Lifehacks

I have a bunch of audiobooks that I either imported from CD or downloaded from eMusic. One problem. These audiobooks don’t show up in the audiobooks section of iTunes. Why is that important? When I sync to the iPhone, my audiobooks show up like music files and I can’t bookmark my place. Big problem.

I skip around between different books (before finishing) and don’t like to lose my place. It was such a challenge that I had been keeping note everytime I paused an audiobook with the last chapter I was listening to. There’s got to be a better way! If I could get the books into the audiobooks section of iTunes, they would automatically bookmark the last place I stopped.

Finally, I did some searching in the iTunes customer forums and found two helpful things for myself and other audiobook listeners. Here are the steps I followed to move the imported audiobooks from the music section to the audiobook section on iTunes.

1. Highlight all the files for a selected book and right click (or control-click for us Mac users). Then select “Get Info.”

2. First, changed the generic “audiobook” genre to something more specific. In this case, I chose “novel.”

3. Then jump over to the “Options” tab and change file from “Music” to “Audiobook.” I also changed to yes the following: “remember position,” “skip when shuffling,” and “gapless album.”

4. Once you click “OK,” it takes a moment for iTunes to process your files. Now they show up in “Audiobooks” instead of “Music.”

5. In order to keep from syncing all audiobooks when I sync my iPhone, I select view by list. Highlight the books I don’t want to sync, right click (control click for Mac), and choose “Uncheck selections.”

6. Finally, I choose “Sync only checked songs and videos” under the iPhone sync screen, and I am good to go.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Jeremy shows an easy way to turn your place ride into a mini-movie theatre, using an iPhone and a magazine.

Popularity: 4% [?]

As it turns out my credit union, the Knoxville TVA Employees Credit Union awards points for using the debit/credit card. I checked the Bonus Check Card site last week and found out I qualified for a $250 Best Buy gift card (or a free Apple TV).

I figure that if my credit union offers these points, your credit union/bank might as well. So I encourage you to ask or visit your bank’s website to find out if they offer any incentives for using the debit/credit card.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Per Jeremy’s prompting, I spent the weekend playing around with the beta Firefox 3.0. While Firefox is a beloved old friend, I must admit that Flock and Seamonkey have been my mainstay browsers. But FF3 is faster, leaner and ready to take the battle of the browsers to the next level. NY Times today reports that Firefox, IE and Safari and all set to launch a new round in the browsers wars.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Last year I gave a presentation to group of businessmen on tagging and why it had the power to change the way we think about information, categories and even people. I suggested that we could have a tagging profile for members of congress the might paint a clearer picture than simple left/right divisions. In fact, I thought and still think that tagging could be an interesting tool for 360 profiles on how people (friends and co-workers) perceive us.

Looks like has got the ball rolling with their brand tagging tool. Brand tags is great for brand researchers and fun for the rest of us schmucks to brand the companies we don’t like with words like

Popularity: 5% [?]

Don’t throw out your discarded Cell Phones and MP3 players. EMusic is offering cash, paypal and even charitable donation options. That charitable idea is great, and I’m glad they’re offering it!

Anybody who offers Larry Norman downloads is already rocking in my book!

Popularity: 4% [?]

Or at least the door is cracked! A couple years ago I wrote a post about online software and pointed to Boing Boing’s piece on Open Office running ads on the buses back and forth to the evil empire.

NY Times reports that the the intense ad war may just have worked! Microsoft is releasing an open document format in the updated Office 2007.

Popularity: 5% [?]

Some guy at work sent out a link to Gas Buddy today. Pretty cool. Insert your zip code and find the cheapest gas in town.

Then spend $10 bucks traveling across town to save money.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Going to a new city? Lost in your own city? TechCrunch just reviewed the newly revamped Ask City, and they’ve made me a believer!

Ask City is  a cool tool for looking up restaurants, movies, events, dog parades, and more. It combines maps, reviews, and a variety of customization like saving snapshots while I search, integration with other sites and services, notes on maps, and e-mailable permalinks of my searches. Ask City may become my new first stop for finding out about where in the world I live.

Popularity: 2% [?]

I know all the talk over the last year has been about YouTube, and I’ve spent my fair share of time browsing and uploading. But today I tested blip.tv, and I must say: it rocks!

This video sharing service offers RSS feeds for your videos, automatic blogging and cross-posting options, multiple formats and even multiple uploading options. And this is just the start. If you are serious about videos or setting up an online channel. Use blip.tv!! I love it!!

Popularity: 3% [?]