If you only use your iPod to listen to music, you’re missing out on loads of extra things you can do with it. There are many utilities out there to help you convert and transform your iPod into an array of tools such as a video player, storage device, news reader and note taker. Of course, if you’re going to fill it with movies then you’ll need to delete all those albums that are hogging space on your iPod’s hard drive but it’s worth doing, considering you can get all of this out of it:

iPod Video Converter For Free - No ads or fees - just convert films to watch on your iPod

PodPlus - Allows you to transfer everything from e-mails to RSS feeds to your iPod

MojoPac - Transform your iPod into a secure USB storage device

todoPod - Use your iPod to compile lists and store your thoughts on the move

iPodifier - Grab TV streams on your PC and watch them later on your iPod

If you’re anything like me, you’ll find iTunes to be an essential part of your working day. Whether I’m listening to my favourite podcasts or concentrating with the help of some soothing music, iTunes stays running all through the day. Which is why I started to become pretty worried when a recurring error started to appear recently. Each time I start iTunes, I receive an error warning stating that “The iTunes Library file cannot be saved. An unknown error occurred (-48)“.

It took me a bit of time to work out how to fix this problem, so I thought I’d pass on what I found. This error basically stems from iTunes not being able to write its Library file to your iTunes folder. To fix it, simply find your iTunes folder (located in My Documents > My Music, in my case), right click the folder’s icon and choose ‘Properties‘. From here, click ‘Advanced‘ and make sure that Fast indexing is switched off for the folder. Also, make sure that in the main properties dialog box, ‘Read only‘ is completely unchecked.

This worked for me, but let me know if you’re having further problems with error (-48).

Windows: If you’re tired of listening to music and would like to have a more active role, try mixing it! With Zulu DJ you can take your first steps into the world of music mixers thanks to its ease of use, variety of tools and special effects. The program supports many audio formats and lets you mix songs just by dragging and dropping them onto its interface.

Mac: You might want to have an alternative to iTunes when it comes to managing media on your iPod. Floola lets you see all music, videos, photos and other files stored on your iPod, handle your playlists, and even copy songs to and from most iPod models. It also offers support to Last.fm and podcasts. A must for music fans with iPods.

Pocket PC: We all know how good Google Maps is for finding your way from A to B, but did you know you can also hook up the powerful mapping service with your GPS receiver? Google Navigator provides a quick and easy way of obtaining map and location information using your GPS-enabled Pocket PC.

Windows: If you like listening to music while working with the PC but you’ve grown tired of your MP3 collection, try Nexus Radio instead. This amazing radio player has just released its latest version, 2.2.4, which features more than 7,000 online radio stations in 38 different genres. Nexus Radio is iPhone and iPod compatible and can also record music with just a single click.

Mac: Looking to download videos straight from Safari onto your iPod? CosmoPod, a plugin for the Mac browser lets you convert videos into the iPod ready H.264 or MP4 formats in seconds. It includes an embedded player so you can preview your videos to make sure they are of adequate quality before taking them with you on your iPod.

Symbian: If you enjoy nothing more than a game of sudoku on the bus to work then get hold of Sensible Sudoku on your mobile phone. The game features a powerful sudoku engine capable of generating billions of puzzles in multiple difficulty levels. Sensible Sudoku includes a pleasant interface, elegant audio and enjoyable gameplay. Download it now for a compelling experience!

Skype have announced that from today, they are to offer unlimited international calling from the USA for just $9.95 per month. The offer only applies to U.S. users who will be able to make unlimited calls to landlines in 34 countries worldwide and even cell phones in Canada, China, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Skype have already been offering U.S. users unlimited calls in the U.S. and Canada for $3 a month and is also expanding that deal with another plan for $5.95 per month which offers free calls to Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey. Although unlimited international calling is nothing new - Vonage and cable companies have been offering such deals for a while now - it is the cheapness of the Skype deals that’s really impressive. Such an aggressive marketing move surely has something to do with the economic problems the VoIP service has suffered recently. Skype’s owners eBay have seen $1.4 billion wiped off the value of the $4.3 billion price it was valued at last year due to its declining profitability. As the Financial Times reports, eBay are even considering selling Skype with eBay’s new owner John Donahue saying:

What we’re testing this year are the synergies. If the synergies are strong, we’ll keep it in our portfolio. If not, we’ll reassess it.

To purchase an unlimited calling subscription, simply go to Skype subscriptions for more details. If you purchase one of the new subscriptions for a 3-month or 12-month period before June 1st 2008, you will receive a further 33% discount.

Tired of the default media player on your Symbian phone? Then turn your handset into a portable music center with XSound. The application supports audio files in AAC and MP3 format and also ID3 tags to keep your playlists in order. An integrated search function scans your mobile for music, so that everything is ready to play.

Join the most exciting online racing competition with Trackmania Nations Forever! This amazing free racing game lets you play on your own in more than 60 tracks and also compete against players from all over the world. Create your own circuits, customize your car, make friends and become the fastest driver on Earth!

