Technology Metro

In this day and age, there are many of us who are registered at one or more social networking sites on the internet. These are a great way to interact with your friends or try and make new ones. One of the first things people notice about any online profile is the picture you have uploaded of yourself. More and more people are trying to make their picture something to talk about, and for this they use online photoshop sites such as http://en.picjoke.com.

This site offers an online photo editing service that is completely free. You don’t need to register to be able to use the site. You can create funny pictures of yourself by using effects or embedding your face from any photo of yours onto the various templates and backgrounds they offer. In other words, ordinary snapshots of you can be made into unique, funny photos.

Once you are on the site, all you have to do is select the effect you want. When you click ‘Next’, you need to pick a picture of yourself that is stored on your computer. The picture has to be in three main image formats, which are .JPEG, .GIF and .PNG.

Once the final photo is rendered, you can save it onto your computer from the site, and then email it or upload it onto your social networking sites or blog, so that you can share them with your friends.

There are many different templates that are available for you to explore. You can suddenly have pictures of you up on a billboard somewhere, on a coffee mug, or in a high-end, celebrity magazine. Your face could be up on a movie poster with other stars or you could be featured in a famous museum as a work of art. You’ll know the secret, and so might others, but you might succeed in fooling a few friends into wondering how on earth you got to be so famous. PicJoke.com offers new photoeffect everyday.

This site is free, extremely fun and very simple to use. There are over one hundred different effects, with new ones being added every day. By checking the website frequently you will know when there are new effects and this will in turn give you new ideas of what you want to do with your photos. All you have to do is upload the picture and choose the desired effect, and the site will do the work for you.

According to BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.) ringtones sales are slowly dropping from the $600 million mark reached in 2006. Since then, Apple has released the iPhone. With the release of the iPhone come questions from users as to how their ring tones will differ from other cell phone ringtones on the market. As you will find out, Apple has an uphill challenge ahead of them trying to convince consumers to throw out their old and make way for the new.

The ringtones for iPhones come in .m4r that differs from other ringtones out on the market. Most ringtones come in .mp3, .mp4 and .wav formats just to name a few. There are places where you can buy .m4r ringtones and other places that offer free ones. You can also convert your previous ringtones formats to the .m4r format. There are softwares available that allow, this such as the Ambrosia Software iToner. There are many different companies coming along to offer features that iPhone and iTunes don’t currently offer. It is no surprise to see entrepreneurs get inventive and make something ringtone related.

At one point Apple blocked free ringtones from being added to the iPhone through Itunes. This has caused many hackers to accept the challenge and get into the iPhone ringtone game. They have managed to figure out multiple ways users can add their own ringtones for free. The way Apple has it set up makes a user pay to add ringones they already have. If they don’t have the ringtone, they have to pay for that and the cost of converting the song into a ringtone. In order to get ringtones the proper way, you have to use Apple’s iTunes software. Only the newer versions of iTunes have the.m4r ringtone capabilities, older versions simply won’t work. Each ringtone is roughly 99 cents available from the US iTunes store with over 500,000 ringtones to choose from. Again, an additional charge is added for converting previously owned ringtones not in the .m4r format. Since many seasoned savvy internet users know how to create their own ringtones, this is just absurd. People have already invested in programs and pay sites that offer ringtones in various formats. For some, it just isn’t worth the price or the hassle to switch to Apple’s model. These types of product versus consumer battles usually lead to a compromise on the manufactures part.

One method of getting ringtones is done by renaming the song format to the .m4r extension. So if you already have a .AAC ringtone, you just need to rename the file to songname.m4r. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least bit if newer iTunes versions allowed users to add any type of ringtones for free. Apple has had similar wars with people unlocking their iPhones so that they carry other cell carriers’ networks. This sort of corporate greed disillusions consumers who may want to try new products but not have to re adjust their lives in the process. Why not just allow all iPhone users to continue to use the current ringtone technology they have been using instead of trying to get a monopoly on the ringtone market? Surely Apple isn’t desperate for profits to the point where they have to charge to add and convert ringtones! It is a cellular phone after all and ringtones are here to stay. Apple needs to separate their iPod from their iPhone brand and stop this iPhone ringtone madness. Here is a How to guide for making your own Free Custom iPhone Ringtones Using Only iTunes. I think this link might help you all.