Bwana.TV

In this video, I demonstrate how to create video game ringtones using Audio Overload on the Mac. This technique involves Audio Overload, Audio Hijack Pro, and iTunes. It utilizes previous tricks I've outlined to create your own iPhone ringtones for free, and how to chop them up in iTunes. Search my youtube channel for related videos. While this technique seems fairly involved, it can be rather quick (2-5 minutes) once you get the hang of it. I've created dozens of video game ringtones for free using this method and I hope you can as well. Enjoy!

In this video, I discuss how to create overlay a graphic logo on your videos. A lot of you use Youtube, blip.tv, viddler, vimeo, metacafe and the like to house your videos. Often times you see professional looking videos with logos overlayed. This trick that I talk about utilizes Quicktime Pro to do the same effect. All that is required is a transparent PNG logo of your choice, and a copy of Quicktime Pro ($30). There are other software tools out there which can probably do this trick and more, but I found that this solution is fairly cheap and flexible for what I need. I hope you can get some use out of it as well.

In this video, I discuss the upcoming Team Fortress 2 update. The last major Team Fortress 2 update addressed the "Pyro", or flamethrower, class. In it, we got new achievements and new unlockable weapons. In this update, the class of choice is the "Heavy". The Heavy is a giant man who is pure muscle. He carries a huge gun and moves very slow, but is effective with a Medic (healing class) alongside him. This new update aims to give the heavy class 35 new achievements, as well as 3 unlockable weapons. It has been said that these new weapons may enhance the Heavy enough to where he won't need a Medic as much. Only time will tell. Also in this update is new play modes and maps. Most notably, a popular community map called cp_steel will be included in the update. I have rarely played this map, but judging by the screenshots, it looks like a high quality match. Look for this TF2 update to arrive on August 19th!

In this video, I talk about a common problem with iPhone 2.0: memory management. A lot of users complain about OS sluggishness as well as program crashes. A trick that I've used to alleviate some of these issues is to "force-quit" some of the "heavier" applications on the iPhone: Mail, iTunes, and Safari. To perform this trick, open the desired application, then hold down the home button until the program quits. This removes the program from memory and could possibly speed other things up. If you find that this trick doesn't speed things up, you can always just restart your iPhone to clear all apps from memory. Enjoy!

In this video, I talk about Rejaw. Rejaw is a new microblogging service which launched recently. On the surface, it looks like yet another Twitter clone. If you've been following me, you know that I am interested in these type of services. So what differentiates Rejaw from the rest of the crowd? Rejaw doesn't have a limitation of characters on your updates, and the chat is "real-time". It almost seems like a cross between IM/IRC and Twitter. It also supports "payloads" which means you can post a Youtube link, image URL, or MP3 file and it automagically recognizes them and embeds them in the update. I've only been using Rejaw for a couple of days so my follower list is fairly small. I can definitely see the potential of its features, but only time will tell if it stands a chance against the other Twitter competitors.

In this video, I talk about a new third party application called, Identispy. This jabber bot allows you to track terms on the Twitter clone, Identi.ca. If you watched my previous video on how I use Twitter, you may remember that I used the track feature a lot to filter information that comes from Twitter. Identispy is very simply to use, simply add laconica@west.spy.net to your jabber user list. Once you have done that, send the message "help" to the jabber bot to get a list of commands. The most common commands surrounding track are "track", "tracks', and "untrack". Once you start tracking terms, any time somone says the term, you will be notified. Track is beautiful! I hope Twitter brings it back soon because it brought so much value to the tool and now you can use it with Identi.ca! Enjoy!

