Slashdot Mirror
Short History of Cellphone Ringtones
RobotWisdom writes "This week's New Yorker magazine includes an interesting
short history of cellphone ringtones, including statistics on their (huge) profitability worldwide. My favorite quote: 'I spent three days of productive work time listening to polyphonic ringtone versions of speed metal, trying to find exactly the ringtone that expressed my personality with enough irony and enough coolness that I could live with it going off ten times a day. In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?'"
Kewl
Neat
Cute
Distracting
Bothersome
Highly Annoying
Obnoxious
Grating
"Hello, is the proctologist available? I need something removed from somewhere."
coming soon: ringtones with thx 5.1 surround, so everyone can enjoy your taste in interruption melodies!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Crazy Frog.
Vibrate.
"In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off--what are they going to hear?"
Among polite people, or, failing that, with a mobile phone jammer enabled--nothing.
They are going to hear that you have too much time on you hands...
I mean, $2-3 a PIECE? who the hell pays that? I am quite content with the standard ringer on my LG. It is a damn phone!
Seriously, I do not understand the level of popularity that ringtones have acheived - especially considering that they cost money! A cellphone plan costs enough already. I use a preprogrammed ringtone on my Audiovox CDM-4000 phone (1st gen CDMA for anyone unfamiliar with the particular phone), and while it's a bit cheesy I can instantly recognize that this tone is coming from my phone and my phone only - It's been ringing like this for almost 5 years. If I were to change ring tones often, not only would it be time&money consuming but I would also lose that mental 'training' of what my phone sounds like when it rings in a room full of people with ringing cellphones.
Yes, I do know people who have a ring tone for everyone in their phonebook. Perhaps it is useful to them other than being a fashion statement (since caller ID also identifies incoming callers) but is it really worth paying for?
Everyone else hollering "PUT YOUR FUCKING PHONE ON VIBRATE!"
Damn I hate ringtones.
sulli
RTFJ.
This is why i use the single beep ringer, its short and functional, and acceptable in all areas. As an added benifit, if you left it on somewhere you shouldn't like school or the movies, one beep could be anything and mos tpeople arn't even sure they heard it.
Like the saying goes, never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes. -Pyrotic
I was with my wife in a pizza place a few years ago and we happened to be talking about baseball (once in about probably 10 times I've talked about it in my life) and right then the girl's cell phone in the booth next to us goes off and plays "Take me out the ballgame". That was a weird coincidence.
I made my own long and dissonant ringtone for text messages so that it will wake me up at night if a server goes down.
Vibrating is the "other" useful battery powered utility that a woman can't live without!!
This is an interesting article, there seems to be a growing intrigue into ringtones. Recently i read about a study being done at Cornell with ring tones. Users are being studied for a year and they are trying to determine what goes into people's decisions to buy a certain ringtone. I guess this is really becoming a huge business.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
From the proliferation of (what I consider to be) annoying ring tones, I really feel alone in the world with my lowly silent setting.
For the life of me, I can not figure out why someone would take the time to set up a custom ringtone - let alone pay for one.
I guess it's the same people that blare their radio in the car with the windows rolled all the way down.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Which is exactly why I have mine set to vibrate mode. The reality is, during a meeting, nobody gives a shit what kind of music I like. Cell phone use is intrusive enough without the addition of "look how cool I am" ring tones.
Pointy-haired bosses at Sprint PCS must see this as an excuse to take away their customers' ability to compose free ringtones, since obviously we're depriving Sprint of some good revenue.
But I'm one really happy customer, since I've composed one and two-letter morse-code "songs" in MIDI and use them as custom ringtones for all the people who frequently call my phone. Irritating songs be damned, my phone gently beeps to me the identity of my caller. It's fabulous.
I'd like to STRANGLE these people who use LOUD, OBNOXIOUS songs for their ringtones, and then don't even have their phone on their person... "oh god, that purse is now ringing at top volume. during the concert. naturally, during the quiet part. AAAAAAAAAAH!"
- Peter
INsigNIFICANT
My favorite ringtone was discussed in this slashdot article a couple of days ago.
A happy dolphin.
Sometime's it's embrassing, but just being me is embarassing, so I've learned to live with it. It's pretty much my trademark now.
(The dolphin ringtone, that is...not being embarasssing.)
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
God - the world does not need musical ring tones. Really, we don't. Without doubt they are always irritating and annoying to everyone else.
Really, just because you think that the Looney Tunes themes is cute doesn't mean that the people around don't view you as an idiot.
Three Squirrels
Of course I've got a new one to add to rude cell phone use. In a movie theater if you have a bright screen on your phone, cover it with your hand so it doesn't distract other people.
Though on the good side technology is getting to the point where it can effectively block cell phone signals so since it is obvious people won't police themselves it is only a matter of time before more and more public places like movie theaters block it for them.
-- Slashdot, making the Left look conservative since 1997.
Probably a shitty ring tone that took you 3 days to decide on... Now get back to work!
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?
Let's see...if the phone goes off, they'll hear... silence!
... I finally settled on a polyphonic ring tone that sounds just like a normal good old fashioned land-line phone ringing.
Free Firefox news reader.
I have tried, so far in vain, to find a simple ringing sound like the old rotary dial phones used to have. I guess Jamster and their ilk are going to drag me kicking and screaming into the 21st Century whether I want to go or not.
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
I spent three days of productive work time listening to polyphonic ringtones...in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?
"You're fired."
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
I like my telephone to sound like a damn telephone. My Treo is either set to ring using a standard telephone ring, or else I have it set for silent operation. I always try (and usually remember) to set it for silent when I am in meetings because ringing telephones are disruptive.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Entry of the Gladiators by Julius Fucik
I can convert any mp3 to a ringtone, software included.. considering their "security" model, how did they approve that phone, I'll never know
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
'I spent three days of productive work time listening to polyphonic ringtone versions of speed metal, trying to find exactly the ringtone that expressed my personality with enough irony and enough coolness that I could live with it going off ten times a day. In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off'
YOU'RE FIRED.....
It is still unfathomable to me that Ringtones have become a multi-billion dollar industry... And most of them are bad MIDI recreations that cost as much (or more) than a song off of iTunes...
I'll stick to 'Vibrate' thanks.
In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?
If I'm a client (or her boss), she's gonna hear my foot in her ass. Why can't people put their friggin' phones on vibrate for a meeting?
It's not cute; it's not you personalizing your life; it's not you making a statement. It's you being rude and unprofessional.
-- Fugacity: Confusing chemists since 1908
I just started a ringtones on my site last month. I've already sold over 3000 ringtones in over 50 countries. I'd say that ringtone sales are going strong.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
Personally I refuse to buy ringtones. If I like a tune, I've probably bought it on CD; why should I pay MORE money to have it on my phone? (Don't tell me, some record industry group thinks I owe them for performance royalties for letting my phone ring in a public place? What if I _promise_ not to take my phone outside my house???)
m ).
.wav & .mp3 files on and use those as ringtones.
Even if you do decide to buy a ringtone, you've then got to hunt around and find somewhere that isn't charging you 5 euros a month for some subscription you didn't even know you were signing yourself up for! (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4295625.st
Personally I now stick to phones that you can put
Obnoxious ringtones and overly loud phone conversations in public lead to calls for blocking.
The only problem is, do you really want blockers going when there could be a real emergency that requires 911?
It's like a carnival in college classes anymore. You're in your data structures class, and suddenly "Sir Mix-A-Lot" busts in, screaming "pick up tha phone!"
I imagine they wouldn't be so annoying, if everyone had the respect to set their phones to vibrate or silent before coming into class.
I mean, the last thing I want is some old rapper interrupting my slashdot browsing in class...
here's your fix... Give an MP3/MIDI... :P
Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
I refuse to pay for ringtones. You go on these sites and most of them are crap anyway. For the large part they are just sound clips from the latest teen gangsta sensation. And they charge, what, $5 a pop for this garbage?
