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Do you use iTunes to listen to audiobooks? There was a bug in iTunes that made all files manually marked as an audiobook disappear from the iTunes library. This video shows you how to retrieve them.
Posted in TNR tip, iTunes
8:10pm – updated to differentiate between the 3G and 3G S models. Thanks Craig!
Ever been in this situation: you’re using your iPhone, composing that precious Tweet, when – all of a sudden – the device freezes up? You feel immobilized by not being able to finish whatever it was you were doing. Cursing under your breath, you hold down the Home and Power buttons and force-reboot the device. Good news: your iPhone has the ability to deal with hung applications in a way that’s better for the device, as well as faster for the user. In a nutshell, it basically involves force-quitting an app (instead of rebooting the entire phone – executed by holding the power and home buttons). So how do you take advantage of the force-quit method?
The answer depends on which model iPhone you have:
3G: hold the Home button until you’re taken back to the home screen.
3G S: hold the Power/Lock button until the slide to power off screen appears. Then hold the Home button until you’re taken to the home screen.
Voila! You can now continue to use your precious iPhone or iPod Touch without having had to wait two minutes and upset the iPhone’s operating system. Enjoy!
Posted in Apple, Featured, TNR tip, iPhoneOur good friend and TNR Podcast guest Luke DiMarco from DiMcoProductions has made a video tutorial of how to completely customize your YouTube background. He even provides his own PSD file for you to use, for free! So have fun and happy customizing! Also, I highly recommend you subscribe to Luke’s YouTube channel, which provides tons of useful information about all things tech (and otherwise… Go Knicks?)
Posted in TNR tip, YouTube
TNR Tip: My audiobook disappeared from iTunes; help! from Alex Luft on Vimeo.
Audiobooks are awesome, especially when they reside on your MP3 player of choice. Forget audiobooks on cassettes – those times are long gone; embrace the day in which everything is digital. At least that is the mantra of many online audiobook retailers. But what if you still have some audiobooks on tapes laying around the house? Well, luckily for you – today’s mainstream technology is able to help you out and digitize those cassettes – bring them to your computer, that is. Actually, a very important tool I used to accomplish just this task is a plain-vanilla 3.5mm male-male cord – which I made my pick of the week on Saturday’s TNR podcast. So what’s the tip, then? Well, I ran into a bit of a predicament after bringing my cassettes over to iTunes: the audiobook files disappeared.
Let me take a step back and explain what transpired from the beginning: I recorded the cassette (both sides) and then joined the two (sides A and B) in GarageBand. I then exported the two sides as a single MP3 file and sent it to iTunes. From iTunes, I navigated to the Get Info pane and then to the Options tab, where I marked the file – as it properly should be marked – as Audiobook (under Media Kind). And then… poof! The file disappeared from iTunes entirely! It wasn’t to be found – either by performing a search or by organizing the files by Most recently added. It was gone. Read more »
Posted in Apple, Solution, TNR tip, iTunes
Yesterday I published a link to a tutorial by our talented and adorable Lizette Gagné – in which she outlined (in text and in video/audio forms) the steps to change the TweetDeck logo back to its original “sans-yellow” form. That tutorial was for the Mac and today we figured out how to change TweetDeck’s icons on the Windows platform. So as promised, head on over to this post on Lizette’s blog and get rid of that yellow background for yourself!
On a side note – I’m starting to actually like the yellow background of the new logo. On my Mac, I enabled the option to periodically change my desktop backgrounds; when the background is black, it makes the black bird icon difficult to see in the OS X Dock. The yellow border makes it stand out and visible if the desktop background is black/dark. Being visible… well, that’s always always a good thing, right?
Posted in Adobe AIR, Microblogging, TNR tip, TwitterOn episode 23 of the (internationally-acclaimed) TechNest Report podcast, our lovely co-host Lizette Gagné vented, ranted, and otherwise expressed her frustration about the new TweetDeck icon in version 0.25 of the popular Twitter (and now Facebook) client. But she didn’t just stop there. Letting her actions speak louder than words, she created a video tutorial that guides Mac-using folk in getting the original icon back (Windows version coming soon)!
Lizette has 2 version of the tutorial: a written one and a video one – with the video posted after the break. Read more »
Posted in TNR tip, Twitter
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Update: if you have Clippy installed on a Jailbroken iPhone, Skype will crash when entering user name. Thanks to gadgetboy on Twitter.
Earlier in the day, Ben had some complaining to do about the newly-released Skype app on the iPhone. I myself joined some Twitterers in voicing concerns about the app and the call quality produced by it.
But I have some great news: we found the culprit to many of these problems and have traced the issue back to jailbroken phones! So we decided to put out an audio recording about how to fix the issue. iPhone still a virgin (not jailbroken)? There are some tips for you in here as well, so grab a quick listen!
Posted in Skype, TNR tip, iPhoneWe enjoy being green here at TechNest Report: we don’t use paper that often – if at all, turn off our displays when we’re not using them, and have a very efficient recycling system in place.
As such, one of the predominant movements in tech (and the rest of the world) today is going green – a hot-ticket term for being more environmentally friendly. In the past, Apple has come under heavy criticism (deservedly or not) for not doing all it could do be an environmentally-friendly company. All that changed when Apple announced the new MacBook lineup in late 2008 – which is rated at the highest-possible standard in environmental friendliness: the EPEAT Gold rating. The new MacBook line (along with the recently updated Mac Mini and iMac desktops) are made out of highly-recyclable materials, are more energy efficient, and use less packaging than their predecessors.
Apple iPhoto
Use iPhoto? Make an edit on a picture and no longer like it? Did you know that you can bring the original picture back with just one click? Read on to find out how! Read more »
Posted in TNR tipIf you’ve ever noticed a red light coming out of your Apple MacBook’s headphone or microphone jacks, here is what’s happening and why. Read more »
Posted in Exteme Geek, Mac, TNR tip