Just to help you inch just a little bit closer to that cloak and dagger lifestyle, I’d like to offer 4 Windows Mobile downloads that you can use to transform your regular mobile phone into an honest-to-goodness cool spy gadget.

Cool Spy Gadget #1 – A Room Bug To Record Conversations

In many countries and in many situations, it may be illegal to record a conversation without the knowledge of those involved. This is at least true if the conversation is being transmitted over the phone. If this is illegal in your country, don’t do it! Otherwise, if you just happened to leave your cellphone laying around in a room where there just happens to be an interesting conversation going on, that’s not really your fault now, is it?

NoteM is a Windows Mobile app that is supposed to serve as a voice note-taking tool, but left recording in an inconspicuous place, it could pick up some very interesting conversations.

This software is a simple recorder, and it doesn’t do anything fancy like ftp the file to your web server or email the audio to you automatically, but if you install a 2GB or larger storage card in your SD (or micro-SD) slot, you’ll have plenty of storage to save hours of recorded audio without a problem. The screen on the left is before any recordings are created. Just press the red “record” button and walk away. Recordings are stored in MP3 format in whichever directory you choose.

Cool Spy Gadget #2 – See In The Dark With Sonar

It may seem like science fiction, or something you’d expect to see on Ghost Hunters, but with SonarCE you can transform your Windows mobile phone into your own personal sonar device. The way this application works is that it emits the sonar signal from the device speakers, and reads echo to the microphone. It’s pretty impressive, and according to the programmers it is accurate at, ” around 5-10 cm at distance of 10 m.”

During my own testing with an older model Cingular 8125 running Windows Mobile 5, I found that it was a little difficult to get used to, but what I really liked was the cool screen.

The one annoying thing about this mobile app is that it requires a little bit of tweaking in terms of scale. However, there’s an automatic “search offset” feature that goes through a cycle of pings and calibrates the device for you. The website features a useful setup guide that’ll help you at least get the sonar working to the point that when you move close to an object, you’ll notice the difference on the sonar display (even if you don’t really know anything about how sonar works).

Whether or not the tool would ever be very useful is debatable, but I suppose if you ever find yourself in a completely pitch-black room and you don’t want to crash into any objects, this cool little mobile app could help. Beyond that, it’ll at least be a very neat feature to show your friends and family how cool your phone is.

Cool Spy Gadget #3 – Disk Encryption Software

Every spy needs a safe place to store sensitive data, and the best way to store your critical files that you don’t want anyone tampering with is in a hidden, encrypted “virtual disk” that no one can find or access but you – with the appropriate key.

To accomplish this task, a neat free application called FreeOTFE4PDA will do the trick. The software supports a long list of encryption algorithms and supports various cypher modes and security tokens. Your volume will be created without a signature – virtually invisible to anyone looking for it.

Configuration is fairly simple, as you can see from the screens above – and it works well by simply using all of the default settings. However, for security experts who understand and are looking for a product that offers deeper security, the functionality is there. This is one of the best free applications out there for completely encrypting any data that you want to store and transport on your trusty mobile device. If you don’t understand data-encryption though, skip installing this app because you could make entire folders disappear without being able to retrieve them again.

Cool Spy Gadget #4 – Remote Video Streaming

Recently, I wrote about using VZOChat to integrate videoconferencing into your blog. One of the items in that article that I touched on was setting up the videoconference with your Windows Mobile device configured as a webcam, transmitting your end of the video while you talk to your blog visitor face to face.

However, another very cool use of this software is to convert your mobile device into a video and audio surveillance gadget. This may not be very practical over the cellular data line because first of all, you could rack up some crazy data use charges, and secondly the quality of the video won’t be that great (as you can see from my example in the blog article). With that said, you could configure your phone with VZOchat and then set it up with the camera pointed at the room that you want to monitor.

The software will pick up sound from the microphone, so you’ll be receiving and transmitting both. All you have to do is make sure your phone is connected to the Internet through your Wi-Fi network and that the VZOChat software is running (it doesn’t have to be connected yet).

Just make sure the software is configured on your phone to automatically accept incoming calls, as shown above. Then, go to another room or anywhere else where you have an Internet connection (it doesn’t have to be on the same home network), and go to your VZOchat account. Keep in mind that you’ll need two VZOchat accounts -  one account for your remote connection, and a different account for your cellphone. Go to the video call page for your cellphone profile, and you’ll see the call button as shown here.

The moment you select “Start videochat“, you’ll establish a connection with your remote mobile device that will trigger both the camera and the microphone to activate – recording everything that’s going on in the room and streaming it over the Internet directly to you. Here, I’ve set up my cellphone as a remote webcam in the living room to keep an eye on who keeps stealing the TV remote control. Looks like someone already stole it…

The screen you see above is what I saw on my PC across the property in our other building. I could keep my cellphone running in this room in order to watch and listen to everything that’s going on. With a cellphone just left lying around somewhere, no one would ever know that you’re using it as a surveillance device. Again – make sure that this sort of activity is legal in your area and in your situation!

