhone/iPod Touch should be jailbroken after the reboot. You should be able to see the Cydia and Installer apps on the home screen.

That’s it. Your iPhone/iPod Touch is now jailbroken.

How to Jailbreak Your iPhone/iPod Touch Easily With QuickPwn originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How to Transfer Music From iPhone/iPod Touch to Your PC

Damien — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 03:18:54 +0000

iPhone/iPod Touch users will know that while it is easy to sync music from iTunes to your iPod, it certainly does not work the other way round. It may be a great security feature by Apple, but it has definitely caused lot of inconvenience to its users. Luckily, there are lots of easy way to get this done.

In Mac, users can use the free application Senuti to copy music from their iPod to the computer. At the moment, only the beta version Senuti 0.50.2b7 supports iPhone and iPod touch.

The configuration of Senuti is easy and works out of the box. After installing, Senuti will prompt you where to save your music files and whether to add it to iTunes library. Once that is done, plug in your iPhone/iPod Touch and it will automatically detect all the songs/videos/playlist in your device. Click Transfer and the all the selected entries will be transferred to the computer.

In Windows, users can use the Winamp’s iPod plugin to achieve the same effect.

In Linux, it is more troublesome to sync the iPhone/iPod Touch with the OS, nevertheless, it can still be done via this tutorial.

How to Transfer Music From iPhone/iPod Touch to Your PC originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Use Your iPhone/iPod Touch As a Wireless Touchpad Mouse To Remote Control Your System

Damien — Thu, 29 May 2008 10:00:10 +0000

There are just so many things that can be done with the iPhone/iPod Touch, and now you can use it as a wireless touchpad mouse to remote control your system.

Touchpad Pro is a freeware application that turns your iPhone/iPod Touch into a multi-touch wireless mouse for any operating system.

As the same as all other free applications, you will need to jailbreak your iPhone/iPod Touch and install Touchpad Pro from the installer.app.

On the operating system side, you will need to install VNC to enable remote connection (VNC is already pre-installed in Mac Leopard).

Configuration can be easily done by entering the IP address and password of the system you are connecting to. Once its is up and running, you can use your iPhone/iPod Touch like a MacBook Air trackpad with touch movement like two-finger scroll and double-finger-tap right-click

The free version of Touchpad Pro only allows you to use your iPhone/iPod Touch as a touchpad mouse, the latest version includes a screenview function where you can view the screen of the remote system. The screenview function requires an activation fee of $15 Euro.

TouchPad Pro

Use Your iPhone/iPod Touch As a Wireless Touchpad Mouse To Remote Control Your System originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Create, View, Edit, Sync and Backup Your iPhone Notes With Your Computer

Damien — Thu, 22 May 2008 03:01:50 +0000

I love making short notes on my iPod Touch, but I hate it when I can’t sync and backup to my computer. While you can sync all your iPod Touch setting, including your iTunes, movies, calendar, contact, email, the only thing that Apple misses out is the note syncing.

Thanks to the community, there is an application – RemoteNote, that allows you to view, edit, create, sync and backup on your notes. The best thing is, you can do all the above tasks in your browser, rather than the small iPhone screen.
You need a jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch to install the app.

In your iPhone/iPod Touch, go to installer.app. Install jiggy runtime first before you install RemoteNote.

RemoteNote on iPod Touch

RemoteNote on browser

Create, View, Edit, Sync and Backup Your iPhone Notes With Your Computer originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

[Windows] Converting Your Videos To iPhone Format

Damien — Tue, 20 May 2008 03:59:47 +0000

If you are looking for a free software to convert your existing video files to iPhone format so that you can watch it on the go, then Videora iPhone converter is the one for you.

Videora iPhone converter is a free video converter that converts video files, YouTube videos, movies and DVD’s into iPhone format. The software supports a variety of video formats, including avi, divx, xvid, flv, x264, vob, mpeg, DVD etc.

You can choose to operate in the normal mode or power user mode. The normal mode is for those who don’t wish to know the technical details and just want a click and go solution. As for the power user mode, it allows you to tweak and configure the settings such as the bitrate, output format, 1-pass or 2-pass to your liking.

Personally, I have tried both mode and I prefer the power user mode. Initially when I use the normal mode to convert a 650MB xvid video file, Videora automatically picked the best setting (758kbps and stereo 128kps) and generated a 1.5GB MP4 file. With that file size, I can only hold 5 movies on my 8GB iPhone, given that there are no other data in my iPhone (In reality, after counting all my apps and music files, I only have 4.5GB of space left in my iPhone). On the second attempt, I tried the power user mode and adjusted the setting to 512kbps. This time, the output file is only 500MB, which means I can now store more movies with lesser storage space.

This software is only available for Windows and requires the .NET Framework to run. I am not sure will it release a Mac or Linux version in the future, but for the time being, this is so far the best free video converter I have used.

[Windows] Converting Your Videos To iPhone Format originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Console Gaming For iPhone

Damien — Mon, 12 May 2008 02:11:34 +0000

[Game console lover] If you need a reason to convince yourself to buy the expensive iPhone, here is it: You can now play all your favorite console games in your iPhone, via the emulators. Be it Playstation, Nintendo or even Sega Genesis, their emulators are easily available in the installer app. Simply click and install and you will be playing your favorite game in no time.

Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)

Playstation I Emulator (PSX4all)

GameBoy Advance (GpSPhone)

Sega Genesis (genesus4iphone)

Super Nintendo (SNES4iPhone)

Scumm (ScummVM)

For those who miss the LucasArts SCUMM interpreter, used in games such as Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, Day Of The Tentacle and Sam and Max, here is the emulator for iPhone

Console Gaming For iPhone originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)