Category: Average Joe’s Tips

Do you have a GMail or Google account and use Google Calendar?  Have you ever needed to view multiple calendars in iCal, but can’t? Getting your Google Calendar into your iCal is fairly easy with a few simple steps.

To begin, you will need to do is fire up iCal, in iCal “Preferences,” and click on “Accounts” at the top. Then under “Account Type” select “Google” and fill out your username and password. After the window disappears go to “Server Settings” and make sure the server address is www.google.com, and that the port “use SSL” is checked. After you have checked over those things you will need to click on “Delegation” which should be right next to “Server Settings.” Click all the boxes of Calendar Categories that you would like to have in iCal and it in a few minutes your calendar should have the events from Google Calendar. iCal will automatically bring in new changes every 15 minutes; however, if you wish to have it done faster, just change the rate in the “Refresh Calendars” box.

There you go, all of your Google Calendars should now be in iCal, now you don’t have to view Google Calendars’ “Microsoft looking” interface.

Let us know how this worked for you. Comment below!

Don’t want to pay for a ringtone online? Ever since Apple took out the feature to buy a ringtone in iTunes 10, where does that leave you? Don’t worry because I am going to show you a quick and easy way to make a ringtone from the iTunes music in your library.

The first step is to launch iTunes and find the song that you want to make a ringtone out of and put it into a new playlist. After selecting the song, press command + I and a new screen will pop up.  Select “Options” from the new window. Then select the which part of the song that you want to use for your ringtone in the boxes that say “Start Time” and “Stop Time. Make sure it’s 30 seconds and that the boxes on the sides are clicked. Then click “OK” and right click on the song, scroll down select “Create AAC Version”. By  doing this, you have created a new song. Find the new song in “Finder” by going to “Music” folder, then “iTunes” folder, finding the folder with the bands name, and then clicking on the album title. You should see two of the same song names. Choose the newest song by looking at the date modified. Press “Enter” to change the file format and change “.m4a” to “.m4r” and press “Use .m4r”. Now go back to iTunes and remove the song from your playlist, but make sure not to move it to “Trash”. Then re-import the song into iTunes by double clicking the song in “Finder”. You might notice if you click command + I that in summary it is listed as a ringtone. Then sync the new ringtone with your iPhone.

This week I have a quick and easy trick that will allow you to have your computer speak to you. The first step is opening your system preferences and selecting “Speech”. You should then select “Text to Speech” and after select “Speak selected text when the key is pressed”. Then up will pop a screen that asks you for a key combination and just select the key or keys that you would like for your combination. You can also browse through the many options available including different voices and voice speed. Now to actually get your computer to say what you want you just highlight with your cursor and use the key combination that you previously chose.