I have a Motorola v551 which is able to interpret general MIDI files and MP3s. Adding ringtones is as simple as jumping on a MIDI archive or ripping one of my CDs, truncating the song down to the part I want, and transferring them to the phone with the data cable.
Buying ringtones is right up there with paying for pr0n in my book.
-R
I don't have a cell phone you insensitive clods!
Maybe they can start vibrating out songs for these people... that way we will not have to all want to strangle them...
Sometimes I wish cell-jammers were legal in the U.S.
'I spent three days of productive work time listening to polyphonic ringtone versions of speed metal, trying to find exactly the ringtone that expressed my personality with enough irony and enough coolness that I could live with it going off ten times a day. In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?'
They should hear the phone gently vibrate against your keys, from your pocket. When someone's phone starts ringing in a quiet room, in a meeting I give them a look so evil that they sometimes they burst into flame right on the spot. Vibrate. Learn it, use it, love it.
I went to Madame Butterfly a couple weeks ago as part of the required fine arts class I'm taking. Since there were a lot of students who were unfamiliar with opera, the last thing they did before the overture was ask everyone to turn their phones off. About 5 minutes later during the hush between the overture and the actual beginning of the act, from the upper balcony, a ring echoed across the entire hall. I would be willing to bet the only thing that saved the dumb student from a righteous opera-nerd beating was the wondrous novelty of hearing a phone make a normal electronic ringing sound, rather than play a really distorted rendition of whatever hip hop song happened to be popular at the moment. Like the opera, it was special because it's something you don't hear every day.
I'm saying this on behalf of everyone who hates mobile phones.
FUCK OFF!
It's annoying as hell to be talking to someone when they suddenly pick up their phone and cut you off mid sentence. Or you're in a shop and suddenly a phone rings and 12 people dive head first into their bag.
I miss the days of the early 90s where the only people who mobile phones were people who needed them, not every middle age woman and 12 year old girl within a 3 mile radius of the shopping part of town.
I like muppets.
I have that one on my Samsung SPH-I700, it sounds like the rotary phones I remember my parents having in the early 70's. It never fails to get a chuckle out of people when it goes off, at least once they've figured out what the heck it is. :-)
Hey, how about a cell phone vibration mode which simulates an Oscillon so that slowly the loose pens, clips and paper on the meeting table begin forming interesting patterns...
My point is, in addition to the advent of new ringtone technology, cell phone manufacturers should conduct research and development to allow people to set the intensity of their phone's vibration to a point that the phone's vibrating is as quiet as possible while shaking hard enough for the person to feel it. This cannot be the same setting for all people due to bodyfat variations, so it has to be adjustable. C'mon, science!
You should have seen me when "The New Hacker's Dictionary" came out.
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Does it count if you've devoted at least 16 hours (two straight work days) listening to ring tones, and unsuccessfully finding a "free" ringtone website?
Really? I have two mobile phones and I've only ever listened to their choices once. Hell my current one is just the Billy Hatcher theme I got free when buying the game.. it's unique so I won't be one of them narks if a phone rings..
Why would you spent hours trying to find a ring tone.. then again this is slashdot, we spent hours waiting for a message...
I like muppets.
The worst ring-tone by far... humpback whales. I don't know why someone made that a ringtone but my best friend downloaded it because it sounds so horrible. Scares the bejesus out of me to this day...
I use a recording of a vintage telephone's mechanical ringer. It gets my attention, and isn't horribly aggravating -- it's quite obviously a telephone, making a sound to which most people are accustomed.
Ericofon.com doen't just have Ericsson phones -- they have all types of ringer recordings, which I have had good luck converting to AMR (once I change the WAV file a bit so my AMR converter will work) and USBing over to my Nokia phone.
The sound can be kind of surprising if you aren't expecting it, being as it sounds just like a regular telephone but is in someone's pocket, but it sounds kind of nice, and whoever said that a telephone's ringer should be a bloody iPod?
That's because anything not speed metal is homophonic.
I still use one of the default ring tones, the one that goes "burddt-burdddt". It's identical to what solid snake has on his codec in the Metal Gear Solid games. I use it because when I get calls, I feel like Snake getting more intelligence from HQ! It makes my life really exciting sometimes! I must go now, HQ needs me to pick milk up from the ammo dump....I mean store.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
I have a Motorola i730 and use myJAL (with a data cable) to upload .mid or .wav files from my computer to my phone. I can easily convert my MP3 songs into WAV format and then have a custom ringtone for free!
I'm out of the age range that really gives much though to what my ring tone is.
I think people who imagine how cool the ring tone will be during a meeting and such, should probably have to list that on their resume. I don't care to work with people who actually think about how cool a phone is to have going off during a meeting. I consider it very disrespectful.
Can we also get rid of the stupid chirp the Nextel PTT phones make whenever the button is pressed? I don't understand people having whole conversations on these things when they can just switch to a normal cellular call.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
I believe that every cellphone on the planet should have just 1 fixed ringtone that cannot be changed. It should be some guy announcing in a loud and obnoxious voice, "LOOK EVERYONE! I HAVE A CELLPHONE AND I'M AN *ASSHOLE*!" Then most people would keep their cellphone on silent and the issue wouldn't ever come up.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Full disclosure: it's my site.
In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?
SHUT OFF THAT GOD DAMNED RINGTINE OR IT'S YOUR JOB, YOU ASSHOLE!
Edith Keeler Must Die
Not only are they the most annoying ringtones ever, but they suck you into the weekly fee scam of charging you a couple bucks every week for the ability to "rent" the ringtones. Plus they spam the hell out of you.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Sometimes I feel like John Cleese yelling, "It's f***ing seabird f***ing flavored".
I want my stereo to play music.
I don't need my phone to play a bad rendition of some tune - I want it to ring.
I want my beer to taste like, um, beer - not razzberries, lemons, etc.
Maybe I've become an old coot. But is sure saves me money.
BTW, I selected the "falling rockets" built in ring on my Nokia. Everyone hates that tone (my wife says, "your phone is crying") so I've never heard that ring on another phone. Perfect - I never have to do the "self-frisk" whenever a phone rings.
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
If your phone is polyphonic and you have some kinda WAP enabled, it's a lot easier for you to just download the MIDIs of the songs you like. Those are easier to find and for the most part, work.
Why would anyone want to pay for these things?
It's not to difficult to imagine someone paying for ringtones. People buy frivolous stuff all the time. Look at the popularity of beanie babies a few years back. I remember hearing about people paying thousands of dollars for them. I personally don't understand it. However, there have been times when I have bought something that was probably a waste of money. I'm sure any one of you can think back to a time you purchased something that maybe wasn't such a good thing to buy also.
I will agree that it's annoying when you hear them in restaurants, movie theaters, and other indoor public places. Oh well, this is the society we live in today so I guess I just have to take the bad with the good.
So someone can show their individuality (just like everone else.)
Or (the Reader's Digest version)
Moo.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Someone should make a audio file ringtone that says "I'm terribly sorry - it's my phone"... :)
I grabbed a couple hundred from a pay site that way, got them to play in xmms, along with selected Weird Al tunes, then plugged the sound card output into the company phone system's "hold" music for a couple of days (took them that long to realize people on hold were getting Neutron Dance or Amish Paradise instead of muzak)...
And one wonders where all the techno-gadget based productivity gains went! Fooling with ring-tones, getting the wallpaper just right, reading /. while at work... the list just goes on.
I was out to dinner with my wife. I almost always have my phone on vibrate and did this night. Well the phone "rang" and I excused myself to go take the call in the bar area. The guy at the table wandered in a minute or two later to have a smoke (you can't smoke in the restaraunt proper in my area, only the bar). When I had finished up my call, the guy actualy came over and thanked me for leaving the restaraunt area to take the call.