All four of these gadgets offer some cool ways that you can transform your Windows Mobile device into a fun and exciting gadget that you can use for far more than just making phonecalls and checking your Facebook account. Do you know of any other cool Windows Mobile apps like these? Have you tried any yourself, and what do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Image Credit : Dunechaser

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What happened was this; I got bored so I decided to go for a stroll. After half an hour I found myself caught out in the rain. It got really bad and huge puddles started to form on the road. The worst I’ve seen it in a long time. At points, the roads were flooded right across with five inches of water covering the footpaths.

Needless to say I got splashed three times by cars (I think one wise guy did it on purpose). I assumed my phone would be fine because it was in my jacket pocket – away from my jeans which were completely soaked through. But no. The flap which covers my jacket pocket at the front was tucked into the pocket creating a nice funnel for the rain and splash water to flow right into. My phone was literally submerged in water in my pocket. It didn’t work when I got home and went to check my e-mail. Shocker.

However now it does because I worked my magic. Here are three tips to fix a phone with water damage..

Act Quickly

The minute you discover that your phone is water damaged it’s time to act. Remove every cover and detachable part you possibly can. On my phone I took out the memory card, the SIM card, battery and back cover. Unfortunately, because it’s a touch screen the front does not come away.

Using toilet paper or a thin cloth, blot away any excess water you can see inside of the phone. Be sure to get as much as you can. Failing to do so will mean that all this water will start evaporating and collecting in hard to reach places in your phone.

Your phone may work now if it was only submerged for a short period of time. Like if you dropped it in the sink. If not, keep reading.

Quick Drying

Your phone now has an appointment at the beauty salon. Get hold of a hairdryer and start to dry your phone paying extra attention to the battery housing as this normally has small holes which allow air (and ironically enough, water) into the phone.

A warning: Don’t hold the hair dryer too close to the phone. Keep it at a distance whereby if you put your hand in front of the hair dryer it wouldn’t burn you. Any closer and you could damage your phones electrical components. No seriously. Try putting a hair dryer up against a sheet of paper for a few seconds. It turns it brown – would you want that happening to the inside of your phone?

If 20-30 minutes of this doesn’t work – go to plan C.

Long Term Drying

This is what I eventually had to do to fix my phone because it was so badly soaked. Put it in the linen closet or some place warm and dry in your house. Airing cupboards and next to boilers are good choices. The rule of thumb is that it must be a warm place where the phone isn’t in contact with direct or intense heat. So putting it on top of a radiator (despite what other guides say on the internet) is a bad idea as you can damage your phone by heating it too much and it will just rapidly evaporate the water on the inside causing it to collect – this is an ongoing cycle.

By putting it in a warm dry place you allow the water to slowly evaporate and escape through the holes in the phone (remove the covers and battery when doing this).

Some other tips for this method:

• Try to point the back of the phone upwards with the screen pacing down. This allows the moisture to escape easier.
• Around 20°C is a good temperature.
• Disassemble the phone as much as possible.

From my own experience and those of my family, you stand a pretty good chance of fixing your phone this way. I’d say there is a success rate of around 75%.

For touch screen phones, the front won’t come off which leads to moisture build up on the screen. However, there are normally tiny screws at the back which, when removed, should enable you to take off the front. This will allow you to dry the moisture from the touch screen. You do this at your own risk.

Despite what the phone shops would have you believe, it is fairly easy to fix a phone with water damage. Many people assume that once water gets in that’s that. But really, phones are just circuit boards, a screen and a few other bits and bobs. The main reason for them not working when they’re wet is because water on the board or at the battery connectors is causing it to short out.

This is a quick fix to a problem almost everyone will have at some stage. For more of my articles relating to cell phones – see my authors page. Or what if you got your Mac computer wet? Make sure to check out Jackson’s article on how to deal with spilled coffee or coke on your Macbook.

Do you have any other secret methods for fixing water damaged phones? Let us know in the comments.

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Looking through the Android Market, I have come to the conclusion that there is a lot of crap in there (busty bikini girls washing your Android screen with soap and water, while grinning insanely at you?) but there are also a lot of gems.   Finding those gems can be really difficult, unless you know exactly what you are looking for.  I have found things simply by thinking to myself “what would be useful to me?   What do I need on a phone?”.   Busty bikini girls are definately not on that list but the following items are.

So let’s start once again at looking at some of the things you should consider installing on your Droid.

PicSay

I have an excellent camera on my phone but nevertheless, some photos just don’t come out the way I want them to.   In the absence of an official Photoshop app for the Android, PicSay is a suitable alternative in the meantime.

As well as being able to alter the photo in terms of contrast, brightness and many more (see the screenshot to the left for examples), you can also add fun special effects such as word balloons, titles, graphics, color correction and highlighting.  Just increase or decrease the desired special effect by running your finger over the bar at the bottom of the screen and see the photo being updated in real time.

PicSay then saves the altered photos in its own folder on your phone so if you ever need the original photo for whatever reason then it’s still there.

A great app and one that is definately needed if you use your phone camera a lot.

WikiMobile

OK, you could go to the mobile Wikipedia website but that is just a stripped down bare-bones version of the regular Wikipedia site.  WikiMobile on the other hand is another version of Wikipedia which has some extra features I like when I am looking for some obscure fact while out on the road.

