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Ringtones aren't quite ready. I've seen several notes about this, but thus far very few of the artists I've searched for have had ringtones, so I've not really played around with it. Today I took the opposite approach: I clicked one of the top five ringtones at the iTMS home page.

Oddly, this is the result. How can something be a ringtone if it's not available for ringtones?

I don't plan to buy any ringtones. I do wish I could find something that could edit Protected AAC files. I'd prefer not to have to go to iMovie HD, add a fake movie track, export the movie, extract the audio, save as a movie, export as AIFF, import to iTunes, convert to AAC, and then convert to a ringtone.

I've been using MarsEdit since shortly before version 2.0 was released. Though I think Daniel did a fantastic job updating the application, I've hit a few bumps in switching over from ecto.

Some of the things I'm not quite used to in MarsEdit (outside of the new keyboard shortcuts) include:

• The post window stays up while something is posting. I like how ecto closes it right away. When I publish, I want the thing gone from sight. I never (rarely) have errors posting, so leaving it up just means it gets in the way.
• I think the slug field should use the same font (Monaco 10 here) as the blog entry itself or let me make the field larger.
• Several times, somehow, I've messed up the date in MarsEdit. It doesn't seem to take typing as well as ecto and I miss the "now" button ecto offers as well as the stepper arrows.
• I like how ecto shows me the post ID in the list. MarsEdit does not.
• I also like how ecto shows me relative dates in the list. MarsEdit does not.
• ecto displays HTML entities as a different color. In fact, it can show HTML, attributes, and brackets as three different colors. MarsEdit shows all HTML as one color.
• Why can't I post something to my blog as a draft on the server? Have I overlooked something?

Of course, there are many things I like about MarsEdit, too, including:

• Slightly better template tag support
• An improved markup shortcut system
• Better support for WordPress-specific things like the slug (but where's the "Password" field?)
• Refresh All. Nice.

One thing I'd actually consider a bug: a line of bold (via "strong" tags) text with a carriage return after it is shown without the carriage return (break) in the preview pane despite the fact that WordPress will insert a <br /> tag in such instances.

I made a call after using this guide. Tomorrow at some point I'll inquire about data plans, but for now it works. I'll also look forward to the forthcoming graphical application.

P.S. If you've put SSH on your iPhone, for crying out loud at least run passwd and change your root password to something other than "dottie."

P.P.S. Apparently some people are claiming credit for something they didn't do.

Select a non-iTMS track in iTunes and, via the contextual menu, choose "Create Ringtone…".

Gee, thanks. How about you disable the freaking menu for items to which it doesn't apply rather than insult my intelligence?

Gruber pointed this out to me. Wow. 😛

This is good news: Apple has taken a neutral position on iPhone development.

Back when Apple said "no" to third-party APIs, many took that to mean they would take steps to exclude third-party apps from the iPhone. It turns out that installing an application is in fact easier on the iPhone (via Installer.app) than it is on the Mac, and that all sorts of apps spring forth daily.

I was always of the mindset that Apple should be allowed time to refine the API before "releasing" and "supporting" it for third-party use. That's still possible here: Joswiak says they won't promise upgrades won't break third-party apps, but does say they won't actively seek to break them.

The API is still in flux. A year from now, Apple may release a true iPhone SDK once the kinks have been worked out and everything's been settled. Heck, we may see the day where Apple offers third-party iPhone apps for sale from within a mobile iTunes (like they do with iPod games, currently).

You know, I always find it interesting which posts get the most comments. Four of my posts have a fair amount of comments and average a comment roughly once every day or two. They are:

• Sylvan Learning Center Rips off Teachers (144 comments, the later half of which has veered greatly from the original post's topic)
• Ammunition Comparison (43 comments, almost none of which have to do with the post)
• Paris Hilton? (266 comments, almost all of which think I'm either Paris Hilton or which claim to be able to get in touch with her)
• My Bent Pinky Fingers (63 comments, mostly all from people with similarly bent pinkies).

Then I have relatively interesting (in my opinion) articles like "The Email/RSS Paradigm" with only six comments, two of which are TrackBacks from my own blog. 😛

Paul's comments on the dock in Mac OS X 10.5 have generated over 100 comments. Read them all if you're really, really bored. If you haven't got quite that much time, I've got a simple question:

Imagine I have a blog which has nested categories. Category "C" is a child of category "B," which is itself a child of category "A." I can draw this up as A > B > C > D.

I'd like to get the category ID for the original parent ("A" in this case), yet WordPress doesn't have any built-in functionality to do this.

Any ideas? Everything I've come up with has been (seemingly) too complex to be the correct and/or "best" solution.

There exists a function cat_is_ancestor_of in "category.php," but it doesn't seem to work.

The Steelers are a 4½-point favorite over the Browns. Go with the Steelers to cover. Easy money.

Update 09/09: Toldja.