*ring ring*
Not only is this tone now so rare that you are almost gauranteed that it's yours when the phone goes off, it also avoid any and ALL embarrassment whereever and whenever he phone goes off.
May the Maths Be with you!
The popularity of ringtones, more than any other single thing, has convinced me that I must finally be getting old. I'm only 27 - that's not really old, right? But ringtones, and the idea of paying real money for them, seem so stupid to me that I must be totally out of touch.
When my phone's not on vibrate, it's set to a tone (one of the factory defaults) that I can distinguish from that of my coworkers when we're at lunch. That's it. I need to know when my phone is ringing, and that does it.
Can you imagine, 20 years ago, paying two bucks for a SID tune on your C-64? Honestly, a lot of these polyphonic ringtones aren't even up to that quality.
In closing, TURN OFF YOUR PHONE, AND GET OFF MY LAWN! Damn kids.
...is the sound of one hand clapping. When I have a message, its the sound of a tree falling in the forest when I'm not around.
rewriting history since 2109
There are websites that have have huge collections of MIDI. There's everything from TV themes to pop music to automated Mozart minuette generators. Grab one, shove it in your phone and begin annoying people immediately. It's just not that hard. $2.00 seems usurious.
John
So many comments and Almost/All of them are negative, we should form a coalition as it were to beat the ever living crap out of people with them, and if we ever saw it happening, it would be like ... OH, that guy reads ./, lets go help
This article got me thinking...could I make my own? After hitting up google it looks like yes, but you need to pay for uploading software to get it onto your phone. There must be a "free" way to do this.
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1498517852773617/
I find that musical ringtones are personality amplifiers. for that .01% of people that are already cool without a ringtone, a clever ringtone will enhance their attitude. For people like the submitter, having your phone break out a speed metal riff, will reall bring out the fact that you are a pathetic loser who relies on their electronic accessories to define them.
ringtone != cool (if you are reading this, you are not in that sliver of culture that can pull off a ringtone, please, for the love of god, switch to vibrate)
sorry, that is just the way it is.
(for full disclosure, I have my ringtone set to vibrate, since I am not in the top 0.01% of coolness)
We... are... so... retarded.
No wonder the aliens haven't contacted us yet - I doubt there would be much point.
obMontyPython: "On second thought, let's not go to Earth... 'Tis a silly place."
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Numa Numa song on my Motorola 710 thanks to it's flash memory, mp3 playback and mp3 ringtones. Awesome phone!
http://www.funpic.hu/swf/numanuma.html
I'd like to get the original hamster dance song, but I can't seem to find the original-original anymore.
You should be able to set up different tones for differnent times of they day.
E.g., a "buisness" tone for 8-5 and a "fun" tone for every time else.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
'In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?'
Nothing if you would turn off your damn ringer you obnoxious bastard....
I was at a starbucks once, sitting outside next to the little parking lot. A guy with a loud stereo drove up and left the car idling next to me while he stepped inside to get his drink. But, just before he left it, he turned the volume up so he could hear it inside better. Never mind the dozen of us on the patio... urgh.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
My cell phone has a bunch of ring tones, all the crap Samsung added. I use two of them, one is a normal US ringer, the other is vibrate. Most of the time it's set on vibrate.
There are few things more annoying than being out in public listening to some horrible scratchy version of the latest "music" the Top 40 has inflicted on us. Bonus irritation points if you're in the movie theatre (those sort of people need to be tortured without mercy).
Might I suggest "Useful Idiot" by Tool.
In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?
Well, in my neck of the woods, if they hear anything other than the gentle buzz of a phone set to vibrate, it'll be the distant sound of your phone shattering into a thousand pieces on the sidewalk four stories below.
I have two real annoying ringtones. One humorously annoying and the other has people seeking me out everytime they hear it.
:)
Bananaphone by Raffi
Everybody Everybody!! from Homestarrunner
Bananaphone has people at work call me so they can hear the song.
Never saw the need for the ringtone company though, past phones permitted me to type in songs, when I was bored in a meeting. Current Phone permits me to take any sound out there wav, mp3, midi, etc and play it. Heck I can even record annoying phone calls and make them ring tones.
Gator/Claria is Spyware.
...trying to find exactly the ringtone that expressed my personality...
To be more precise, your ringtone expresses what you perceive your personality is. If others could choose your ringtone, then you'd have one that probably matches your personality (or lack thereof) better.
Proverbs 21:19
..an american icon?
..don't panic
I was in line at a bookstore the other day when I heard a ringing that sounded like a phone from the early 70's, a rich, full bell. the guy behind me in line whipped out his phone and I said, "whoa, nice ringtone."
Decay! Decay! Decay! -Helium
TELEPHONE! YIP YIP YIP YIP YIP! UH HUH UH HUH UH HUH UH HUH!! YIP YIP YIP YIP! BUURRRRRRING! YIP YIP YIP! TELEPHONE! UH HUH UH HUH UH HUH! BURRRRRING!! UH HUH UH HUH UH HUH! TELEPHONE! YIP YIP YIP YIP YIP!!
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING. Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted! Reason: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
(Is it my fault they actually did yell?)
Whoever designed level 61 in Frozen Bubble is a sadistic bastard.
I can tell it's my phone ringing because it's the only one in the vicinity that sounds like a phone and not the sped-up voice some deranged individual trying to sound like a two-stroke engine being passed off as the voice of some godforsaken Blu-Tac-coloured Smurf-orc menace.
People in the UK, Europe, and possibly further afield know exactly to what I am referring.
Just think of how many hungry mouths could be fed by the money spent on downloading this monstrosity. Just think how many phone-calls could be made. Shameful.
Since the advent of these polyphonic ringtones, my - and I'm sure I'm not the only one - life has became increasingly more miserable.
In the train, in the office, walking down the street, every idiot seems to have their phone not only with one of these ringtones, but also at maximum volume setting.
I have my cellphone on silent and vibrate, because I don't want to A/ appear to be an idiot B/ annoy anyone unduly. Not to blow my own trumpet or anything, but if more people behaved like that, city life would be more tolerable.
I just don't get the fascination with ringtones. Iwas meeting with a sales rep last week and his phone erupted into AC/DC about 5 times, I found it annoying as hell. Does that qualify me for Stodgy Old Bastardhood? If so, send me my membership card. And buy a belt, you low-riding punk!
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Back when I had an old Nokia cellphone for work (which I conveniently lost) I went through all the various ringtones it had trying to find the least obnoxious one. I finally found one that slowly increased to get your attention. The first ring was vibrate only, followed by a very short beep. The longer I waited the more insistant the ring became. I thought this was a good compromise. I think they should focus on finding the least annoying ringtones possible. But out of all the various ringtone combinations it had, it only had one clearly designed to be as unobtrusive as possible. This phone was before all the new polyphonic ringtones which now are so pervasive.
I rarely miss my cellphone since I misplaced it and let the battery run down over a year ago.
-Aaron
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
Back in the day, I had a nice little collection of punk rock ringtones, but after a phone upgrade, I lost them all. Since I've never found any good quality, discernable punk-tones (barring Green Day, Good Charlotte, et al), I've just gone to vibrate exclusively...there's less hassle when I change from phone to phone this way.
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
Leaving your phone on a hard desk when set to vibrate's pretty damn annoying. The whole desktop acts as an amplifier, and if it rings long enough, it goes "thump" when it falls off the edge onto the floor.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I had the chorus from this great song. Took the time to program it myself on my first mono-tone cell phone. "I give you my affection and I give you my time, trying to get a connection on the telephone line!" -- I thought I was so witty (well, I was). Unfortunately in 2 years of having the phone, only one person ever recognized it and said something. Now I vibrate. :-P
It is not so!