Searching for a topic is as simple as inputting it into the search box.   Entries are laid out on the screen nice and compactly, and are easy to read.

If you don’t know what you are looking for, try clicking “Random Article” to see….yes, you guessed it….a random article!   Clicking it just now took me to the page for “naked imperialism” while clicking it again took me to the page about koala bears.   You can also click the popular button to…do you need me to spell it all out?   Nah, I guessed not.  You can work out all by yourself what the “popular” button does.

With “My Bookmarks“, you can easily save WikiMobile entries to a bookmarks section for later reading.   Just go to the entry you want to save, tap your menu and choose “add bookmark“.  Now article research is made much easier and those visits to the doctor’s waiting room need not be boring ever again.   Who needs to read a woman’s magazine when you can read about how to build a fractional rig on a boat?

Barcode Scanner

This one is limited in its usefulness but I included Barcode Scanner because I still like it and I love the looks I get in shops when I walk up to products and zap the bar code with my phone!

Starting the app, you will get the red laser-like line across the middle of your screen.   Just place the barcode completely within your screen with the red line through the middle.   Hold it steady for 30 seconds or so and the barcode scanner will then give you the option to open a product search or a web search.   Both options lead to Google so I recommend going with the web search.

The app is most successful with books as it takes you to the book on Google Books.   I particularly like this part as I am often in bookshops, trying to figure out whether to buy a particular book or not.  Now I can just get my phone out, scan the barcode and then quickly scan the relevant book reviews on Google Books.   No more buying total stinkers.

Nightwatch

Nightwatch turns your Android phone into a glowing alarm clock.   You will need to either lay the phone down on its side (the screen turns as you turn the phone) or you will need to buy/make a stand for it to sit on.   But either way, this allows you to see the time in the dark and set your alarms effectively.

The clock is very customisable :

• Choose from either an analog clock or a digital clock.
• Choose how you want the date to be shown.
• Choose 24 hour clock or am/pm.
• Choose how bright you want the screen.
• Choose how loud you want the volumes to be.
• Choose what colours you want the screen to be.

Process Monitor

This one is perhaps one of the most important ones of all and I don’t understand why Android doesn’t include this as a default function.   Process Monitor is basically an app to mimic Windows’s Task Manager.   You can see a list of all running apps with the ability to either kill the application (shut it down) or open it.  To choose, just press down on the desired app and wait for the pop-up menu to show.

One of the things you have to bear in mind about an Android phone is that the battery is not that great.   If you use the internet and apps on it quite a lot, the battery will drain in less than a day.   So you should always be looking for ways to decrease the pressure on the battery such as disabling needless taskbar notifications and killing unneeded apps.   Since Android doesn’t have a similar default app, Process Monitor is definately needed.   As well as showing all the currently running apps, PM also shows you the level of your battery and the amount of currently available memory.

So that concludes my ten recommended apps for the Google Android phone.   In the next few articles, I will be looking at the games you should be installing on your Droid as well as the best websites to view on a mobile phone.  While you are waiting for all that, let us know what you think about these 5 apps and whether you know of any better ones.   I am always open to suggestions about how to improve and refine my phone!

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This can take a while because the Android Market, which is the Google equivalent of the Apple iTunes store, has lots of good stuff. Granted not as much stuff as the Apple iTunes store, but it’s slowly getting there. So, just like a kid in a candy store, you are likely to start installing everything to see what it is all like.

But in the long term, you can’t install everything you find (phone performance would take a serious hit if you installed the kitchen sink) so finally you have to scale back to the best, most essential apps.

To help all you fellow new Android users out, here’s the ones I personally consider to be keepers. After less than a week, I am still looking and refining my phone but the following are ones I will find really hard to get rid of. To find them, just go to the Android Market on your phone and search for them.

Meebo

As someone who makes his living online, being able to chat to my colleagues and other contacts is a must. Pidgin is my favourite IM app but until they make a mobile version of their software, Meebo seems to be the best option for multi-client instant messaging.

An online account from the Meebo website doesn’t seem to be needed for this app. Just add your instant messaging ID’s and passwords and log in. You may be asked to confirm all your contacts again (it asked me to confirm 5 of my contacts who have been on my Pidgin IM list for over a year) and then you will see everyone in a neat vertical list.

If you are more of an AIM fan, check out the Android app Hi AIM. Yahoo Messenger fans can download Hi Yahoo, ICQ users have ICQLive (does anyone still use ICQ?) and Windows Live Messenger users can use Hi MSN Beta. But honestly, if you use more than one of these apps (and who doesn’t these days?) then Meebo is an easier tidier option.

Skype Lite

Another of my requirements, when buying the Android phone, was that it had to be able to run Skype. Not all mobiles can run the Skype Lite app (my partner bought a Palm Pre phone last week and then discovered that it doesn’t run Skype. Boy is she unhappy!).

The Skype Lite app (as it name suggests) is a slimmed down bare-bones app that allows you to call your Skype contacts via your mobile (so very useful for national and international calls). You can also instant message your contacts.

But what Skype Lite will NOT do (at least for me here in Germany) is allow me to send SMS messages, which is rather inconvenient as I am a big SMS sender.  You also can’t receive video.