In this video, I conduct a review of Apple's iPhone 3G. A writeup of this review is at http://www.bwana.org/2008/07/31/apple-iphone-3g-review/ . I give an account of our initial impressions during the activation process and a brief overview of the unboxing (see previous video). The good aspects of the iPhone 3G are the 3G speeds (of course), GPS chip, and 3G technology perks which include using data while on a call. Some of the drawbacks include the battery life (when on 3G), cheap quality accessories, and lack of quality in the hardware buttons. Overall, I m happy with the iPhone 3G. I believe it presents an attractive upgrade for those who are interested in faster browsing speeds while on the go, GPS-based social networking, and improved technology during calls. I find myself using the iPhone 3G a little bit more than the previous iteration, mostly due to the wave of new applications from the iTunes App Store. Again, this benefit is not unique to the iPhone 3G and if you are interested in that, I would recommend looking up used iPhones on eBay. (Sorry, we ve already sold ours for $300+ each). I d like to also mention the drawback of the carrier contract. Since the iPhone 3G is a worldwide release, I don t want to dwell on the shackles of AT&T too much. As reported on the web, Canada has its hands full with Rogers as well. When considering the iPhone 3G, always factor in carrier costs, including data plan costs over the life of the contract, and cancellation fees. They are important.Even with its reduced battery life and flimsy casing, I believe the iPhone 3G is an improvement over its predecessor. Given the choice, I would easily choose the iPhone 3G. As I stated in my previous review, look out Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, and LG: Apple is here and is improving. Enjoy!

In this video, I discuss the site Zazzle.com which allows you to build and sell your own branded goods. Zazzle offers T-shirts, stickers, mouse pads, mugs, hats and more for affordable prices. The thing I like most about Zazzle is the quality of goods. The stuff I have received (bluefox's gear for winning the logo contest) is top notch and I would easily recommend it to anyone. If you would like to buy Bwana.TV gear, here is my gallery: http://www.zazzle.com/iobuffa If you don't like my stuff, please check out all of the other cool stuff Zazzle has to offer! Enjoy!

In this video, I answer various questions in my Youtube Inbox! It's Bwana.TV Q&A for 07/24/2008. Most of the questions in this video have to do with the new iPhone 3G and the new iPhone software. There were also questions regarding unlocking an iPhone 3G which is currently not possible (from what I understand). I was only able to get in about 10 questions since I wanted to limit it to 10 minutes. Enjoy!

In this video, I talk about a new video microblogging service called 12seconds.TV. I've recently been invited to partcipate in the alpha testing phase of this site and it looks a lot like Seesmic.com on the surface. The purpose is to provide short, 12 second, video updates on whatever you wish. There is a basic follower system and tie-ins to Twitter. 12seconds.TV is very young at the moment and is lacking some features of Seesmic, but it is worth keeping an eye on as it develops. Enjoy

In this video, I demonstrate the latest version of twhirl (0.8.4) which supports the Twitter clone, identi.ca. What makes this version so special is that it supports receiving updates via Jabber (XMPP). This means real time updates in your twhirl window! A sad thing is that this feature had been developed weeks ago, but Twitter's failure to deliver a stable XMPP service has prevented it from going live. Thanks to identi.ca's new Twitter compatible API, this feature can now be realized and enjoyed. While identi.ca's community is no where near the size of Twitter's, I'm excited about it's huge growth in such a short period of time, and how quickly new features are added. Enjoy!

In this video, I demonstrate how to utilize the PwnageTool (2.0.1) to jailbreak and unlock an iPhone with 2.0 software. I'm not using an iPhone 3G, but an old model which uses EDGE only. Remember the difference between jailbreaking and unlocking. Jailbreaking an iPhone will allow custom software (outside of the App Store) to run while unlocking an iPhone allows one to use the iPhone on a different carrier such as T-Mobile. The Pwnage tool gives you an easy to use interface to jailbreak and unlock your iPhone. It provides giant buttons that are easy to read and follow. Note, you should have already downloaded the latest Apple firmware as well as the latest BootLoader files. The tool will prompt you to download them if you haven't already. I also demonstrate "advanced mode" which gives you options to customize the firmware even further. You can tell it to activate the iPhone or not, disable the partition wipe, customize the root partition size, (pre)install custom packages, customize boot logos, or whether to preload Bootneuter for unlocking. After customization, you click the giant "Build" button which builds a custom firmware with all the customizations defined. You then have to restore this custom firmware to your iPhone through iTunes. This invovles putting the iPhone in DFU mode. The tool does a decent job of guiding through the process of holding the right buttons at the right time. Once this is done, the hard part is over! Just wait until the phone boots, runs the appropriate programs, and you'll have a jailbroken, unlocked iPhone! Enjoy!