The ring tones merely alert us to the incredible screeching of someone using their outside voice inside, yes?
I'm not a doctor, but I play one in bed.
Agree 100%, this should have been Insightful.
Ringtones are about as interesting and important as fingernail polish.
A buddy of mine and I decided that the ringtones we really really really wanted were the music from isi and Final isi. This is no mean feat, however: our phones (Sanyo SCP-8100s) only play midi and some crappy .wav format, and the latter is clearly unacceptable (both because it's limited in length to 30 seconds and because... well... it's just not cool enough!).
So what did we do? Jim modified DOSBOX's OPL3 emulation code to dump out the opcodes being sent to the FM channels and handed over the output to me.
From there, it was a matter of parsing the various channel setup data into some semblance of notes, deciding which combination of general MIDI patches best emulated the sound of the FM synthesizer given the patchset on my phone, and writing a whole bunch of code.
In the end, we did it: isi.mid and fisi.mid are the full soundtracks to isi and Final isi, respectively. In addition, I made a couple other versions of the Final isi soundtrack to skip to various parts of it that are more interesting and/or make better ringers than starting at the beginning: fisi2.mid, fisi3.mid.
These ringers pretty much rule the roost.
-rsw
I want a tourette's syndrome ringtone!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I've used the off center weight from the vibrate mode of my phone to ring a tiny bell so it sounds exactly like your grandmothers old Ma Bell phone.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Ringtones must be the first working example of the
business plan.
Years ago, a guy I worked with audio-edited the Windows "You have mail" voice with a Southpark clip. So about every 20 minutes it said, "OH MY GOD!!! ... you have mail ... YOU BASTARD!!!"
The guy himself was incredibly annoying, but I never got tired of hearing that. Seems funny even now.
I have a pretty simple solution for my phone: It starts out on vibrate, then after 10 seconds or so will ring. That way, when I'm sitting in class I can mute it a few seconds after I feel it vibrate, but if I'm walking and don't feel it vibrate or it's in my backpack, it will ring and I still get the call.
For teenagers, I guess it's fine to use obnoxious ring tones
At least when they're in public - being a teenager does not preclude the notion of civility.
What I don't understand is why people purchase ringtones at all when almost every phone I've dealt with accepts MIDI formatted music of one type or another. There are websites that have have huge collections of MIDI.
I agree completely. I have Jimi Hendrix, Metallica and AC/DC MIDI ringtones on my phone.
You should see some of the looks I get! I don't know why, it's not like Hendrix's guitar sounds any better than General MIDI patch 029, is it?
Though I'm not sure that "bagpipes" was the best instrument to render Metallica in....
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
I don't pay for mine.
I've got an LG VX4600, one of these, BitPim and a collection of MP3s.
I've also used it to remove the "Verizon Wireless" banner from the phone and to upload and download photos/images.
Having said that, I think that some of the slow bits of 'Master of Puppets' would make great ringtones.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
There is very little that is more annoying than a cell phone ringing in the middle of a class, a meeting, or a movie. In peoples' defence, sometimes it's possible to forget to turn it off or mistakenly think that you already have. What's really annoying is when people insist on taking the call no matter where they are. There's nothing like being rude to everyone present while at the same time declaring that your time is worth so little that you must be instantly accessible to anyone who wants to chat -- on-call professions like doctors aside, of course.
Yet ringtones are somtimes very appropriate. At one of my college lectures, the prof had gotten totally sick of phones going off in her class and spent the first 10min of class ranting and warning that if a cell phone went off in that class, the person whose cell it was would fail that day's quiz. Well, one girl was inconsiderate enough to come to class about 20min after it had started. I know there are legitimate reasons for being late, but this particular girl thought the world ran to her schedule. Having missed the prof's rant and just being generally inconsiderate, her cell phone did go off during class. What set us all to laughing is that the tune it was playing was "Shut up" by Black Eyed Peas. Was there ever a more appropriate tune for a cell phone ringtone?
For God's sake - three days choosing the ringtone that best expresses your personality?
I wonder if the Romans were this self-absorbed as the barbarians approached the gates?
"I worked hard for it. I deserve it. And I have it," Campbell said. "It's all mine."
Have any idea if you can do this on an Audiovox CDM-8900? Verizon pisses me off with the sub-panel alternating between "Verizon Wireless" and the date/time every 5 seconds. I know I have a fucking Verizon phone: there's a permanent sticker right below the sub-panel, the main panel has a banner that says Verizon, and guess what ... I bought the fucking phone and pay the bill every month. It pisses me off because I use my phone as a watch, and 50% of the time when I look down to check the time, I have to continue staring for 5 seconds to wait for the "Verizon Wireless" to switch to the date/time. At first I thought it would be no big deal, but after the 100th time it has driven to insanity. I've called tech support ... no help. I've called customer service and complained ... no help. And I know several other people with the same phone and service and they hate it as well (and they've called and complained). Worst phone "feature" evar ...
Then you can use any MIDI ringtone you'd like, as well as transfer images out of the phone without paying a per-image charge.
I have a Sony Ericsson T610 and it's great.
Fight the man!
trying to find exactly the ringtone that expressed my personality with enough irony and enough coolness that I could live with it going off ten times a day
there is no such thing, people need to realise that ring tones are just not cool anymore (they were cool for about 5 minutes about 10 years ago). your bloody ring tone is not 'ironic', it doesn't express your personality and no-one wants to listen to it and your resulting phone call. put your phone on vibrate or a just loud enough beep so that you can hear it. what ever it is, how ever much you think its the latest craze or just so funny, its not, its gay, trust me, don't do it - remember the 80's? remember how stupid everyone looked now? you know it makes sense, put it on vibrate and get on with your life. oh and if you have that crazy frog ring tone, i swear to God i will stick your phone up your ass if i hear it, why do people waste money on these stupid scams? look if you want to pay for shit id be happy to sell you some?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
We had a couple of ringtone abusers when I worked at the cube farm. They'd come in, drop the phone on the desk, then head to a meeting or the lab. Invariably, one of the managers would keep calling evey 5 minutes. Since the phones were company issued, we figured we could get in trouble for swiping or damaging them. Instead, we'd just reprogram the ringtone to "none" or just vector all incoming calls to voicemail. Usually it took a day or two for the miscreant to realize that the crazy cellphone changed it's settings all by itself.
Since all the phones were basically the same, we had a couple of spare batteries and a special "discharge rig." For the more persistent offenders (who usually didn't give us enough alone-time to reprogram the phone,) we'd just swap in a freshly discharged battery. Thankfully, the IT guy in charge of replacement batteries was sympathetic, and just swapped our discharged one for the original.
does a great skit on the bane of public cellhpone usage. For me, it's the most humorous sketch they have.
"Don't waste your time or time will waste you" -MUSE
Dunno about anyone else, but I'd pay good money to have everyone's ringtones replaced by Bender saying "PAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRP! Pretty annoying, huh?".
I really, really don't see the point in paying an utter fortune for a terrible rendition of your tune du jour. And it's not helped by phones seeming to want to broadcast the ringtones to saturn by way of their new found super-loud speakers. Reminds me of the 80's stereotype of the "yoof" roaming around the inner cities with his ghetto blaster.
My nokia uses two ringtones. One goes ring ring for general use. The other does a quiet beepy chirrup which I use during work. Meetings and the like get vibrate only.
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
Ringtones let you have an 'unique' sound on your phone in order to be certain when it's *your* phone that's ringing... sure, only if it's unique enough.
I recently got a SonyEricsson T630 and it's a pretty good phone. I uploaded a bunch of MIDI songs to it via Bluetooth which I got on various websites, so I paid nothing for these ringtones. My default one is, however, the sound of an old classic phone. I've put some particular melodic ringtones (all of them of classic TV series) to specific persons so I know when one of them is calling while I'm not close to my phone.
