Moving on, should you, enterprising reader, want to backup all your iPhone data before jailbreaking said iPhone or something, read on.

Short version: Delete your iPhone backup then Sync. This will force iTunes to create a new backup.

Long version (meant for OS X but Windows users should be able to figure out the differences):

1. Open iTunes
2. Go to Preferences
3. Choose Devices
4. Select the iPhone you want to back up
5. Remove the iPhone backup (press the Delete Backup button)
6. Press OK and exit Preferences
7. Exit iTunes and disconnect your iPhone
8. Reconnect your iPhone and open iTunes if it doesn’t open automatically
9. Sync your iPhone

Thats it. You now have a fresh backup of your iPhone. Have fun.

Updated for iTunes 8!

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No small wonder that I found myself searching for new earbuds for my iPhone. Though there are a ton of headphones out there with every option known to man, the challenge with the iPhone is the all powerful clicker. True there is the recessed jack to be dealt with too but there are extenders for that. After a rigorous search, I settled on the V-Moda Vibe Duo‘s. They’ve gotten great reviews, aren’t steal-me-white, and have the clicker. When my dad came to visit, I talked him into buying me a pair of the $100 beauties.

The begging heartfelt request was well worth it. True to all the reviews, the Vibe Duo’s are great. No, I don’t use the term lightly, in fact I might call them wonderful. Fabulous. Exemplary. Almost any other superlative I can bestow upon these sound delivering lovlies, I will. Mind you I have owned the much lauded Shure E2C’s and found them…well lets just say not the best, given that the damn things wouldn’t stay in my ears, no matter what little plastic tip I put on them. My Vibe Duo’s are a dream to say the least.  They fit my ears, they have great sound quality, and they have the clicker. Unfortunately, they are not flawless.

See that picture up there? If you can’t see the picture, the Vibe Duo’s are displayed, with the great fabric cord and the stylish metal band surrounding the bud. Ah yes, the stylish metal band. The metal band that can’t help but touch the skin on my ear. The metal band that occasionally delivers a nice little shock when it touches the skin on my ear. No, I am not kidding, these earbuds deliver a little electric charge from time to time. I’m not sure where the voltage (?) comes from, if its from the earphones themselves or if its just static electricity discharge. Whatever it is, the zaps range from a small annoying sound to an actual shock. Not cool.

Last week the shocks got to be unbearable. I stopped using my Vibe Duo’s and switched back to using the inferior headphones that came with my iPhone. I wrote to V-Moda about the problem and haven’t heard anything after 5 business days. Yesterday I got pretty fed up with the default headphones and decided I was going to solve the problem with my Vibe Duo’s myself. I figured if I could cover up that metal band, my headphones would be usable again. The problem was finding something to cover up the band without resorting to tape. Ideally, the covering would not hold a charge (because what would be the point if it did), would be able to stay in place without adhesive, and finally would last a long time. After a bit, I realized I bought the solution to my problem with the headphones.

You know the multiple plastic earbud covers that come with any decent pair of earphones? The ones that are intended to make sure the buds fit properly in your ears? What do you do with the left over ones that don’t fit into your ear? Normally you toss them or tuck them away somewhere never to be found again. In this case, you use them to make your otherwise fabulous earphones stop shocking you every 30 seconds.

I didn’t take pictures while I did the following so you’re going to have to use your imagination.

1. Find a set of the clear budcovers you don’t use because they don’t fit your ears and are just taking up space.
2. Carefully cut the inner ring out of the bud covers so that its separated from the part thats supposed to fit into your ear. Use an exacto knife if you’re one of those pretty princesses that must have everything look perfect.
3. Take the inner ring you just cut away and stretch it using brute force and sheer will so that it fits around the metal band on the earbuds. This will not be easy. Don’t give up hope. You can do it.
4. Be satisfied that you conquered the inner ring and have “fixed” your earbuds while waiting for the company that sold you those earbuds to finish ignoring you.

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Moving on, when I got my iPhone it hadn’t been updated (despite coming from Apple well after the 2 updates had been released). I didn’t think it would be a huge problem since Apple claimed those updates only contained bug fixes (lies). Attempting to follow the instructions online for adding ones own ringtones failed. You see, one of those updates (I assume 1.0.2) twiddled a bit for ringtones. So poor me with my vanilla phone couldn’t get the Ringtones tab to show up in iTunes to save my life. I got really frustrated and decided I was going to install 1.0.2 which I’d been shying away from. So yesterday, I went for it.

Oh Joy, I got the dreaded full download which meant Apple was up to my shenanigans and made restore the entire iPhone. Following that, I had to re-activate it. I used iNdependence to do this which was frustrating for a minute because I failed to read the instructions. You know you ignore readme’s too so stop judging me. Anyhow, I jailbreaked then activated my iPhone in about a half hour (with constant interruptions) and lo and behold, the Ringtones tab showed up in iTunes.

