Sunday
Nov252012

Save the Audio from a YouTube Video as a MP3 in iOS

There are a lot of music video on YouTube, and I'm told that kids today mostly discover new music there. Having that music as a MP3 can be very useful (although if you want to put it in your music library you will have to use your desktop to save the MP3 to iTunes). Here is how you do it using your iPad/iPhone/iPod touch.

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Tuesday
Nov062012

Edit (Amplify, Noise Reduce, Selectively Silence, etc.) the Audio in a Video Recording on the iPhone/iPad

When you are recording video, it's hard to correct audio problems on the fly. It's easy to have sound that is way too low, too loud, too noisy, capture something you don't want, etc. The easy solution is to just get rid of it (or lower it way down) and add a musical sound track. A more professional solution is to separate out the audio and modify it with a wave editor. There you can make decisions about volume, clarity, and content. Mix the results back into your video and you have a stronger project. On a desktop we would open our video with an audio editor, make our audio corrections, then re-mix together the audio and video with a movie editor. That process is pretty much the same on iOS (iPad/iPhone/iPod).

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Wednesday
Oct312012

Textilus App Review - Create and Edit Rich Text Format (RTF) Documents on the iPad

Looking around the Apple section of Microcenter, I overheard a conversation someone was having with a sales person about buying an iPad. Apparently the customer has concerned about the "Great American Novel" he was writing and whether the iPad could handle it. The sales associate suggested converting the novel to RTF (Rich Text Format, an older file format for Microsoft Word) then using the RTF with Apple's word processing app, Pages. This isn't a bad solution, but a couple of thing occurred to me. One--why switch to RTF? Pages will import Word files direct and skipping the unnecessary conversion may well preserve graphics and table information that would otherwise be lost. On the other hand--why assume the laptop goes away? It's probably paid for and getting rid of it isn't going to get you much. Why not continue to use it at home and use the iPad when you are mobile. Since the author didn't seem to mind switch to RTF (I'm guessing the novel doesn't contain much graphics--most don't), it makes sense having the project readily available to both machines. You just need to use Dropbox so the RTFs are accessible, and an iPad app that supports editing RTF documents... an app like Textilus from knowtilus. This way you don't lose any functionality, and gain the ability to work on the novel when inspiration strikes.

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Thursday
Oct182012

Quickstart Guide for Creating and Using Spreadsheets with Numbers on the iPad/iPhone

I'm not an accountant so spreadsheets aren't my life, but like most people in the office environment I have used Excel before. So creating a spreadsheet on the iPad should be a snap, just buy Apple's spreadsheet app, Numbers, and your set -- right? Yes and, uh, no. Using Numbers is pretty easy, but it is not a traditional spreadsheet. Here are some tips to help you get the job done.

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Tuesday
Sep252012

Create a Ringtone Using Garageband for the iPad/iPhone

Along with iOS6 compatibility, Garageband for iOS recently acquired the ability to create ringtones. You can record anything you want or use a song from your music library to make the ringtone.

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Tuesday
Sep252012

Order Photo Prints for Pickup or Mail Delivery from the iPad

Updated on Sunday, November 25, 2012 at 9:20PM by Registered CommenterJames Chi

This site has a fair amount of information on printing photos from your iPad, but the most cost effective way is still sending them out to a photo lad. At less than 10 cents a print it can be an eighth the cost of printing them yourself. The only tricky part is sending the photos and actually putting in the order. You can save the most money by having the prints mailed to you, but if time is an issue you can pick them up at a local retailer (Walgreens, Walmart, etc). As always the article gives you various options and instructions...

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Wednesday
Aug152012

Color Correct Movies (Video Grading) on the iPad

If you've browsed YouTube videos at all, you'll see alot of movies that would benefit from a bit of color correction. If your video has a blue, yellow, or orange color tint, the white balance on your camera isn't set. Fixing this problem after the fact in still photography is a basic skill, but doing the same for video is still a pretty advanced task. It is mostly reserved for high power software like Final Cut Pro and Adobe After Effects, but remember there's an app for that. Here is how you color correct video on the iPad.

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