Getting a bit offtopic, perhaps someone could help me out with this one. I've got my T630 to work flawlessly via Bluetooth with my PowerBook. I've found Romeo to be a great piece of software for a great part of the SonyEricsson line of phones (it lets you use your phone as a remote control for a lot of applicationes - iTunes, DVD, Keynote, etc. - and is fuly scriptable via AppleScript). What I haven't been able to find, however (and I'm not pretty sure that such a thing exists) is some software for OS X which lets me use my Powerbook as a handsfree set. That's it, whenever I get a call, besides of being able to see who's calling and to pick up the call, I also want to be able to speak through the microphone of the PB and to hear the calling party through the speakers - just like with iChat, and all this via Bluetooth. Has anyone seen that kind of software, does anyone knows if such a thing exists or if it isn't possible at all to do?
Regards,
Articulos para gente geek: Poleras, linux, libros y mas
What I don't get is the costs. These same kids who balk at paying 99 cents for the full song from ITunes will gladly run out and dump $10, $20 a month on snippets of songs with the lowest possible fidelity.
Man do I feel old.
I had to get a new phone a few months ago and then spent the better part of a day turning this crap off. No "ring tone" no wall paper. It's a phone. I don't feel any particular need to "express" myself with some corporations definition of who I am.
Drinking a soft drink actually serves some purpose. Downloading a ring tone, OTOH, doesn't. After I finish my drink I'm likely either not thirsty or a lot less thirsty. After you download your ring tone you're still the same hungry/thirsty/etc. person you were before.
Hence your argument doesn't work.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
It is mainly kids and the executives that buy the ring tones.
I find kids who have their bill paid for by mommy and daddy try the various ring tones. After all it does not cost them any to get that new kewl ring tone.
I was working next to a partner of the company when he got his new cell phone - he procced to download every possible ring tone and give it a try so he could select the one he would like. I am sure he must have rang up $600+ on trying to find the right ring tone.
I can only imagine what the company would say if I rang up a bill like that to just get find a ring tone.
My Sig indicates the end of the comment I posted.
That's why we have belt clips. My telephone stays on my belt, and if it starts buzzing when I'm somewhere that wouldn't be prudent or polite for me to answer a call, I push the "go to voicemail" button. In a meeting, this takes something like half of a ring, due to the well-thought-out position of that button (at the hinge, right by the antenna). The fallout is that only the person sitting next to me hears a BZRT, but no one else is bothered.
There's no need for cellular telephones to be irritating, and I'm even "one of those damned Nextel cusotmers". You'll never hear "beep-beep (incomprehensible distorted shouting)" from my phone if I'm in a meeting or restaurant or shop or something like that because my speaker will be turned off. It's all about learning how to use your telephone politely.
That said, I think a lot of this problem can be solved by not taking telephones places where it'd be rude to use them or turning them off upon entering. Is politeness really that difficult a concept?
Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
Very slightly OT, but what the hell?
Why not have a little bluetooth (or whatever) vibrating "thing" that you could clip to your watch, which would vibrate whenever your 'phone is within range (and you could have your phone ring audibly if it can't contact your - for want of a better word - vibrator). You never need a ringtone, but better than that, you don't need your 'phone in contact with your body.
so should you.
The Amazing Paul DeJarnatt.
"What I don't understand is why people purchase branded clothes when the stuff with no-name labels is less than half the price..."
"What I don't understand is why people spend money on porn when there's so much available on the Net for free..."
Some people think they need to have the latest tune to be 'with it'. Some people can't be bothered to look about for free stuff. That said, I can't believe how much money these companies actually make. The tones themselves are frequently cost more than the full song would be if bought.
Personally I blame the stupid teenagers for this mess, not a brain cell be... hey, get orrrrf my lawn! *waves stick*
I say we take-off and slashdot the site from orbit... it's the only way to be sure
Don't you have a piece of string from the com port to the phone? DKU-5 or whatever nokia call them? or an infra red dongle? the software is free on nokia's site. The dongles are about £15 and wires a tenner maybe.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
Your ear-worm is ringing!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
People never cease to amaze me. I hired a salesman once and on his first day his cell phone goes off. He was in a training session with the BOSS (me). I was dumb founded that he had not shut it off. I was in disbelief when he answered the phone.
:). Heck, I want a phone with 2 or 3 lines with 14 characters. Backlit is nice, but no graphics please. I can't find such a phone anymore it seems.
He was fired the next day.
Me, myself, and I? I want a phone that RINGS and vibrates (I prefer the latter for so many reasons
Hey, I just realized something - one can be a spelling nazi and a Luddite in the very same post! Cool.
No mod points, no meta-moderating/Firehose/all the other free work Slashdot wants me to do.
Before I bought a custom ring-tone, I would hear the same default tones all the time when someone else's phone was ringing, and kept thinking it was mine.
The outside walls of the building I work in are metal. No cell phone or radio frequencies getting in here. It's almost like a giant tin foil hat.
It's the battle of the minds, and everyone's unarmed.
Hey, how about a cell phone vibration mode which simulates an Oscillon so that slowly the loose pens, clips and paper on the meeting table begin forming interesting patterns...
/.?
Huh? Finally the word "loose" was used correctly on
It's the end I tell you. It's the end of the world as we know it.
I thought all new phones had MP3 tunes and a bluetooth and IR link. No need to pay anyone for beeing individaul. But then again I'm Norwegian. We invented GSM, the Finns and Swedes took the profit and we all pioneered the whole SMS craze.
Evolution is just a scientific theory. Creationism is not.
Funny, I get a lot of requests for that sound. They all say the same thing, "It sounds like a real phone!".
I had to go digging through thrifty stores to get a phone with a mechanical ringer. How are people, particularly younger people, continuing to so strongly associate that sound with a phone?
Blogging because I can...
AND... apart from the money, the one guy spent THREE DAYS DECIDING which ringtone best expressed his personality! He should have just tattooed "hopelessly indecisive" on his head, in washable pen in case things changed.
I crack myself up!
And i still hate the annoying ones, since im courteous enough to leave my phone on vibrate when im in class. I've got an LG and i used to have the plain old phone ringer (sounded like a real bakelite rotary desk phone), but i've replaced that with the theme from The Life Aquatic.:P
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
I think most of the reason people pay for tunes is because of locked phones. Most people that will pay for ring tunes (in my experience) seem to go for the cheap phones that their providers give them. 99% of the time, these phones are fairly locked down, and its impossible to get a MIDI on them.
This reminds me of the Box from the mid to late 90's. It was a Music TV channel, like MTV, but all they played was music videos. You can pay for your video to be NEXT if there was nothign playing or your selection would just queue up. The ones who used this service were predominantly black or white urban youths. There was any video you can believe on it, but the one that I always remember playing 50 times a day was Sir-Mix-Alot's Baby got Back. Only caught that when surfing the channels. People will pay for the dumbest things. I paid for ring tones, but I won't any more. I just thought...this is stupid. Same goes for any GIN app on verizion (although the Accuweather app is MUY useful).
Gorkman
So many of you have been saying things like, "For the life of me, I can't understand why anyone would pay $2 to $3 for a 20 second ringtone". Well, here's a newsflash: millions upon millions of people do just that. The reason you can't understand that is because ** you are not the target market **.
Can you understand why someone would buy a new pair of Nike's every month when they only need new shoes once a year? Can you understand why someone would pay $150 for a brand-new basketball jersey when they already have a dozen more sitting in their closet? No? You are not the target market.
