The Princess Geek

Would you like to listen to free audio books on your iPhone or iPod Touch?  Although there are more elegant solutions, one of the easiest and fastest way to add good classic audio books for free is to add  books as a podcast. I’ll explain how to do that in the following steps.

Step 1 – First, go to http://www.librivox.org. This site has many free audiobooks. They won’t be recent books, but are older books that are in the public domain

. When you get to that site, you will see a green box with the words LibriVox Catalog. Click in that box.

Step 2 – You will be take to a search screen that allows you to search by Author and Title. They also have links to browse the catalog, view the most recent titles added, or to go to a more advanced search for more search criteria. Find a title that you would like to hear and click it.

Step 3 – You will now see the detail screen for that audiobook. After the audiobook description, you will see some bullet points of information. In the last one, you should see the words “Subscribe in iTunes”. Click on those words.

Step 4 – Now open iTunes. Select Podcast on the left side of iTunes. You should see a list of podcasts to which you have subscribed. Find the one titled LibriVox, followed by your audiobook name. Click the arrow next to it and you should see a list of chapters (if the book has multiple chapters).

iTunes should automatically download the first chapter. If you would like it to download multiple chapters, press the “Get” button next to the chapter name. You can also tell it to download all of the chapters by clicking the “Get all” button next to the book name.

Step 5 – Connect your iPhone to your computer. Select your iPhone under devices on the left side of iTunes. Click on the Podcast tab in iTunes. Make sure that the box is checked next to Sync and select the number of episodes that you would like to have moved to your iPhone.

You should select either “All” or choose a certain number of episodes. If you select “Unplayed”, it might remove from your iPhone any chapters that you have started listening to, but not finished.

If the button marked “Selected Podcasts” is selected, make sure that your LibriVox book is checked in the list of podcasts below that selection.

Step 6 – Sync your iPhone and then go to your iPod application. Select the podcast button and the chapters of your audiobook will be there for you to enjoy! You might have to select More in the bottom right of the iPod app if you don’t see the Podcast option.
Tips: LibriVox.org often has multiple versions of audiobooks by different readers. When viewing the lists of books, you can select one and then choose one of the chapters to hear a sample of the reading.

If you’d like to see a picture associated with your podcast while listening, you can go to the Podcast list in iTunes. Right click on the audiobook title and select “Get Info”. Select the Artwork tab and paste in an appropriate picture for that book. I like to use images.google.com to find pictures.

The iPhone is a terrific device, made even more amazing by the huge number of applications available in the iTunes App Store. It can, however, be very difficult to find a particular type of application for which you might need or want. Even more difficult is finding the BEST applications of a specific type.

The iPhone App Store in iTunes will allow you to search for certain type of applications. For example, you can search for Card Games, but the results can appear quite random and often offer no way to sort your results. With some searches in popular categories, like games, you can end up with more than a hundred pages of applications with limited ways to sort.

There are so many thousands of applications in the App Store that we all need a way to find really great applications! Here are some steps that can help you find the best application to suit your need!

Step 1: Point your browser to www.yappler.com. There will be a search box titled “Search for Apps:”. Enter your search criteria and press the search button. For example, you could enter “card games” in the search field. Press the search button.

Step 2: The screen that you see will include all of the iTunes applications that meet your search criteria. They will be sorted by “Best Match”. Go to the “Sort by” fiend and choose “Rating” in the drop down box. This will sort the applications on a scale of 1 to 5 in how actual owners of the applications rate the app. Click the search button again to find the best apps within your search criteria.

Step 3: Click on the names of the top applications returned by your search where you can get more information about the app, read more reviews and sometimes see video of the app not available anywhere else. This will all help you to make a better buying decision!

Step 4: When you are ready to purchase, you can click on the “Download in iTunes” button. iTunes will open, showing the app that you selected, ready for your purchase.

Tips:  In the “Minimum Rating” field, you can eliminate the lower rated applications by choosing 3 or 4.  You can also limit your search results based on the price.  Yappler also allows you to view videos of some applications to allow you to make a more educated decision before purchasing an application.  Yappler also lets you save favorite apps to return to make your buying decision later.  Very useful…lots of times I’ve seen an app go by, but didn’t remember the name when I wanted to find it later.

