Here’s the typical “You’re not American” error that you may encounter. It actually says, “Your account is only valid for purchases in the Malaysian (or wherever you’re from) iTunes Store. Clicking OK will take you to this store.” But I am not PURCHASING anything! The app is FREEEEE! Gaah…

The requirements to start a US based iTunes account are a US based snail mail address and a US based payment mode (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover or a US based PayPal account). If you don’t have one of the above, you can’t start up an account, unless you follow the steps given below.

Before we begin, all you need is to “borrow” a US based snail mail address (don’t ask me where to borrow it from!) and have an alternative email account. Then, you’re set to proceed. After all, in this day and age, who doesn’t have access to yet-another-email-account! Here’s the cheat sheet with detailed instructions to follow.

#1: Start up iTunes. Sign out of your existing account, if you’re currently logged in.

#2: Scroll to the bottom of the iTunes Store.

#3: Set My Store to United States.

#4: Go to the search bar at the top right hand corner of iTunes. Key the name of a free application – Skype, TweetDeck or Photoshop will work.

#5: Click on the Get App button that should appear next to the free application you just searched for.

#6: A dialog box will pop up asking you to sign in or create a new account. Click on Create a New Account.

#7: Click on Continue at the next introduction screen.

#8: In the Terms & Conditions, make sure it states, “If the billing address of your payment information is not in the United States, click here“. If it does not say that, go back to Step #3. Accept the terms and proceed.

#9: On the next screen, enter the alternative email address of yours (make sure you have not signed up for an iTunes account with this address before), a secure password, security question & answer and date of birth.

#10: The next section presents you with payment options. Click on None.
(I know I’m going to get questions on why there is no option for None, so I’d better answer it here. You MUST go through steps #4 and #5 before you get this option).

#11: You’re almost done! An email has been dispatched to the email address you provided earlier, and you need to verify you have access to that account.

#12: Check your email and click on the link that is sent to you.

#13: When you click on it, your browser will redirect you to return to iTunes again.

#14: You will be asked to sign into your iTunes account. Use the new credentials you just created to login.

#15: And you’re done! Give yourself a pat on the back as you go to the comments section to tell me about your success.

However, WhatsApp seemingly does not support quite a number of countries, but there is a legitimate way around it. Their website quotes in their FAQ:

What countries do you support?

Most of them! We took extra steps during development to make sure WhatsApp works for almost every country in the world and even among contacts in different countries. However, WhatsApp is currently not supported in Malaysia, India, Indonesia, and Thailand

Step-by-step tutorial on getting WhatsApp working

1. Install WhatsApp from the iTunes Store.

2. Before you launch it, go to Settings, then go to the Phone section.

3. Click on My Number.

4. Key in your number preceded with the + symbol and click Save.

5. Now, launch WhatsApp, and if you haven’t ever launched it before, you will be asked whether or not to allow WhatsApp to send you push notifications. Click OK (or else your functionality will be severely limited. If you previously clicked Don’t Allow, you can go back to Settings to modify it under the Notifications section).

6. You will be asked to key in your phone number again.

7. Do so, and click Done. And now you’re really done! WhatsApp should be enabled for you. (Do leave me a comment if this worked for you – it helps my head grow bigger).

Please leave me a comment if this helps you, or if you have better ideas on organizing your Twitter client.

If you’re new to Twitter, get Tweetdeck. You need no other application. It works on Macs, PCs and iPhones. Believe me, it’s the most advanced Twitter client and I’ve tried several. It’s easy to use, pretty and works well.

So here is how my Tweetdeck screen looks like.

What do the columns (also known as groups) mean? Well, “All Friends” is the standard column for everyone I follow. This column updates the most frequently, and the fastest. My philosophy is, if I miss something here, so be it. Once in awhile, I scroll down a little, then back up. But ONLY if I am absolutely free.

“50kmh” is for friends I’m more interested to keep tabs on, and I’ve got a subset of “All Friends” here.

“25kmh” is for even closer friends whom I know well in real-life and “NEED” to keep tabs on. This column moves the slowest, and has even less people in it than the 50kmh column.

A common misconception is that the faster lane is always the better one. Not true. Sit back, relax, sip your latte and enjoy the slow lane!

“Mentions” is yet another standard column that comes with Tweetdeck. Anytime someone mentions your @username or in my case, @TheBackpackr, it will appear here.

Finally, “Direct Messages” is another standard column where personal messages that no one else is privy to appear.

You may decide to structure your Tweetdeck columns differently, but this is how I do it. I know some who want to keep track of their fellow countrymen specifically, and have columns for “British”, “Australians” or “Malaysians”, but I follow diverse individuals and prefer this method. You may also decide to categorize by interest group such as “Photographers” or “Golf-mates”.

Whatever you decide on, do realize that using the columns feature is extremely useful. To start a group or column, click on this icon, name it and select the members you want to add to it.

Here’s a productivity tip: Turn off the “Show notification window”, “Include All Friends notifications” and “Play notification sound” in the settings menu. It will help you focus on your work, believe me.

The thingy at the end is called a cat tail

Roles in the Audio world

Boom Operator – holds the mic in such a way that it picks up sound

Sound Recordist – monitors the sound that is picked up by the mic. Usually the head for location sound.