In this video, I unbox my new iPhone 3G! Thanks to the community (jim48116 and other donations), my wife and I now are proud owners of the iPhone 3G. To get the iPhone we had to go through more than we anticipated. We called the Apple Store in our local area to make sure they had them in stock. We were pleasantly surprised to find that they had all models! When we got to the Apple Store, we were shocked to see a fairly long line to get the iPhone. After standing in line for about an hour and a half, we were told we couldn't get the iPhone from the Apple Store since I had an old business discount on my plan. Note, this was an plan that was discontinued when I got my first gen iPhone, but my account was STILL flagged as having the discount. We then went around the corner to an AT&T store, and had it promptly removed. Thanks to the nice Apple rep (Clayton Hackett @ Apple Store St Johns Town Center, YOU ROCK BUDDY), we didn't have to stand in line again. He re-processed us and we came home with our iPhones. Our initial impressions of the iPhone 3G are fairly positive. My wife instantly noticed the speed increase on the ride home. She also liked that the iPhone felt lighter. We will use these and report our findings to you all in time. Look for a full review soon. Thanks for watching!

In this video, I talk about jim48116's idea of creating a ChipIn! widget to get me and my wife an iPhone 3G upgrade. Jim approached me yesterday on live.bwana.tv and asked if it were possible to setup a fund raiser to get it done. I was a bit hesitant at first since I rarely ask for anything in return for the things I do, but I decided to do it anyway to see what happens. Seconds after I posted the ChipIn! Widget, Jim donated $50!!! Jrblaze in the chat room asked if my wife would be jealous if I got an upgrade and she didn't. Well... yeah she would. So Jim suggested I increase the amount of the ChipIn! widget to account for both of our upgrades. Soon after, Jim donated ANOTHER $50!!! Amazing. So if you want to donate to the iPhone 3G upgrade for Bwana fund, go to this link: http://bit.ly/bwanaiphone3g. From there, you can donate however much you want via paypal. ChipIn! will track how much has been donated and how much is left. Again, I'd like to thank Jim for his generous donations and also thank all of you for listening and subscribing, whether you donate or not.

In this video, I give my thoughts on Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony's keynotes at E3 2008. I was saddened by the lack of substance in each of the keynotes. I wrote about this last year on bwana.org and hoped things would improve this year. Unfortunately, all of the presentations were yawn fests. Rather than repeat last year's negative tone, I tried my best to find the positive things of each keynote. For Microsoft, I was impressed by their dashboard update and avatar system, and obviously I was floored by Final Fantasy XIII's move to the Xbox 360. For Nintendo, Wii motion Plus and Wii Music were positive highlights, while Sony's PSN video offerings and announcement of MAG. I'm hoping next year's E3 will be much better than this poor offering.

In this video, I discuss Sony's new video content on the Playstation Network. Sony announced availability of this content at E3 2008, and made it available the same day. The video content includes Movie and TV show rentals and purchases. The price ranges match those of the Xbox Marketplace and AppleTV. Sony is also allowing transfers for content to the PSP!! I believe this is a step in the right direction for Sony to bring PSN's video on demand offering to a new level.

In this video, I give my initial thoughts on the iPhone 2.0 software. If you recall, I was excited about the new firmware (v2.0) moreso than the new iPhone 3G hardware. My excitement was well warranted as the iTunes App Store is absolutely amazing! The applications are abundant (there are plenty of free ones out there) and while I've only spent $5, I have almost 5 pages of apps! Some of my favorite apps are Pandora, Remote, Tap Tap Revenge, and Tuner, to name a few. Overall, I think Apple hit a home run with iPhone software 2.0. I feel like I have a new device without spending a dime!

In this video, I give my thoughts and a brief walkthrough of Kwippy. Kwippy is a micro/nanoblogging platform which mimicks a lot of the features of Twitter. What separates Kwippy from the crowd is their lack of 140 character limitation, IM status support, comment notification system, their openness regarding the system's architecture. I have been a Kwippy user for only a day now so I'm not the expert on what it can and can't do. I have noticed some issues that may deter other users and I have shared those with the author of the application. Kwippy is currently invite only and I have less than 20 invites remaining. If you wish to give it a try, let me know via the comments here and I'll send you an invite as soon as I can (if I have some remaining). Enjoy the video!

In this video, I talk about how to utilize FriendFeed's room feature to add a forum element to your existing podcast. FriendFeed released a new feature that allows audio sharing right on the FriendFeed site. This gives your user community a one stop shop to consume and solicit feedback regarding your podcast. I have setup a room for my Bwana.org Radio podcast and I hope it gains traction. I can see a ton of potential with this solution. Enjoy.