I have no affiliation to Yappler.  I just find it an incredibly useful site for finding new apps.

One of the lesser mentioned features of the new MMS functionality recently activated by AT&T on the iPhone is the ability to send Voice Memos.  As the attached image shows, when you click on the “Share” button, you are given the option to choose to send memo via MMS.

This may not seem like a big deal, but it adds a bit of personality and emotion to a message that wouldn’t be possible with a simple text message.  It might be a much faster way to send message, rather than typing one out.  Nice feature!

Tom Tom demonstrated their new iPhone application for the iPhone that will be available for the new iPhone 3G 3.0 software (GPS enabled). The iPhone software upgrade will be available on June 19th, but the Tom Tom software may not be available until later this summer. Also announced is an iPhone Car Kit that will provide “secure docking, enhanced GPS performance, clear voice instructions, hands-free calling and in-car charging”.

No pricing has been announced. See TOM TOM for iPhone site
to sign up for email notification on pricing and release date.

Although I know that Tom Tom must place huge value on their software and maps, I hope that they realize that people do not consider their relationship with their mobile phones to be long-term. Many potential customers may think twice before laying down a chunk of change for a mobile phone that they might want to replace in a year or two, at most.

As much as I love my iPhone, I was shocked when I was away from any kind of power source for a day and realized that I would have to do nothing with my phone besides a little internet surfing, a bit of texting, and a few necessary calls.

Since external battery packs aren’t as widely advertised as cases, I didn’t realize for a long time that they were available.  When I started looking, I was impressed with the variety of them, ranging in price from $40 to $100.  Check out my eHow.com article for some External Battery Pack options for your iPhone or iPod Touch.

How to Extend iPhone or iPod Touch Battery Life with an External Battery Pack

If you want to pick a song and create a playlist containing songs similar to that favorite song, read this article on how to create a genius playlist right on your iPhone or iPod Touch!

How to Create a Genius Playlist on Your iPhone or iPod Touch

One of the greatest features of the iPhone is that you can add some incredible apps to your phone that will make your iPhone indispensible to you.  I’m amazed how many people that I meet who have only installed 1 or 2 apps and then forget how to do it.

Here are two articles that will walk you through the steps from either your computer or from your iPhone.  You will need to know your iTunes password!  The first one, I mentioned a few posts back, but thought it was worth mentioning along with the 2nd article on installing directly on your phone.

This is a beginner’s guide to Cydia.  It’s a pretty easy application to use, but there are some not-so-obvious features, like deleting apps that you have installed through Cydia.  Check out my article if this is an area of interest for you!

How to Use Cydia for Jailbroken iPhone or iPod Touch

Here are a few new articles for you.  Twitter and Facebook have caught much of my attention lately.  It’s amazing to see how fast a social networking site can go from a virtual unknown to the general public, to becoming verbs that will probably be in the Webster’s dictionary by the end of the year!  Facebook did it last year and Twitter is doing it this year!

How to View Twitter and Facebook Status Updates in TweetDeck

How to Browse Twitter Twibe Groups

How to Play Scrabble on Your iPhone with Your Facebook Friends

Please share any comments!  I’d love to hear what you think!

The interest in Twitter has been skyrocketing in the last few months.   The concept of micro-blogging invites users to update whenever and wherever they are, which makes an iPhone application a natural fit.  Unfortunately, lots of developers have recognized that fact and have presented us with dozens of choices of iPhone Twitter clients.

I have been documenting the functionality each of the major Twitter apps for the iPhone and have found that not one of the available apps covers all of the features requested by users.  Twitterers are forced to either use several different apps or just settle for one that fits best.  I have written an article on eHow.com that helps the reader identify some of the functionality and which type of app that might work best.

How to Find the Best Twitter Application for the iPhone

I didn’t think it was the right format to recommend specific applications by name, however.  Maybe I’ll do that here, if there is any interest!  Let me know in the comments if you want me to name names!