For millions of people consumer products suich as cell phones are status symbols; they are conspicuous displays of wealth and popularity. It has little to do with function and everything to do with perception and image. A new ringtone is a cool thing to have not only because it broadcasts to everyone in range that the consumer is in tune with popular music, but also that the consumer has the money to afford a new phone and new ringtone.
You may not get it. but not everyone thinks like you.
"I'd have to pay $50 for an adapter. My only other option is to pay a small fee to use the GetItNow functionality to download straight to my phone via Verizon's network."
WHy not pay a zillion dollars.
Or just get an adapter for your phone for $7. They're available web-wide. I'll assume you know how to use Google at this point?
Yes, I have 3 verizon phones, so I know what I'm talking about.
Well, if you worked for me and I knew this, they'd hear that there's a new job opening. You spent three freakin' days picking out a ring tone?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
OK, it costs $20 but it allows you to convert any MP3 or a WAV file to a ringtone and you just email it to your phone. Its simple and it works great http://www.xingtone.com/
I'm working on an opensourced program that will ease producing wallpapers and ringtones and send them directly to your phone or webserver for you. If interested ask on the mobile-oss mailing list. Let me know what model of phone you have and what carrier you use.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
I mean, $2-3 a PIECE? who the hell pays that?
It is quite a shock to hear about people paying for music in this day and age.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
If you have a verizon wireless retail store in your area you can take it in there and ask for them to remove the PRL indicator. They won't always do it but I got them to do it with my old audiovox 8600 (I loved that phone... until I dropped it while I was on a ladder and the flip screen litterally broke off.)
The purpose of the verizon wireless banner is to show you whether your in an area covered by Verizon's network, or if your in their extended network. So if they remove the PRL indicator you'll have no way of knowing whether you are roaming or not. Of course if you have nationwide access this won't matter. Actually if you don't have their nationwide access (or whatever the crap they're calling it now) they may not remove it at all.
Really it's just a matter of luck, sometimes the retail store will do it and sometimes they won't, but if you have one close by it won't hurt to ask. Also make sure if the employee doesn't seem helpful ask to speak to the manager he might be more helpful.
Perhaps you should get a jar of Flarp... and make that sound your special ringtone.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
I wish all the teenagers knew that.
`A fool and his money are soon parted`, this is what people think as soon as they hear your ringtone. Kill them all.
Seeing as my phone is also my file-o-fax and I don't want it irradiating my testicles 24/7, ringtones are a problem for me.
Having to turn it onto vibrate everywhere pisses me off.
The only one I liked was the Phillips Savvy Sonar effect. I'm not the only one and none of us can find it as mp3 or midi. Guess I'll have to record it.
May I'll make a single beep midi file and get into the habit of looking at the guy next to me with a frown when it goes off.
A blog I run for the wealth
> " In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?"
They're going to hear that you're too stupid or inconsiderate to put your phone on vibrate during a meeting, that's what they're going to hear.
Couldn't find Harmonium after 10 minutes of Googling... Does anyone know where it is and if it is still free?
Because some providers (Verizon) disable all the features on the phones that would allow you to upload the MIDI files to the phone, i.e. Bluetooth.
Event when you purchase the cable, the software does not come with any functionality for uploading the ringtone.
1- buy $50 cable
2 - find s/w on net that supports your phone
3 - read forums on how to tweak for your phone
4 - create midi file
5 - try to upload to phone
6 - screw up phone
7 - try again
Most users don't want to deal with this. So they just fork over the $2 and call it a day.
"If it is just us, seems like an awful waste of space." -- movie: Contact
If your phone has web access then it should be no big deal to install a ringtone of your own.
Unless the phone requires all ringtones to be signed by the phone network provider.
just use one of the free standard ones that comes with the cell phone. Chances are, with other people using bought ringtones, yours will always stand out.
Harsh? Perhaps. But entirely justifiable.
You must think in Russian.
I love ringtones. I can instantly tell if someone's a total waste of oxygen if they have one.
Vote Quimby!
That phrase reminded me of Fight Club where Jack is trying to decide what sort of coffee table defines him as a person.
takes about 5 to 6 mins. tops
Friend's Ring: Techno de Chocobo. :-)
It's great for a WAV/MP3 tone because it has a little intro that lets you click it to voice mail before the "siren" goes off. If you've heard it you know what I mean.
Other ring: Varies, usually is some Zelda woods theme or Mario's invincible jingle.
Incoming message: Capcom intro jingle. Very cool.
Check voice mail: Zelda "discover secret" sound.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Nokia wasn't the first to introduce user changeable ring tones. Early Ericsson models had this feature also. However, you had to input your ring tone to Ericsson phones manually, note by note, and Ericsson supported only two different note lengths - basically ring tones sounded shit.
AFAIK Nokia has patented OTA (Over The Air) ring tone method. An user can download ring tones in special SMS messages. Nokia introduced OTA ring tones in Nokia 9000 Communicator and Nokia 6110 models. The specification was called "smart messaging" and it also contained operator logos (backgrounds on your phone idle screen), caller group icons and virtual business cards (vcards). Nokia's ring tone format provided much more flexibility than Ericsson's manual ring tones. Though it had only a single voice channel (no harmonics), it provided enough variation in note lengths and pitches to make it possible to create "realistic" ring tones which sounded like real songs.
I remember the time, when ring tone boom was starting to bloom in Finland. I don't know if it hit first in Finland or Japan. However, Finnish mobile operator Radiolinja and its Jukebox service (based on Paananen's Harmonium composer) was the very first commercial ring tone service in Finland around year 1999 . Quickly other Finnish mobile operators copied the business model: send SMS to premium number and you'll receive a ring tone to your Nokia in return.
I am not sure how far Paananen's pioneering work with ring tones goes. Did Paananen introduce the idea to Nokia? Smart messaging specification was established by Nokia, not by Paananen.
I remember, from my high school times (1998), someone (Nokia) had a special SMS number in Finland, from where you could download testing ring tones. The most famous example of them was Leisure Suit Larry theme. By then, operators had not yet realized the potential of ring tone business.
PAANANENS HARMONIUM TOOL WAS NEITHER OPEN SOURCE OR FREE. Paananen's Harmonium was Java applet + server side application sold for mobile phone operators. "He (Paananen) is the designer of a broad range of wireless service products and business models, including Harmonium, the world's first commercial ring tone composer and downloader." (http://www.cooltown.com/cooltown/mpulse/1102-thin ker.asp) And Paananen was not alone with his tools. I personally, and one other Finnish guy, made tools to make your own ring tones for Nokia. I made my MIDI to Nokia tone format converter during summer 1999. You could change your ring tone either using infra-red connection, phone data cable connection or sending a special SMS message by dialling to an operator SMS centre using a modem.
Also, Nokia bundled its own Windows based PC Composer software with PC Suite. PC Suite was a data cable and software package sold separately. PC Composer was crappy software by any standards and the price of a data cable was so high that the kit never reached huge popularities.
Ring tone boom created a lot of ring tone companies which were quite hype during IT boom. Some of them have survived, some not. One of the biggest was iobox.com which was sold to Terramobile (owned by Spanish based mobile operator Telefonica) at an enormous price, about 220 million dollars. Later on, Telefonica closed iobox offices. Its my personal pity, since I was working there. Playing its cards better iobox could have captured quite a big share from the current global ring tone markets. "Hugely popular with consumers, in 2004, mobile phone ring tones are estimated to constitute a business worth over USD 4.5 billion globally" (http://www.mobilemonday.net/mm/story.php?story_id =3655)
Its inevitable that in few years, every phone accepts normal MP3s as ring tones (article referred them as True tones and Master tones). You can download them either over mobile data connection from the Internet (GPRS, UMTS) or over Bluetooth from a computer. The current ring tone business is fighting back to not to lose their business model. They cann
tell me your fucking joking. Hamster Dance was irritating in the 90's when it was popular, please don't encourage people to 'rediscover' it.