I've been considering what to do with my "free" $100 from Apple. My list thus far:

• Renew my .Mac subscription.
• Get that Apple Bluetooth headset thingy.
• Get $100 in iTMS gift certificates
• Put it towards a new laptop to replace the aging 12" PowerBook.
• Sell it to someone for $95.
• Get an iPod Shuffle or Nano for Carey when she works out.
• Leopard? I doubt I can wait that long.

Option 1 is leading currently.

My final (I think) word on the whole $100 deal is that I'm reminded of a quote: "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." Americans love apologies.

Though I'm not personally terribly upset at Apple, I called to see about getting a small refund for my "bad luck" of having bought an iPhone three days before the cutoff. I talked to a woman and her manager, both of whom told me that August 22 (the day I received my iPhone) was the cutoff date. I had purchased it on the 19th. They both told me there was "nothing" they could do, and even if they wanted to, policy prevented them.

I asked why so many others were reporting that they'd received partial or even full refunds for purchases going back as far as launch date. They couldn't speculate. I doubt every one of those people is lying - it's probably more about getting a different person on the phone.

So I called back again, just to see (listening to the speakerphone takes almost no brain cycles), and for the past hour, Apple's store line has been so jammed they literally aren't taking calls. I doubt the phones are being flooded by people calling to order new iPhones… more likely that a good portion of the 750,000 (or so) existing iPhone customers are calling back.

NSLog(@"Finish Reading %d Words", 566); »

Relayed to me by a friend, I've verified that this works pretty nicely…

1. Visit the iTunes Music Store. Find a bunch of songs you like and drag them to an "iPhone" playlist. No need to purchase the songs - you're just adding the previews to the playlist.
2. Select the playlist, then export it ("File" -> "Export…") as a plain text file.
3. Open the text file in your text editor or even in Numbers (it's comma-delimited). Note that every preview file has a URL.
4. Download the 30-second previews (I like curl, but use whatever you'd like).
5. Sync the "ringtones" (née "previews") to your iPhone via iToner (this is the "almost" part).
6. There is no step 6!

I've done that with one song, and it works nicely. You won't get the pretty fades in and out, but the 30 seconds Apple chooses to preview is often pretty close to the 30 seconds you'd choose for a ringtone anyway, right?

As for me, I'll stick with buying the song, editing it in GarageBand or SoundTrack Pro (with faces), and sticking the resulting files on my iPhone. It's a lot more work, but I like the end result more.

Update: This method seems to have stopped working in either iTunes 7.4 or 7.4.1. Exported playlists no longer seem to contain track listings.

I paid $449 for my iPhone something like 17 days ago. D'oh! I'm just outside of the 14-day (or 10-day) window to get a refund.

I don't really care. It's a bit of a bummer that my timing was a tad off, but that's all.

The iPhone was worth $449 to me then, and the $399 pricing introduced today doesn't change that value proposition.

I've already seen a number of complaints. They remind me of something Carey told me about recently. Some guy in a mall kiosk was selling a package of nail-care products he said had an MSRP of $100. He asked Carey what the package would be worth to her, and she said $30 ((They sell for $29.95 on Amazon, so Carey had good sensibilities on this one.)). "We have a deal," he said and sold it to her for $30. The next woman in line - who clearly didn't hear what Carey had said - bought two for $55 apiece.

Carey was willing to spend $30, the other woman $55.

Some people were willing to spend $599. A whole lot more are going to be willing to spend $399.

It's supply and demand. Nobody's been screwed, nobody's been robbed, and nobody's been forced to spend money they didn't want to spend.

First off, I bought my iPhone something like 17 days ago, at $449. Now the 8 GB model is $399 without the discount. Wow. Bummer for me. Has Apple ever cut a product's price by 33% just over two months after its introduction? I mean, Wow!

And a 160 GB iPod ("Classic") that holds 40,000 songs is $349? WOW! I'm not getting one - my 80GB just sits in my Touareg's glove box - but it's good to know they're cheap and hold so much these days.

$0.99 for a ringtone is too much. I'll continue to spend a few minutes to edit my own stuff. It's unclear to me, too, but it seems like you only get the 30 seconds you edit and create with no possibility to later change your mind.

I'd be even happier if, today, I could unlock my iPhone prior to the AT&T buyout of Cellular One is complete in late December or early 2008.

Cyndicate 1.0.3 is now available for download from either Cyncial Peak's website or running Cyndicate's updater. As with all our point releases, this is a free update for all Cyndicate users.

• Fixed a crash that could occur if the feed contains an unknown entity.
• Fixed editing the feed's url in the subscription managager.
• Fixed the AppleScript issue when accessing articles that are in subfolders.
• Improved performance on several operations.
• Sorting can now be based on non-visible columns.
• Links can now be loaded into the preview pane when clicked.

Today is a busy day, and because I've been semi-diligent about applying good ratings to a few articles per day, my "Must Read!" folder (4- and 5-star articles) has come in handy today. No other feed reader really does ratings like Cyndicate.