Nevertheless Skype Lite is an extremely useful app to have on your mobile phone and absolutely essential if you need to make a national or international call (and you don’t want to pay your mobile company’s extortionate standard rates).

Twidroid

The next essential thing I needed on my phone was a good Twitter app. As someone who is really getting into the swing of twittering, I needed something other than visiting the mobile version of the site.  I needed a proper app which would allow me to follow / unfollow people as well as do other things such as make changes to my Twitter profile. I found it in Twidroid.

Twidroid allows you to do virtually everything you can do on the regular Twitter site, as well as give you a nice clean easy to navigate interface to read and respond to tweets. You can also read peoples profiles and follow / unfollow them.

If that wasn’t enough, you can also be notified on your Android desktop when new tweets have arrived (and you can choose what notification tone you want). But having this one is actually a battery drainer so I chose to switch it off. As well as a battery killer, it is also a productivity killer. I don’t want to be looking at my phone every 5 minutes reading the latest tweets. I can easily wait a couple of hours and then scroll through them all in one go.

Facebook

I am not THAT much into Facebook but every now and then I like to visit the site and see what my friends are saying. Android has a nice Facebook app which, like the Twitter app, puts everything into a nice compact easy-to-read format.

You can like / dislike entries, write on peoples walls, comment, upload photos, poke people, send friend and invite requests and much more.

One of the things I really like is that, to refresh the app, you just need to shake your phone! That’s right, find out who has just poked you by shaking the Droid.

Again you can be notified on the Android notification bar at the top when new updates come in (as well as get an unique sound to alert you). But once again, these features are battery drainers and if you have a battery which runs out after a day, then it would be best to switch off all the instant notifications.

Last.FM

The phone shouldn’t only be for work but also for play.  It should be able to relax you when you’re feeling a bit stressed out. Until Android develops a back massage app, then Last.FM is the best app for you to close your eyes for 5 minutes and unwind.

Just like the website, the Last.FM app allows you to

• Log into your account and listen to music.
• Choose a radio station (or start a new one),
• Say who you like listening to and the Last.FM app will find similar artists and play them.
• Like / dislike the currently playing song
• Skip to the next song

The quality of the music sound will depend entirely on your phone speakers but my Android phone came with headphones and the Last.FM music sounds fine through them.

In the next post, we will discuss the next 5 free Android apps you should be putting on your Android phone. In the meantime, what do you think of these 5? Do you have these ones or do you prefer better free alternatives? Let us know what you think in the comments, and stay tuned for part two.

[Update: 10 Free Android Apps For Your New Android Mobile (Part 2)]

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One of those occasions was very recently. With its own mobile operating system, Google has been challenging Windows Mobile (not much of a challenge) and the iPhone.

If you’ve got an HTC Windows Mobile phone, you might not have to buy yourself another device to enjoy the hype. But install Android on your Windows Mobile device instead. Nevertheless, porting this operating system has proven a tedious task, and not all phone types support it yet. Newer GSM devices will have a better chance, and to date CDMA is scarcely supported.

Right now it’s not yet possible to boot Google Android as the default operation system. Instead we’ll be using HaRET, a Windows Mobile boot loader. Note that we’re not running or emulating Android in Windows Mobile, but using it to reboot the phone into Android.

1. Gathering Files

Different phone types require different base Google Android files. Even for supported phones, the files will be scattered over different sites and developer areas. I will supply links for some of the most popular HTC phones.

• HTC Diamond
• HTC Vogue/Kaiser/Polaris/Nike
• HTC Raphael/Fuze/Touch Pro

Again, if you don’t see your phone listed, don’t give up. Do a Google search with your own model – because it’s a user-generated wiki, some major advancements aren’t listed on the site yet. When going off-site, always double check your sources, making sure that you aren’t downloading any malicious content.

Download the Google Android files for your phone type.

• The latest Android bundle/files for your phone type
• HaRET (executables)

Most sites will supply file bundles, others will put a directory of files online. If need be, download all of those files, we’ll be telling you which to use in the next step.

2. Installation

If you’re already running a custom ROM, you might want to format your phone. Conflicts can occur when double-modding, and you’re probably going to be using Google Android anyway.

First, let’s put the files in place. Connect via USB and navigate to your phone’s root (this is the mother-folder, the highest directory level). After unzipping your Google Android release, transfer the files you’ve just downloaded. Putting them in any other directory won’t work. You should have something like this:

• HaRET.exe
• zImage (kernel file)
• Initrd.gz
• default.txt
• rootfs.img
• system.img/system.sqsh (Android OS files)

It’ll help to shorten filenames. Some have a date or programmer suffix that can be deleted.

Next, configure your default.txt. Open the file in Notepad and make sure all the values are right. How do you know? Check out a list of Boot Options here. You might need to change phone model, screen resolution, internet access and the like. This will take the most time, but if you keep your eyes open, it isn’t a hard job.

Finally, disconnect your phone and use your Windows Mobile file manager to locate HaRET.exe (it should still be in your phone’s root). You might want to add it to your applications shortcuts. Open HaRET and press Run.

HaRET will reboot your phone with the Android files. Perhaps in the (near) future, we might be able to install Google Android as the standard operating system. But even though progress is unstoppable, it moves at its own pace.