Looking for an alternative to iPhoto for organizing pictures on your Mac? JetPhoto Studio is a promising solution. You can browse your photos in calendar view, make Flash movies, screen savers and slideshows, locate them via GPS in Google Earth and and easily rate and tag them. JetPhoto Studio also works with a number of web printing and publishing services like Flickr.

Did you just delete a file by mistake? I know how it feels… Don’t worry: you can now fix it with Glary Undelete. This easy application scans your hard drive (or any other drive, including removable ones) and displays a list of deleted files along with their degree of recoverability. If you’re lucky enough, you’ll have your accidentally deleted files back in no time.

SIDPLAY is the ultimate music player for any Commodore 64 fan. The application will allow you to download and listen to thousands of sounds from the classic console. These can be synced regularly and, thanks to the iTunes liked interface, they remain really well organized. You can even create your own smart playlists and export to your iPod.

Why reserve your DVD collection for the house, when it’s possible to take it out and about with you on your mobile? Xilisoft DVD to Pocket PC Ripper allows you to quickly rip DVDs into a Pocket-PC-compatible format. With a variety of custom settings like adjustable bitrate, video size etc., you could convert DVD to Pocket PC supported WMV and WMA easily and fast with excellent quality

If you’ve ever fancied yourself as a Video DJ then with sites such as YouTube at your disposal, the time has never been better to show off your talents to the world. You can use simple video editing programs such as Windows Movie Maker or even YouTube’s own online video editing tool to make your music videos but neither of these offer much in the way of tools tailored specifically for being a genuine VJ.

One of the most popular tools that is though is Deejaysystem Video DJ2 which allows you to play two videos at once and mix them into each other like a true VJ. It’s so good in fact that it’s used by many establishments as their in-house Vjing or karaoke software. You can even throw in two extra USB cameras into your mixing and it now accepts Windows Media DRM protected videos. Deejaysystem Video DJ2 is very much aimed at serious VJs but if you’re just looking for something to have fun on, Cell VJ is pretty impressive even if it is far more limited. It features a very simple interface where all your clips are visible with your main playback Windows squeezed into the top left-hand corner. It also includes lots of flashy transitions and unlimited options for importing video although it doesn’t support many formats.

If Cell VJ is still too much for you to handle, then Elektronika Live doesn’t exactly look great but it does a similar job and is even easier to use. It’s actually designed for those who want to put on live public performances without the complications presented by more complicated programs. However, for many wannabe VJs, few programs can come close to VJamm when it comes to truly comprehensive, professional looking VJ software. Everything you need to edit and mix is on one screen and it even matches the Beats Per Minute of your songs to the videos your playing. All you have to do is provide the tunes and inspiration.

Indie music fans will be interested to learn that the Pitchfork music site have launched a live new music video site Pitchfork.tv. The site features live performances in high quality video by bands both well-known and obscure from Radiohead and Nick Cave to King Khan and Jay Reatard.

I have to agree with Newteevee that it’s pretty good. There’s always a danger with new music video sites that the content is simply music videos from YouTube or aspiring musicians who’ve uploaded some of there dubious work themselves but the new site seems to feature some genuinely exciting, professionally filmed gig performances and talent. The quality of the footage is superb too - far bigger and better than you get on YouTube, even in full screen mode.

Unfortunately however, there’s no option for embedding videos in blogs and it’s not particularly intuitive when it comes to navigation. There are no suggestions for further viewing related to the content you’ve just watched and no history of your viewing activities. However, I don like the fact that it auto plays so basically, you can watch (or listen) to a whole gig by the same band without it stopping or starting - it just cycles through the tracks automatically until you stop it.

This is obviously a niche noncommercial service that Pitchfork are attempting to appeal to a select number of discerning alternative indie fans. But with such a small viewing audience, it does beg the question how are they going to afford to keep filming and distributing high quality footage. As Chris Albrecht points out:

Right now, Pitchfork.tv has a very small, intimate feel, which is best because the company would never want to be perceived as big and corporate. But as it has to start paying for all this video bandwidth, it will need to make adjustments (and add advertising) to remain viable.

However, if you’re tired of watching sub-standard mobile phone footage of your favourite upcoming bands on YouTube, Pitchfork.tv is a breath of fresh air although European fans will have to wait a while to see their bands on their as it’s predominantly focused on American talent. I’ll certainly be adding it to my video favourites for now.

Are you having a party and would like to have some good dance music? Don’t waste your money hiring a DJ! Be your own DJ with Ots Turntables Free, a great mixing tool with which you can easily create amazing music sessions in real time. Use your mouse to scratch, mix and play with your favorite songs in different audio formats and have fun!

What’s the next step after blogging? Podcasting! Ubercaster for Mac is a highly intuitive program to record, edit, store and export your podcasts. It works with layers, which you drag and drop on the interface. Encoding is a simple one step process. In all, Ubercaster is aimed at users who want to get into podcasting without worrying about technical issues.

Opera is one of the best browsers for Windows, but did you know that you can also get the application on your mobile phone? Opera Mini, as it’s known, offers probably the best way to surf the Internet on your mobile device, making things easy and safe and allowing you to browse at high speeds. You can even use photo-sharing applications and subscribe to RSS feeds from your favourite sites and blogs.