If you put a planner item in its calender and say
Meeting at 11 for 30min, the phone should auto go to silent mode.
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
There i was thinking in 01 to make a pay site and get wholesale sms services to deliver it, but during full time work I would not have had time. Pitty, other businesses are creaming it up with 10000s per month in sales.
:)
I guess porn desktops is another, but there probably be (C) issues there if the girls find out their image is used... eh who knows. Though someone would have to sit through editing 100000s images to get lots of 120x120 desktops cropped correctly and placed in their catagories of 'body parts'
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
If anybody ever watches the show on Comedy Central and they show the clip of the guy talking really loud into a 4 ft big cellphone.
It's hilarious, he'll be standing in the middle of a museum and all of a sudden ring ring ring, "HELLO! AHH YESS IM IN THE MUSEUM RIGHT NOW!!!" and this is all at the top of his voice with everybody standing around staring at him like he's a moron. He does many more like in the middle of a movie theatre, sitting in a restaurant and many more.
Suprnova did have 100meg archieves of 2500 ringtones to download.
:-)
:-)
Maybe I should setup a paysite, "ring tones, 1cent each, but you have to buy all 2500 in one $25 paypal go"
4 sales / day = enough to live on.
God damn.... what am I doing here, im starting it
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
here's your fix... Give an MP3/MIDI... :P
If only there was a list with phone numbers of famous people available online, I could have a blast with this.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear Mine sounds zzzzzzzz, cuz it's always on vibration, as long as it's in my pocket there is no better ringtone
The following statement is true
The preceding statement is false
...and watch and giggle as the poor sap keeps calling him/herself until the phone is located.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Guess we will be associating the ringer with the phone for quite a while yet.
IMHO, that's a good thing.
Thanks for the insight.
Blogging because I can...
Then your phone can handle it (if new).
Converting to WAV/MP3 preserves the sound quality best... and the tinny speaker will really bring out the buzz of the sawtooth generator.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
the time spent _browsing_ through the for-pay selection, and the five minutes compromising? If you already know what you want for your ringer, then you should damn well be able to put it straight onto your phone. (I bought a cable and downloaded a "developers kit" for this purpose).
Stand out from the crowd and put something unique and therefore unmarketable on your phone. For christ's sake people, I don't need to hear 5 different people with the same lame-ass 50cent ringtones.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
People are too dumb to realize this.
I happen to have download my ringtone via GPRS, but this still turned out to be cheaper than anything else.
oh, I'm sorry, lol, I'll have to fix my spell check to make sure 'gangsta' is correct :)
In a quiet room, in a meeting, this phone's gonna go off-- what are they going to hear?
E1M1
I've got an acquantance who, for the longest time, had a recording of his own voice as his ring tone saying, "Ring, Ring!" It was the most god-aweful, obnoxious thing, and I swear I pondered on where I would hide his body if I heard it just one more time. Thankfully, his phone died mysteriously with the only copy of the "tone". On that note...
Cell phones do not need ring tones. Cell phones are, with marginal variation, kept on a person: in a pocket, on a belt, or in decreasing number, in a purse. Only in the last case would a ring be necessary.
Not only that, but ringtones are inherrently rude. They're a social distraction, for one, and interfere with any social interaction which you're partaking in at the time when it rings. In some situations this might not be a problem (a large gathering of friends - playing cards, for instance - where everyone is talking back and forth and no discussions, etc. are going on).
Anywhere else, it should be socially acceptable to rebuke the person for a ringing phone and the person with the phone most definately should appoligize for not turning off the ringer. Doubly so if they're using a trendy, music-industry-sponsored tone that is difficult enough to escape when going about your daily life (via the radio).
Even when a cell phone is not in your pocket, it is likely on a table or other flat (and hard) surface. A vibrating phone will create a rattle/vibration which the human ear is more than capable of discerning.
Ring tones are, quite simply, an obnoxious over-extension of trendy "individuality". "You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake." There will undoubtably be one out of the roughly 80 billion people that use cell phones in this country (USA) that have the same ring tone. Trying to be an "individual" through such methods is self-defeating in our consumerist society. Try being truly individual and unique and forge your own views and personality. It'll get you further in life than a 16 bit mono downsampling of music which was shitty to begin with.
The main function of (and problem with) a ringtone - to know when it is ringing and to be able to distinguish it from others' phones - is both solved and defeated by putting the damn thing in your pocket and using the "vibrate" mode. But then there's the luggage problem at the airports. You know. Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor, but every once in a while... Well, at least they didn't have the latest Britney Spears ditty. Thank God for that. Thank God.
*appoligizes profusely for the Fight Club quote abuse - but it's applicable!*
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I had my Treo use a fart wav file once for fun. It was ridiculously funny sitting in a restaurant hearing farting noises come from my pants.
eTrade SUCKS
What gets me is - people actually PAY for ring tones. Get a Nokia (which are pretty much the best phones anyway). Go to the Nokia web site, and download their software. Now you can create ANY ring tone from ANY CD you want. Soft Cell, Young Marble Giants, Converge.... you name it, you can do it. Alert tones, wallpapers, etc. too.
I've just read a lot of posts that say either:
1. I hate ringtones, F*** OFF!
2. I can't understand why people pay for them!
3. I like my standard ringtone!
If this is you, then the answer is simple - you are in the minority. You really are. It's nothing personal or degrading or anything, but the vast majority of cellphone users like ringtones, want to be able to change them and cannot make a ringtone by themselves to save their life.
Just listen to the conversations you overhear! They are dumb! Do you really think that person knows how to trim an MP3 or MIDI down to size?
And, it's my job, yes it is, to make sure that they get what they want. For example, when we started putting web browsers into phones, the carriers all thought that folks would be surfing the web and getting into intricately designed CSS, XHTML based pages of multi-layered information - some in Europe still think that. But you when it comes to the US - HAHAHA - no way! The only reason your phone has a browser is to enable you to download ringtones, and wallpapers, and games. So that's all we care about. The only reason the browsers still have all those wonderful WML/XHTML/CSS tag capabilities is because it's in the standard and no one has the guts to say it isn't required anymore. Companies like T-Mobile US even gave up trying to charge for web browsing on their phones and made it free so that there would be an easy way for those tech-challenged subscribers to get the ringtones on their phone. Just hit the browser button, choose ringtones, buy and it's on the phone. Wringing out any and all extra key clicks or steps is what us phone developers are having to do to make that instant gratification as quick as possible.
Okay, for those interested here is how you go about doing this (CORRECTLY!):
1. Get a decent cellphone that supports WAV or MP3's as ring tones.
2. Download Winamp
3. Go here for winamp plugins that emulate NES games.
4. And some emulated music of course:
5. Play song in winamp, use the Nullsoft Disk Writer plug-in to generate a wave file
6. Edit in your favorite WAV editor to get a 30 second clip and save as MP3/WAV.
7. Save it to your phone. Sending it via bluetooth is easiest.
So there you go. No $2.50 charge for a ring tone. Takes some work, but it's WELL worth it.
It's June 1999. After avoiding reviews for weeks, I'm sitting in the theater, anxiously awaiting the opening crawl of Star Wars Episode I.
After the previews, the house lights dimmed completely.
Everyone became silent.
The Fox Fanfare started to play; the Fox and Lucasfilm logos each faded in and out.
I got big-time goosebumps.
"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." faded in.
I held my breath.
It faded out.
DEEDLE-ING DING DEEDLE-ING DING DEEDLE-ING DING DING! *BUH-BUM!*
A cell phone went off 1 second before the Main Theme began.
Somewhere, deep in my soul, I knew immediately that the whole movie would be just as disappointing.
The United States of America: We do what we must because we can.
