It appears that ffmpeg is a handy tool when creating ringtones for the iPhone, avoiding the need for several manual steps using iTunes on a Mac. Assuming you have mastered or extracted an audio sequence - I use Audacity - of less than 40 seconds from a recording this one liner will do:
ffmpeg -i input.wav -acodec libfaac -f mp4 output.m4r
The above command line converts your input - anything ffmpeg can read - into an mp4 file. Now transfer the newly created ringtone to the Mac that knows your phone and there import the files into iTunes, then sync.
An awful lot of hype, sweat and tears was volunteered into Wikia Search, which was to be the next big thing. Except, it failed where it mattered: on search, because you cannot trust people to be truly objective when it's easy to game a system. So even its demise isn't a big thing[1].
[1] http://venturebeat.com/2009/03/31/wales-poor-economy-killed-wikia-search/
As someone who started computing in 1982 with the Unix command line and who still thinks desktops such as Gnome or KDE just get in the way of efficiency - I still use Blackbox as my window manager - I always thought mobile phones have extremely cumbersome user interfaces.
Until I bought an iPhone last week. Its software is not only elegant, it's actually a pleasure to work with. The fact that it's in a class of its own is apparent by the time the first screen is drawn. And now my wife wants one too.
© Copyright 1998 - 2009 Klaus Schallhorn.