In this video, I discuss the newest Twitter clone, Identi.ca. Here's a quote from Bwana.org regarding it: "Today, I joined Identi.ca. Is it YATC (Yet another Twitter clone)? Sure seems like it on the surface. Identi.ca offers a timeline view identical to Twitter, limits your updates to 140 characters, and it offers Jabber/Gtalk posts and updates. If that ain t a Twitter clone, I don t know what is. [...] The software that runs Identi.ca, called Laconi.ca, allows users to run their own federated instance of the software. This has made advocates of a federated Twitter, like Dave Winer, very excited about the possibilities. I have went on record to say that a federated architecture is not also guaranteed to produce a successful Twitter, as there have been many stable non-federated messaging systems. They all had a sound design. I m not saying it won t work, I m stating that it s not a silver bullet. Either way, it s happening now that Identi.ca has entered the space. With juggernauts such as Winer excited about it, it can only be a good thing for developer momentum." If you're interested in Identi.ca, sign up today at http://identi.ca. Enjoy!

In this video, I discuss the tool Apture. Apture aims to provide rich multimedia tools for your blog or webpage. These tools enable you to create rich popup windows that can contain videos, wikipedia articles or other embedded content. To use Apture, is simple: You first install the appropriate blog plug-in, log in to apture, then edit and annotate your blog. It's that simple! I was able to add several youtube videos for Team Fortress 2 weapons on my Pyro patch post on Bwana.org. It took no more than 5 minutes to greatly enhance that post. If you are a blogger and want to do this for your blog, sign up for Apture at www.apture.com. Enjoy!

In this video, I giveaway a Sony PSP to ....*drumroll*...xox1011!!! Congratulations xox1011, you are the winner of a brand new Sony PSP. xox1011 should be receiving his PSP in a couple of days, and fortunately, his birthday is also right around the corner. Happy Birthday xox!! Thanks to everyone who showed up and made this a fun event.

In this video, I announce the latest Bwana.TV giveaway, a brand new Sony Playstation Portable! A couple of weeks ago, I put up a donation widget on bwana.tv asking for money towards a new PSP. Before I could create a video on the effort, Louis Gray of louisgray.com donated the entire amount!! So thanks to Louis, and jrblaze, we are conducting this giveaway on June 27, 2007 at 10:00PM EST on http://live.bwana.tv The criteria for entry is simple: 1. Be subscribed to my Youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/iobuffa 2. Live in the US or Canada (sorry International viewers) 2. Be present for the giveaway on the night of June 27, 2007. I will pick a random user from the chat and ask for their youtube ID and verification they live in the US or Canada. Upon verification, you will be pronounced the winner! Again, thank you Louis Gray for making this happen! (Congratulations on the birth of your new twins!)

In this video, I talk about a new web application which has changed the way I read news on the web. It's called Feedly and I hope you try it out. It's a Firefox (3.0) plugin which has close ties into Google Reader. There are so many features to outline with Feedly, that it was difficult to keep this video short. Even after it, I wasn't able to cover all the cool things about it. From keyboard shortcuts, annotations, view customizations, and social hooks, Feedly has changed the game almost overnight. Will it replace Google Reader? That's hard to say, but it definitely compliments it in ways that's hard to explain. The scary thing is, it's only getting better. So give Feedly a shot by going to http://www.feedly.com. Enjoy!

In this video, I complete the WWDC 2008 roundup and discuss the new iPhone hardware, the iPhone 3G. As you can tell by the name, this phone supports the 3G network which provides much faster download speeds to your iPhone. Many people thought this was the biggest problem with the current iPhone and it should satisfy a great deal of people on the fence. The battery life of this new iPhone has improved dramatically, but there is still a trade-off of using the 3G network. You get 5 hours of talk time on the 3G network as compared to 10 hours on the EDGE network. Many users will be happy that it has a regular headset jack and will not require an adapter. The iPhone 3G also has GPS for location positioning which should satisfy a lot of folks as well. The biggest news out of this is that the iPhone price has dropped to $199 for the 8GB model and $299 for the 16GB model. It's not big news because of it's cheaper, it's big news because Apple is advertising "half the price" and in the United States, AT&T is requiring a contract as well as higher data plan costs. In the end, it costs more than the previous iPhone. Other countries will not likely see the same type of pricing plan, but for the United States, AT&T has increased costs.