Did you like the tutorial? Let us know in the comments if you experience any problems. Or better yet, direct that at the your phone type’s site. They’ll be able to help you with the really technical business.

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Most iPhone users relish being able to use our iPhone to get things done. We’re always wondering if there is indeed “an app for that” – iPhone apps for free, from mapping directions, getting movie previews, to iPhone food ordering apps.

I’ve tried ordering food using the traditional website structure of a few restaurants, but the iPhone web-formatted user interface for ordering food on those sites took more time than it was worth. The Chipotle iPhone food ordering app is the first of its kind that I’ve seen that makes ordering food very simple.

You can tell the app developers put a lot of thought in how to make the user interface relatively easy to use and aesthetically appealing. The application is built in a hierarchical manner, whereby a limited list of menu items in which you click to further drill down into additional menu items for more levels of details.

To order food using the app, you of course have to set up an account that includes your credit card. Based on the feedback the application has received, it is better to create your account online rather than through the application.

After clicking the application‘s opening screens and using the location feature to find the Chipotle nearest to you, you have a few ways to get started creating your order.  If you want a reminder of Chipotle‘s menu offerings, you click the Food menu button at the bottom of the application. This presents you with clean single-page photos and a short description of Chipotle’s main menu offerings. Granted, because Chipotle is not like say IHOP, with three or four dozen menu offerings, the application is not crammed with too much information. Chipotle‘s main entrée offerings are presented in 8 pages, in which you slide from page to page with a swipe of your finger.

Clicking the Order Now button on any one of main entrée or chips pages will take you to the Create New Order section. The resulting menu presents you with a list of six menu categories: Burrito, Bowl, Soft Tacos, Crispy Tacos, Salad, and Sides and Drinks. Clicking one of these categories leads you to another menu page where you select for example the type of Burrito you want to order. Prices for those items are also listed. You click the plus button to add to your order. You can just as easily click the minus button if you change your mind.

After clicking the Continue button, you are presented with a broad list of side items that you can add to your order, or your “bag”. So basically, the application is designed for you to easily build your order by clicking through the menu .

Once you’ve selected what you want, you click the Add to Bag button. You’re then presented with two input spaces, one for giving a name to your order (for example, Lunch) and “any special instructions” you may have. The reason you give this order a name is because when you are presented with your itemized order, you have the option to save that order as a Favorite, which is very convenient for making future orders.

Clicking the resulting Checkout Now button will present your order with the subtotal price. After clicking the Checkout button you have to log into your account. Ordering food using this app is almost faster than doing so in the restaurant itself, especially if you have to wait in a long lunch or dinner line.

Now once you arrive to pick up your order, you may experience a little breakdown in the process. Some users of the app have complained that when they arrived to a selected restaurant their order was either not ready or never received. I didn’t experience that problem, but I can imagine it happening. This breakdown doesn’t sound like a problem with the application itself, but perhaps what is done with orders when they are received. A Chipotle franchise may be overtasked and orders may be mismanaged. That’s a customer service issue that needs to worked out at each establishment.

But as for the application itself, I don’t think the process can be simpler. Are there other iPhone food ordering apps that you recommend and find accessible? Are the ones that you find very difficult to use?

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The app is a multimedia magazine, featuring professional images and how-to articles by and about professional photographers. It doesn’t replace a well designed magazine or photography book, but it’s a handy resource on your mobile device.

When you first open the open the app, the home screen dissolves to a browser of high quality Nikon images, including portraits, travel, wildlife, and numerous scenic photos. Each photo includes “Info” and an article interview with the photographer of the selected image.

The one sentence “Info” for each images is very skimpy. It might include the name of the Nikon camera and a brief public relations type comment, nothing more. Here’s an example:

The extended interviews include a little background about the photographers, their work, the Nikon camera(s) they use, and a link to their website. Since this is a “learn and explore” app, it would better if the “Info”  includes things such as the camera settings used and how the photographer went about making the photograph, both using the camera and in post-processing.

The Learn section of the app includes so far about 22 different lessons, ranging from shooting techniques about close-up photography, the value of zoom lenses, and getting candid urban photos. Unfortunately, these “learn” articles are very underdeveloped. Some “how-tos” include videos of the photographer explaining his work. The two videos I watched were much more informative than the accompanying articles. I realize that videos are much more time consuming and expensive to produce, but they would be tremendously useful on a mobile app, even if users had to pay a small subscription fee.

The next section of the app includes articles taken from Nikon World, the company’s quarterly print magazine. These articles include much more detail about the process photographers took to make their photos or complete certain projects.  As you may guess, much of the articles begin with or center on the use of a particular Nikon camera.

The application also includes a glossary of photography and Nikon related terms. For example, this is how “Aperture” is defined: “The circular opening inside the lens that can change in diameter to control the amount of light reaching the camera’s sensor or film”. Unfortunately, this definition doesn’t include an illustration or an example to further explain the definition.

Finally, you can star any article, image, or definition to add to your “favorites” list. This is a handy feature because the company says that the app will be updated with new information and articles, so a favorites list will make it easy to locate bookmarked resources.