Getting the ringtones I wanted onto my phone was not such a small deal. Here’s a step by step of how I did it, I’m sure there is an easier way but since you’re reading my blog, you get my way.

1. Rip CD since music I wanted to use is not available for download
2. Import AAC files for songs I wanted into Audacity 1.3.3. Mind you Audacity 1.3.3 is beta software but is the only version that can handle AAC encoding. Yes I know I could have ripped into mp3 format, but I didn’t, get over it.
3. Snip songs until they are a suitable length and style for ringtones. I determined that my phone rings for 30 seconds before going to voicemail so obvs, I made 30 second clips (does fair use apply to ringtones?).
4. Export the songs to mp3 format and import into iTunes.
5. Convert the songs to AAC in iTunes (Right click on the song in the iTunes Library, choose “Convert selection to AAC”)
6. Find the converted songs in the Finder (Right click, choose “Show in Finder”)
7. Move the songs from their current location to the iTunes Ringtones folder (iTunes > iTunes Music > Ringtones)
8. Change the extension on the songs from .m4a to .m4r
9. Open the .m4r files so they show up in iTunes under Ringtones
10. Change the extensions of the .m4r files back to .m4a so iTunes doesn’t complain when you try to Sync your Ringtones to your iPhone.

So thats how I did the ringtones thing. I tried the installer.app situation but it failed miserably and almost made me think I bricked my iPhone. Maybe I’ll get the cohones to try it again later.

As far as general usage of the phone goes, there are some obvious problems that I’m surprised Cupertino didn’t get fixed before launch. Here are my OMGWTF’s in no particular order:

1. Lack of a decent contact manager seems like a major WTF. I find it annoying to have to go through the Phone app just to change a contact’s information. That you can’t search your contacts would be a non-starter for me if I had more than a few friends. I’m sure the finger scrolling would get old if I had thousands of contacts.
2. Support for syncing to more than one computer without wiping the current library of your device. Dear Apple, it’s now 2007 and people tend to have more than one computer they use regularly. Please remove heads from asses and realize how inconvenient it may be for say, college student going home for a break who’d like to add songs to her device from parents computer. Perhaps person who has computer at work and at home that they’d like their iPhone to sync to? Not a 2 way sync, mind, just one way, since Piracy is Bad.
3. Support for individually adding a song to the iPhone. Geezus Apple. This one is a royal screw up that I really don’t understand the reason for. I could drag and drop songs to my iPod before, exactly why must I sync only a playlist or my whole library now? Does somebody, anybody, know the reason for this silly change? More importantly, is the direction the entire iPod line will be taking?
4. Lack of customization options is a little piss poor. Here are the icons I could do without on the home screen: Calendar, Calculator, Stocks, Maps, Weather, Notes, and Clock. Why can’t I hide them? Also what is the point of using wallpaper if you can’t see it when you use your phone?
5. Finally, lack of games. What is one supposed to do while they are taking an hour long train ride? Make calculations? Write notes? How hard would it have been to give us BrickBreaker or some other time killer?

Those are my thoughts on the iPhone. Despite my gripes, I still love this phone. Hopefully Apple will make it better soon.

Online hermit? Maybe. My friends/following/contacts lists are full of people I either went to school with, work with, or met somewhere along the way in life. Don’t get me wrong, I will approve the requests of people I don’t know but only if they come with a reference from someone I know. Take DYKC. I didn’t know him, but Baratunde did so I added him on Twitter and now we’re friends. I didn’t know Baratunde but calinative did and so he made the lists. For me, that is how social networking is supposed to work. I don’t subscribe to the theory that its a huge free for all, where strangers are to meet strangers that have no connection to them whatsoever. Thats what dating sites are for.

Moving on. I got my iPhone. Woo! Thats about as much excitement as I can muster at the moment, however I do love it. Best device ever, so on and so forth. I have a question about something for the legal eagles who may be reading. Is it legal for Apple to force me to activate my phone before I am able to use the Apple Care that I’ve already paid for?

Moving on, in case you weren’t paying attention, hi, the iPhone has been unlocked. Of course this leaves me in a terrible conundrum. To buy or not to buy, that is the question. My worry is that Apple will release a new iPhone for the holiday season because this is what companies do with hot products. Then I think, maybe they’ll just do a firmware upgrade and I’ll have waited for nothing. However, if they do a hardware revision, they may block the ability to take it off AT&T’s crappy network. Aargh, it’s so hard to decide! I’d love to hear opinions as to why I should or shouldn’t take the iPhone plunge.

I’d write more but my thoughts are kind of distracted right now. Have a great weekend folks! Oh and Happy Birthday to Elita!