In this video, I continue the WWDC 2008 roundup and discuss a new service provided by Apple called MobileMe. MobileMe serves to replace the .Mac service offered by Apple today for $99 year. The benefit of this service is that it serves to provided enterprise level synchronization to the ordinary consumer. You'll be able to synchronize email, calendar, and contacts seamlessly and wirelessly with your iPhone, Mac, and over the web. MobileMe comes with a paultry 20GB storage, which seems to be extremely low considering you are storing files on iDisk and photos within the gallery section. In my opinion, MobileMe's synchronization features are killer, but the storage options kind of kill the value almost instantly for me. Let's hope they improve this portion of the service.

In this video, I continue the WWDC 2008 roundup, and discuss the new features of the iPhone 2.0 software. These new features include Contact Search, Full iWork & MS Office document support, bulk delete email, and other enhancements. The iTunes App store was also talked about Steve Jobs and more details were given regarding it. Most notably, developers will not be charged if they wish to deploy free applications. I think this is a huge plus. Also, the number of countries have increased. Apple has imposed a 10MB limit on applications that are downloaded over the cellular network. If it's more than 10MB, you can only download apps from the iTunes App store via WiFi and iTunes. Apple introduced Enterprise and Adhoc distribution of custom iPhone apps for those situations where users want semi-public or private distribution of apps. These features make the iPhone software update a valuable addition to your existing iPhone. Personally, I will not be upgrading to the new iPhone and look forward to this software update. This will be available in early July for existing iPhone users and a $9.95 upgrade for iPod Touch users.

In this video, I continue the WWDC 2008 Roundup as I discuss the SDK features. There were a lot of things in this part of the keynote that impressed me. During this portion of the keynote, Apple reviewed a lot of features which were debuted in March, and also demonstrated the Interface Builder. Apple then decided to showcase several developers to show off the power of the SDK which include: Sega, Ebay, Loopt, Typepad, Pangea Software, Modality, MIMVista, Cow Music, MLB.com, and Digital Legends. My favorite of all these demonstrations is from Cow Music, they have opened up a whole new realm of applications with their music app. They demonstrated a 12 Bar blues simulator which created great music in a short amount of time. Modality and MIMVista also demonstrated the iPhone's potential in the medical arena. Switching gears in the keynote, Apple talked about the topic of running applications in the "background". Typically, applications which rely on server notifications need to be running in the background in order to receive alerts. This type of behavior is seen in Instant messaging type applications. Traditionally, when applications run in the background on mobile platforms, they consume precious system resources and drain battery life. Apple looks to solve this issue by introducing a new architecture for notifications. This new system will allow developers to send three types of notifications through Apple's server: badges (number of new notifications), custom sounds, and custom textual alerts. There is a little controversy surrounding Apple's ownership of the messaging server. Personally, I think it's a good idea as long as the data sent and received is not sensitive. This will be available in September. All in all, the SDK improvements look and sound fascinating and I'm excited to see what apps get developed as a result.

In this video, I start my roundup of the WWDC 2008 Keynote by Steve Jobs and others. Steve Jobs outlines Apple's strategy for integrating features on the iPhone to better support the Enterprise market. Apple approached 35% of the Fortune 500 companies and conducted a beta test to get feedback. This proved to be very valuable as they have added security and compatibility features which will prove to aid in iPhone adoption. I commend Apple on their efforts and I believe this is going to make RIM and Windows Mobile vendors rethink their strategy. They will consider Apple as a player in the market.

In this video, I give my thoughts on the upcoming World Wide Developer's Conference that is hosted by Apple in California. The main focus of this year's event is going to be focused around the iPhone. This event is sold out for the first time in years (I think ever) and it's mostly because Apple has tapped into a brand new development market which is about to explode: Mobile application development. What's ironic, is that much of the "hype" or "rumors" surrounding this event come from statements that Apple has not made. The only promise Apple gave regarding WWDC is the iTunes App Store, which will allow iPhone users to purchase custom applications. There are several rumors surrounding a 3G iPhone with GPS and video conference capabilities. This video sums up my thoughts around the incredible hype and let you know I will be streaming at http://live.bwana.tv during the event on Monday, June 9, 2008. Enjoy!