Overall, Nikon: Learn and Explore is a great idea for an iPhone/iPod touch application. The company might consider offering an a simpler online option instead requiring future updates of the application itself. I could also foresee it making iPhone/iPod touch-formatted manuals for each of its major cameras.

I’m not a Nikon shooter, but I‘m looking forward to similar applications for us Canon photographers.

So what features would you like to see in an application like Nikon: Learn and Explore?

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Working as a code churner by day and a writer by night hardly leaves me with any time to exercise those (lazy) muscles, so the only other thing that I can do is limit the number of calories I take in.

That, as you all know, is easier said than done. For example, how are you going to stop yourself from eating that Big Mac (with extra cheese!) for lunch or the Chicken Tikka Masala with Cheese Naan for dinner unless you know how many calories it has before ordering it. Nothing better to lose your appetite than a guilt trip!

That is exactly what Lose It! will help you with.

Lose It! is an iPhone calorie intake calculator that acts as your personal guilt trip service by telling you exactly how many calories each of your meals has and how much you need to exercise to reach your weight loss goals.

When you run Lose It! for the first time the application asks you a couple of questions like your current weight, your goal weight, your height, and how much do want to lose per week. Lose It! will then set a daily calorie budget for you.

Now, as you go through the day, you need to either Add Food or Add Exercise to Lose It!. The goal is to remain below the daily calories budget that you’ve been assigned. Easy enough for you ?

Lose It! has a pretty large database of the common types of food that we eat and the calories that they add. For example, I ate a Big Mac for lunch today. Let’s add that bit of info to the Lose It! calorie intake calculator.

Tap on Add Food and select Lunch. Since McDonalds is a pretty famous name, we’ll just search for it under Brand Name Foods -> Restaurant Foods. Type in McDonalds.

Select what you ate from the list and Lose It! will show you the number of calories that your meal contained, and ask you to enter the quantity that you ate.

As you can see, I’m not doing too well with my diet plans. The Big Mac for lunch and the Burger King Whopper for dinner really doesn’t help me with my goal of losing 1lb a week.

So, let’s exercise a bit and add my workout to Lose It!. I love playing squash and since I have a squash court close to where I live, that’s what I’ll play. Of course, with my current fitness levels, an hour of squash is all that I can last for!

Click on the ‘+’ sign and select Exercise. Browse for the extensive list of sports available, select Squash and move the counter to 1 hour.

Ha! I’m still under 1685 calories for the day! I guess I can reward myself with that dessert!

So, you see, Lose It! is not only a very good application to help you track what you’ve eaten, it’ll also tell you just how much you can afford to splurge on yourself and still be on track to losing those extra pounds.

How do you guys plan your diet? Do you like to keep track of the calories you’re consuming?

Image credit: bensonkua

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There are several different cell phone RSS readers that you could choose; all of which are Java based. After testing a few, I’ve decided to go with RSSReader. I’ve decided this for two main reasons.

1. It’s reliable and it does a good job at collecting and organizing your feeds.

2. It’s compatible with almost any Java enabled cell phone (ie. basically any phone bought after 2004!)

First you need to go to this website to download the app. As always with my mobile app articles, I got it from GetJar because they’re a reputable directory for mobile apps. Up in the top right hand corner of the GetJar site, enter in what mobile phone you have. It may ask for your cell phone number to automatically identify it (don’t worry – they don’t charge anything to you or subscribe you to one of those annoying ringtone services!). If there is a Download button on the RSS Reader page then that means it’s compatible with your phone.

Having clicked Download, you’ll be presented with two options. The first is to use the download code as seen in the screenshot. Navigate to m.getjar.com on your mobile’s browser and click ‘Download Code’ at the bottom of the page. Then enter in the download code which has been provided to you. This will start the download on your phone which shouldn’t take more than thirty seconds.

The other option is to download the cell phone RSS reader to your computer and then send it to your phone using the USB cable that came with the phone.

Either way; once you have it on your phone and installed, you’re ready to add your feeds.

The first is to manually add your feeds. Select ‘Options’ and then ‘Add Feed’. Then enter in the URL of the feed. This part is kind of important so listen up. The URL of the feed is not the URL of the blog’s website. To find a feed’s URL you’ll have to do a little investigative work. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use Google Reader.

In Google Reader, simply select the feed you want to add (presuming you’ve already subscribed to it on your PC). In the top right of your screen you’ll see a link which reads ‘Show Details’. Click on it. This will open up a small panel at the top of the preview screen as shown in the screenshot. As you can see the feed’s URL is shown – I have highlighted the MUO feed URL in this demonstration.

Enter that feed URL exactly as it appears in Google Reader (or other RSS reader for that matter) and save it. You’ll now be subscribed to that feed and can download it on your phone. You can view the post headers in the app. You can preview the post by clicking on the header.

To update a specific feed simply click on it when on the home screen. This will load a list full of recent posts. Click on any one of these posts to read the full story. Enjoy your feeds on your mobile.

Quick Tip: Beware GPRS (mobile web) charges – probably best that you ring your network helpline and inquire about data charges. Most network have cheap plans such as a unlimited usage for $15 a month these days as GPRS use declines.

How RSS Reader looks will differ depending on phone. I tested it on three devices and it looked quite different on each – but the options and layout are all the same. If it doesn’t work on your phone – YourChannels is a more basic cell phone RSS reader that may be worth a shot.