Here
All I wanted was one ringtone; The Lonely Shepherd. And nobody had it so I whipped up a little test site just for me so I could transfer the midi to my phone. Ringtones are huge and many sites have them but they're mostly annoying with ads and a rediculous amount of clicks just to get a tone. Since I had all kinds of MIDIs I decided to throw them all onto the site and pretty it up a bit with the focus on simplicity.
It hasn't taken too long for it to become one of the largest sections on the site and it only took about a weekend to code. mySQL holds all the plaintext found in MIDI files so you can find what you're looking for a lot easier and also checks to see if the file is explicitly copyright ((c) or copyright appears in the file) and doesn't allow it to be accessed if it is.
There are actually over 100,000 midi files on the server. Dupes (MD5 hash check) and copyrighted files aren't counted in the available count.
Prior to custom ringtones everyone would check their phone to see if it was theirs that was ringing. With a unique tone you know if it's you or not without going for the phone.
Work Safe Porn
They're going to hear that you spent an inordinate amount of time selecting something as trivial as a ringtone.
If you post it, they will read.
50,000+ free MIDI Ringtones
I can't believe people actually pay for ringtones. There are countless MIDI sites out there so there's no shortage of tones. The only challenge is getting it to your phone. I found that takes only about a dozen lines of code. A cell phone user can then WAP to the site, enter the ID number of the tone and a generic file retrieval script that works with any system sends the file to the phone and you're done. PHP doesn't require anything special to transfer a file to a phone versus a PC.
I transfer out about 900 MIDI files per day and the bandwidth cost is negligable. I average about 40MB of transfer per day. So I don't really see how pay sites justify it besides the fact there are suckers out there.
It took you a month to get 3000 people to waste money on a tone. It's taken me since December 16th, 2004 for over 63000 MIDI files to be downloaded from my site.
On my site, I recognize that a MIDI on the phone is no different than a MIDI on your computer so not only is it the largest collection of ringtones on the net, it's also one of the largest MIDI sites on the net.
I don't know why more MIDI sites don't offer a simple WAP script.
I use my own site quite a bit to get tones. If I want a ringtone, I hunt down the MIDI and post it on my own site rather than digging through annoying ringtone sites. The only charge is what the phone company charges per KB of data transfer. Which, in my case, is 3 cents per KB.
Certainly beats wasting another couple bucks for something I know for a fact doesn't cost the site owner a dime. It's like restaurants charging two bucks for a cup of soda that costs less than 1 penny per ounce of syrup. CO2 is also negligable in cost per cup. A cup of soda contains mostly water.
Work Safe Porn
Of course, these phones are unbranded (no carrier specific) so I don't know if carriers actually disable this feature.
since nobody mentioned this yet..., 2241,hq_en_0_63510_rArNrNrNrN_variation%253A-5_pag eType%253Amanuals_imagePos%253A0,00.html#content
i'm thinking of getting a new cell phone, i have an old siemens c45 which served me great for the last 3 years, since i did like the siemens brand (i got used to it) i had a look at their latest offerings.
i found the siemens cx70 to be a good replacement, being thorough i downloaded the manual, and skimmed the contents until i got to a part which says DRM! apparently it has a DRM chip in, which might not allow you to share melodies/pictures/java apps. this is annoying! i didn't know that they already have these chips everywhere these days!
i got pissed off and started to google around, apparently most new phones (if not all) have these chips inside. so basically i'm paying for this chip to be a cop inside my phone that can deny my of some things...
what could this mean? i am a programmer, so if i decide to program on java midp there's a chance that my phone will refuse to run it!?
i'm all aware that there are business/people who make money/living out of this (four billion dollars, WOW) but what's next? your microwave oven will bitch if use a non licenesed brand of food! or maybe they can put them in PCs so that only authorized software runs... oh wait, that already exists http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html
so now i'm seriously considering just changing the battery & cover of my OLD non-DRM cell phone! am i right, or am i being just paranoid?
here's the an excerpt from the manual:
well i just tried to copy that part, aparently even the pdf is protected! why the hell would you do that for? here's the manual http://communications.siemens.com/cds/frontdoor/0
What will they hear? The phone of a individual too rude, ignorant, or self centered to turn off his phone. (Not to mention more concerned with his own self image than the time of the individuals with him in that meeting.)
Like so many others, the first thing I did when they asked me to take this mobile at work was to set it to vibrate/silent and it's been there ever since. I have no idea why you'd even _want_ your phone to ring.
However, the whole ring tone industry is not aimed at people like you and me. The target group is _specifically_ ignorants - the elderly, the technophobes and the kids. The first two because they have no idea about technology and are easily fascinated with something they do grasp, such as selecting a ring tone or changing the desktop background.
But the most important group are kids. A few years ago, having a mobile was what you needed to "be in". But now that everyone has a mobile, things get more complicated, and ring tones are what the current hype is. It's much like clothes - a long time ago, wearing jeans was considered cool. Quickly everyone did it and the focus shifted to brands - a jeans wasn't enough, it had to be Levis or whatever was hype in your town.
I hope it's a fad that'll blow over quickly. In case it doesn't - anyone know a good supplier of cell phone jammers in Europe?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Why do people want all these 'ring-tones'? What's with all these moronic noises, none of which sound the least bit like a telephone of all things?
Perhaps I'm just an Old Fart, but my mobile phone simply goes BeepBeep...BeepBeep... and then shuts up, switching to answering machine.
It's very very seldom that somebody needs me to be instantly accessible, and even less common that I *want* to be.
Having a mobile telephone is not the sign of Mr. Important. The true sign is a secretary saying "Mr. Important is not available at the moment, and will not be for the rest of the day".
Free PC version of ChipWits at http://www.breueronline.de/klaus/chipwits/
It's perfectly possible to use a mobile phone in a polite fashion. I try to. But a huge number of people don't, and give us all a bad name.
For example, YOU DON'T NEED TO ANSWER YOUR MOBILE EVERY TIME IT RINGS. There are times when I'm busy and decide not to take the call. I'm sure the caller would understand (just as I understand when positions are reversed). I can see who the caller was, so I can decide whether the call is likely to be urgent; I can then call them back later when it's convenient. If the message is really urgent, they can send me a text message, which I'm much more likely to read immediately.
Similarly: you don't need to have a stupid annoying beepy ringtone that starts at earsplitting volume. Vibrating alerts, progressive ringtones and plain non-tune ringtones are generally much less intrusive. Especially if you carry your phone where you can get to it in under 3 minutes.
And: you don't need to shout into a mobile that's right next to your ear. If your caller can't hear you, they'll generally tell you to speak up. But they won't tell you to speak down; you have to think to do that.
In short, if it's people's rudeness that annoys you (as it does me), then complain about that. Directly. To people's faces. Politely if possible (otherwise you're descending to their level), but don't suffer in silence, otherwise they won't learn.
And if you have a mobile phone, please use it politely! Remember: it's just a tool. You're its user, not its slave.
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
i use mp3 for my ringtone, sms/mms, alarms, etc. so i can change them arbitrarily. but mostly, it is in silent mode especially during meetings. :P
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
I think everyone's had that really annouying 15 year old in front of them on the train who thinks it's cool to go through all 167 of their ring tones...
But when I'm roaming, it says roaming at the top of the main lcd panel when I flip it open. So removing the PRL indicator not only removes the sub-lcd panel indicator, but the main lcd panel indicator too?
The design is just pathetic, if I plan on making a phone call, I'm gonna open the phone anyhow, so they could just tell me I'm roaming on the main LCD panel. Or have the text "roaming" only flashing on the sub-lcd panel when I'm in a roaming zone (not "verizon" when I'm in a normal zone). Or even just use a bold "R" to indicate roaming on the sub-lcd panel. They gave no thought to this design whatsoever.
Thanks for the help, I'll inquire at the store in the mall.