Ring a Ding Ding
Where do you find those cool ring tones?Dan Tynan
Want to spiff up your cell phone with a distinctive ring tone? It's not hard. Thousands of sites offer sound-alike tunes (called "ring tones" or "poly tones") and actual song clips ("true tones" or "real tones"), sound effects, and voice recordings for a few dollars apiece.
For example, Ringtones.com offers a selection from movies, popular music, and TV shows for $2 to $3 a pop. Plug in your cell number and the model of your phone, hand over your credit card or PayPal information, and the song is sent to your phone for downloading. The service works with most of the major U.S. wireless carriers. Yahoo Music offers ring tones a la carte for $2 each, but at press time the service was limited to Cingular customers.
Or you could join a ring tone "club" where you pay a monthly or annual fee for the right to download a certain number of tones. Jamster, a subsidiary of VeriSign, offers subscriptions for ring tones, wallpaper, and games starting at $6 a month. Subscription fees appear on your cell bill.
You can also create ring tones from your own record collection. Xingtone Ringtone Maker makes it easy to take a snippet of a song, select your favorite part, add fade-in and fade-out effects, and then send it to your cell phone as a text message. A trial version lets you create one ring tone for free; unlimited ring tones will cost you $20.
Just be wary of "free" ring tone offers. By downloading the ring tone, you may be agreeing to pay subscription fees of $6 to $10 a month. Check the terms and conditions on the Web site before you click Yes. Otherwise, the sound you'll be hearing is the ka-ching of someone else's cash register.