Sound assistants help connect and set up different mics on the set or talent

Slate boy is usually a sound assistant that slates the scene. (Usually for a double system used mainly in film)

Respect

• Allow time for the on location sound team to set up – don’t hurry or ignore their requests. Don’t think the video team are more important than sound.
• Block / rehearse the scene so that the boom operator and sound recorder know how to set up. This is important so they know where exactly to set up, or whether the boom will be blocked by obstacles.
• Check with the sound recordist in between scenes to make sure there are no errors. Don’t get angry if you need to reshoot scenes, they can make mistakes too.

Sound Theory

Frequency – voice frequencies are between 300-3400Hz. Important to know as some recorders cannot capture certain frequencies.
Sound loudness are measured in decibels and the range of quietness to loudness is called dynamic range. Different pieces of equipment have varying dynamic ranges.
A higher signal to noise ratio is good. Soundbooth from Adobe is a software that has good noise reduction features.

Types of mics - dynamic (can be used for more daily use / rough handling), condenser (usually need batteries to power them)

Directionality in mics have different pickup patterns – we have to speak within the pattern.

Mixers are used practically to allow the sound recordist to be further away from the camera. It also allows for more inputs rather than 2 inputs only.

This is how you hold a boom pole

Choosing a mic

Factors:
Scene – if they move, you might want a wireless over a boom mic. If it is a tight location, a wireless might be good. Wide shots cannot have a boom operator
Budget – wireless mics cost more
Camera mic – last resort as it picks up everything

Lavalier mics – small sized – user for television or theatre – often taped to the body, or clipped to the shirt, preferably near the button for stability.
Shotgun mics – highly directional. Do beware that it does pick up a little bit of sound from the back of the mic.

Boom – a long pole where the shotgun mic is attached to.

Sound recordists

• Come early for the rehearsal, set up, equipment check and watch the blocking
• It’s usually acceptable when sounds to not overlap dialogue (dog barking, motorcycles passing)
• If there is a problem with sound of the scene, alert the director immediately
• Before changing location, do record the ambient sound – about 2-5 mins. We can add the ambient sound in post to have consistency for the scenes.

I’m the type who uses the tab button to switch between text fields, radio buttons, list boxes and submit buttons. But when I got the Mac, I was flabbergasted for a good day or two as the tab button behavior drove me nuts. Normally, when I fill in a form and hit tab, I expect the cursor to jump from text box to text box to check box to radio button to list box and finally to my submit button. BUT, in this instance, it just moved between text boxes and list boxes.

It drove me sooo insane – I kept checking Firefox settings and wondered if I had a different plugin installed before, but all that was to no avail. Finally, the explanation was so simple – all I had to do was to go to System Preferences -> Keyboard & Mouse -> Keyboard Shortcuts tab and from that Full keyboard access section, toggle the “In windows and dialogs, press Tab to move the keyboard focus between:” setting to All controls instead of Text boxes and lists only! What a pain! I believe Apple should have set the defauts in reverse, as that is the common user interface behavior.

If you’re a twitter-maniac and are following hundreds or thousands of Internet users – aside from the fact you’re quite crazy, you might want to streamline which tweets are prioritized over others. I can’t imagine having a tweet come in every minute or so and mess up your timeline.

Enter twitTangle which has the tagline of “untangling the mess of too many friends”. It allows you to assign ratings and tags to friends and based on those presets, you can filter what you want to see, and what you’d like to glance over. It helps to cycle through custom groups such as “school friends”, “crazy relatives” or “people I am stalking”.

Here are some screenshots that illustrate how the system works.

First, rate a person you are currently following on a scale of 0 to 200 (gee, how did they derive TWO HUNDRED? Do I love my friend twice as much as 100%?)

You can also proceed to tag these contacts – you can tag them by profession, relationship, etc. For instance, I keep tabs of internet marketers and I tag some with that.

You can also assign contacts to groups and this gives you even greater flexibility to zoom down to the people you REALLY, REALLY want to keep tabs on. First, create the groups you want, then click on the Groups link attached to each contact and assign them to the appropriate group.

You can now view a subsection containing tweets, of all the zillions of “followees” that you have on your Twitter account.

Alright, that’s it for now folks… go forth and get organized! And if you’d like to add me on Twitter, link to TheBackpackr here.

You don’t want your blog to look like a plain Jane one, so get cracking, and select a happening design theme, download it and install. Here’s an introductory chat about themes and plugins.

This clip does not cover the process of installing themes, but here’s a video clip by Steve Dougherty that illustrates in step-by-step form how to do it.

As for installing plugins, you could take a look at a step-by-step guide I’ve written on how to do so. It’s really dead easy.

Alright, have fun exploring WordPress even further!

Most plugins are free – a good place to start downloading them from is http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Step-by-step walkthrough to install a WordPress plugin

1. Download the plugin you wish to install. Unzip it on your machine.

2. Open your FTP client (Filezilla – highly recommended, and free!)

3. Connect to the hosting server (your webhost should have given you the FTP information, or else shoot them in the foot)

4. Once connected, look for the wp-content folder, double click on it. Then look for the plugins folder – that is where you will transfer the downloaded plugin to. Double click on the plugins folder and you should at least see “akismet” which is a default plugin supplied by WordPress.

5. Upload the directory that was created when you unzipped the plugin earlier. You can right click on it, and select Upload.

6. Once uploaded, we need to log into the WordPress administrative Dashboard and click on Plugins in order to activate it.

7. In my case, I’m installing a plugin I bought for USD1 called Ajax Comments. As such, look for the header Inactive Plugins, and hit the Activate link.

8. That’s it, really. But for some more complex plugins, you may have to configure them further. Click on the Settings tab which is on the administrative Dashboard and you’ll see the name of the plugin that you installed. Tweak to size, and Save!