How else do you get your daily dose of reading on your cellphone? Share with us!

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To users who would much rather not pay $25 a year to access RTM through their iPhone, luckily, there is an alternative to RTM’s own iPhone app. Milpon is the only iPhone todo app in the iTunes store that is both free and functional for managing your RTM tasks.

When you first open the iPhone todo app, it takes you to an overview of the tasks that are due in the next week, as well as tasks that are overdue. Tasks are sorted in order of due date, in alphabetical order. The priorities of the tasks are written under the date. From here, you can complete tasks by touching the square, add tasks by clicking the (+) button in the upper right hand corner, or edit tasks by clicking their entries in the list. Doing either of the latter two will take you to a screen that looks like this:

The first line following the arrow is where you input the name of your task. Unfortunately, unlike the RTM website, you can’t add priorities and other details by using hash tags. To set a due date, click the calendar icon, which brings up a full sized calendar.

This calendar is possibly my favorite feature of Milpon. You can scroll through the months by clicking the left and right arrows by the Month and Year entry, and then pick the exact date you want by clicking the corresponding  box on the calendar. This will bring you back to the main Add page, where you can set the other details like which list you want the task in, etc.

Another great thing about Milpon’s Add page is that, when you are assigning tags to a task, Milpon brings up a list of the tags that you have already created, and adds the tag you tap to the task you’re creating.

When you are done creating a task, it will be filed with all of your other tasks, where it will be viewable in three ways. The screenshot above is of Milpon’s home screen. By clicking Overview, you will see a screen like the very first screenshot above, that details all the tasks due in the next week. If you click “List,” you’ll see all of your lists, followed by the number of tasks in that list. If you click “Tag,” you’ll see a list of your tags, followed by the number of tasks that have that tag.

I find the option to sort your tasks by their tags extremely useful, because you can set contexts (such as the location that your task should be completed at) as your tags, and then sort your tasks so that they are location specific. Then, you can view all of your “@phone” tasks while you’re making calls, and call everyone in one sitting.

Since Milpon is a relatively new app, it is still undergoing active development. For example, the latest update features automatic syncing! Instead of having to manually sync like in the previous releases, Milpon now syncs when you open the app. Unfortunately this means that you’ll still have to sync manually after making changes, but that’s still better than no automated syncing at all.

You can sync manually by clicking the refresh icon in the upper left hand corner of the home screen. Syncing usually takes quite a while, which is a bit of a drawback, but you can still view and edit tasks while syncing, so that shouldn’t be too much of a concern.

I’ve been an avid fan since Milpon first launched, and it’s come a long way since its infant days. I foresee it making great progress as it gains more users, and I hope that it will become the RTM iPhone app of choice for non-Pro users.

Do you use Remember the Milk? Give Milpon a shot, and tell us what you think of it, in comparison to RTM’s own iPhone app.

Milpon

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I used to resort to a couple of Mac apps to help put me to sleep. Recently, I found something another tool to help me achieve blissful slumber — my iPhone.

I was looking for an iPhone app that would play soothing sounds (something akin to a Sound Machine) like pouring rain or blowing wind (yeah, I’m kinda digging that) to help put my mind at ease. Coincidently, I found that listening to these sounds while falling asleep, I dream less and tend to get a better night’s rest. Although, your personal results may differ.

In my quest to find these apps (the App Store is so cluttered these days), I tested several and found that most of them have slightly different sounds to offer. Each one has its own distinctive motif. So, instead of choosing the best one for me (which may not be the one for you), I decided to list them all down so that you can try for yourselves. So here they are, 9 iPhone apps to help soothe you to sleep.

Custom Sounds of Nature Lite

CSON Lite provides 2 very realistic sounds of nature — Calm Ocean and Mountain Stream. Within Calm Ocean, there is a selection of sounds and the option to configure their presence and volume: Ocean, Seagulls, Wind Chimes and Foghorn. Mountain Stream has a several sounds to choose from as well: Stream, Bull Frogs, Birds and Day Crickets.

Each of the selected sounds loop so they can be played endlessly. CSON Lite also has a built-in timer so that you can listen to the sounds for as long as you wish before the sounds slowly fade away.

iRelax Melodies

iRelax Melodies is free for a limited time and has a collection of 16 very relaxing (indeed!) sounds to put you to sleep –River, Ocean, Flute, Rain, Winds, Music Box, Lounge, Birds, Piano, Orchestral, Waterfall, Thunder, Zen, Fire Camp, Melody and Night — all arranged as post-it notes spanning two pages. The sounds are selected by tapping on their corresponding notes and here’s the cool thing: you can select as many sounds as you want and mix your own customized track!

iRelax also offers a built-in timer albeit only as predefined time intervals of 5, 10, 15, 30, 45 minutes; 1 hour and 2 hours.

eSleep Lite

eSleep Lite is slightly different from your regular sound machine in the sense that it allows you to select 1 background “music” track and up to 3 “noise” tracks. Besides that, it also has a little party piece: it will let you record your own soothing sound to be played as a “noise” track.

eSleep Lite comes with built-in alarm and timer that starts to fade out in the final minute.