Maybe it’s a sign of growing old, but I prefer music of the 80s to today’s hits. If you’re anything like me, you’re going to like TinyWebRadio, an online streaming radio player with which you can listen to hundreds of online radio stations focusing on the three magical decades: the 60s, 70s and 80s. TinyWebRadio supports Favorites, up to six presets and can also record music to your hard drive in MP3 or OGG formats.

When it comes to sharing music between two iPods you end up having to download your music to iTunes to make the switch. Not anymore if you use Misu for Mac. This ingenious little program can connect two iPods together and merges their music collection, which means that whatever track you don’t have will be added to your iPod. Quick music sharing which effectively kills the iTunes middle man.

There are times when we all have to have conversations we don’t really want to, but thanks to VR+ you don’t actually have to be there when they take place. The Blackberry applications allows you to record voice messages in MP3 format on your device then send them as a message or via a URL. It’s the perfect way of getting your point across without having to listen to the other person!

As you may already know, iTunes not only sells songs but also ringtones you can use in your iPhone if you pay the correspondent tax, which is $1 apart from the $1 for each song. However, some of us still think that’s too much for a simple ringtone. So if you prefer to save those two bucks for something else, keep on reading and learn how to create free customized ringtones for the iPhone.

First you’ll need to download ToneShop: this program enables you to select the best fragment from your favorite song and convert it to several mobile phone audio formats – including iPhone. Use ToneShop to create the ringtone, select the iPhone profile and save the resulting M4R file in any folder on your hard drive.

Now double click the M4R file and it’ll launch iTunes, creating the Ringtones area in your library right away if this is the first time you work with M4R files in iTunes. If not, the new ringtone will simply be added to your collection. Read the rest of this entry »

Are you sick of the Nokia Tune - or any other standard mobile phone ringtone? Then download ToneShop and start creating your own personalized ringtones right away! You can use your favorite MP3 songs (plus other audio formats) and create ringtones that are compatible with many different phone makes and models, including the iPhone.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom for Mac is any photographer’s dream application come true. The application allows both professional and advanced photographers to import, store, organize, edit and export thousands of pictures from one uncluttered interface. Top of the range editing tools, multiple ways to view your images, and advanced printing, web publishing and slide show creation. What more could you ask for?

Fancy turning back the clock by playing a Super Nintendo classic on the train or the bus? Then download Zelda for your Java phone. This faithful remake sees you explore vast lands looking for objects, solving puzzles and defeating enemies. Be warned though, it’s highly addictive and guaranteed to make you miss your stop!

If you’ve always dreamed of learning to play the piano but have never had the space or resources to have one yourself, then all is not lost. If you fancy yourself as the next Elton John or Richard Clayderman, your PC can emulate a piano to a pretty impressive degree of reality. Of course, it’s not exactly the same playing Beethoven’s Fifth on your keyboard compared to ebony and ivory but it’s a darn sight cheaper and a good start for beginners in particular.

Synthesia (formerly known as Piano Hero) is probably one of the most popular packages with beginners because of it’s simplicity although it’s by no means the most effective learning tool. The program merely requires you to play the simulated piano keyboard by following the notes as they fall on the keyboard which isn’t easy. However, it does allow you to connect an external keyboard if you have one. As the name suggests MidiPiano turns your keyboard into a MIDI synthesiser rather than a piano but it at least gets you familiar with the keyboard. Electronic Piano follows a similar format although with a much greater range featuring 128 different instruments, all of which can be played from a piano-synthesizer keyboard.

However, the most realistic dedicated piano app has to be KB Piano which realistically reproduces the crisp clear notes of a piano and also simulates the violin and guitar. However, it does rely rather heavily on DirectX and is the most likely to crash of all the piano tools out there.

If you’re a big user of Apple’s iCal, you’ve probably enjoyed the updates brought to the application in Leopard. A fresh new interface, new group scheduling tools and an updated sidebar. One of the most used features of iCal is alarms, essentially to keep up with events. Although you can easily add a new alarm to each new event, you’d think that changing the default alarm sound would also be straightforward. Yet Apple haven’t made it that easy. You’ll need to make sure you have Apple’s Xcode Developer Tools installed, so you can use Property List Editor. Close iCal, go to Library>Preferences and open com.apple.iCal.plist. macosxhints.com explain what to do next in Property List Editor:

Click the arrow next to Root and select the Root entry. Click the New Child button in the toolbar. In the entry that was just created, enter the Item as Default alarm sound, leave Class set to String, and then type the name of the sound file you’d like to use in the Value field. Save preferences file and relaunch iCal.

Test out your new default iCal alarm sound by creating a new event. The tip also does well to point out that sounds must be in AIFF format and that the name of the sound file must be entered without the extension. Don’t just limit yourself to the library of sounds provided by Apple though. If you save your own sounds in the corresponding Sounds file in your Mac, you’ll be able to use these too as alarms in iCal.