Ambiance Lite

Ambiance Lite is not your ordinary sound machine. It is a full-fledge jukebox of awesome sounds. The free app comes pre-installed with three: Large Wind Chimes, Loons and Rain and Thunder II. However, you can download as many sounds as you want for free from their online repository!

To imagine how Ambiance Lite works, think of it as an iPod. You can rate, favourite, loop and shuffle different sounds from the main playlist. It also features the usual timer and alarm functions so that you can set the app to play and drift off to sleep without a worry in your mind! Not bad for a free app!

Naturespace

Boasting holographic audio, Naturespace features five stock environments with 3D sound that are accurately recorded in high definition and seamlessly reproduced to provide you with a realistic experience.

If you’re not the kind to fiddle with settings or customize sounds to perfection but rather, just want a simple app that can help calm you down instantly (and effectively), this is the one you need.

Sleepmaker Storm, Stream and Rain

Sleepmaker’s series of apps are for the serious insomniacs who know what they need to put them to sleep. These 3 apps dish out specific collections of sounds, all targeted at tranquility. Unfortunately, this is also the apps’ weakness. Because they are separated into three distinct applications, there’s no mixing and matching. You are able to only play one sound at a time.

However, the sounds that they offer are pretty realistic. Take a look at their descriptive titles.

In Storm;

• Gentle long rolls with lite rain
• Medium thunder with heavy splatter
• Heavy constant wind storm

In Stream;

• Gentle mouth of brook
• Medium fast flowing stream
• Heavy bottom of waterfall

In Rain;

• Gentle onto forest foliage
• Medium and steady with puddles
• Medium rain against windows
• Heavy torrential downpour

Sleepmaker also produces Wildlife and Waves sound packs but I have yet to review them. Personally, I think it would be easier for end-users if they made one free app with all the sounds packaged together.

White Noise Lite

Don’t be fooled by the name, White Noise Lite has a larger selection of sounds than just pure white noise. Actually, it has several sounds that are pretty odd like Grandfather Clock, Oscillating Fan, Train Ride and Airplane Travel. Although, I must admit, they’re surprisingly relaxing and I grew to like them, especially Train Ride — it is hypnotic!

It also has the usual calming ocean and rain sounds. My suggestion is to try out the other sounds because they may seem weird but they’re actually quite good.

So which is my favourite? I can’t really say. They all have something different to offer. But I don’t see why we have to choose — they all free! Try them out and let me know how they work for you. Are you an insomniac? Do you find it hard to fall asleep? What do you usually do to get yourself some kip?

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It was actually writing that article that made me start thinking about other uses for my webcam. Then, as I sat there staring at the cellphone – an old HTC 8125 with just a 1.3 mega pixel camera – I started to wonder if there was a way I could convert this little phone into a portable webcam that could stream video from anywhere in the world where there’s a cellphone data network.

That curiosity and a little bit of Internet research led me to VZOchat, an interesting free online service where you can configure your own video chat account and whenever you’re online you can receive direct video calls from anyone.

So, what does this have to do with turning a Windows Mobile smartphone into a remote webcam? Well, the VZOchat service also offers a mobile version. This means that people can trigger a video conferencing call to your mobile phone, but it also means that you can set up your cellphone anywhere you like, and then fire off a call to the phone from your computer which will enable the streaming video feature of the VZOchat software on your phone!

Want to spy on the room where you accidently “left” your phone? Maybe you want to stream a really cool rock concert to your friends with your cellphone. The potential uses for streaming live video from your cellphone are unlimited. As if that’s not cool enough – there’s one more little feature that VZOchat offers – the ability to embed the video call feature directly into your blog or website so anyone can video chat with you straight from your blog.

I’ll cover each of these features in this article. Let’s get started.

Setting Up Your Own Private Videochat

When you first sign up for your free VZOchat account, you’ll instantly have access to a special web page where you can find your embedded videochat room. You don’t even have to install any software on your PC, only a plugin for your browser so that the videochat room works properly.

Yes, I know I look tired. I’ve been staying up all night writing this article!

Now, VZOchat is actually a video chat community, so if you want to you can set your status as public and let everyone on the social network see your profile and call you. I’m not exactly that much of a social butterfly, so I left that feature disabled – I’m only here for the cool Internet video chat software.

All you have to do to call another user on VZOchat is click “start videochat” and type their name. For my purposes – I want to initiate a video chat with my cellphone, and I want the cellphone to pick up automatically. So step two is setting up the mobile version of VZOchat on your Windows Mobile device (Windows Mobile only).

Setting Up VZOchat As a Cameraphone Webcam

Once you download and install the CAB file to your mobile and you log in using the credentials that you signed up with, you’ll see the following screen on your phone.

At this point, the green bar means that you’re online and ready to send or receive video calls. This means that you can remotely call your phone with your computer, but first you have to tell your phone to automatically pick up the call. Do this by clicking on “Options.”

Most of the settings within options are pretty self-explanatory. Most of the calling features you want to configure are in the “Integration” menu item. When you click on that icon you’ll see the following screen.

As you can see here, you can integrate the software to work with Outlook Mobile and the Today Screen – but what you really want to make sure to click here is the option to “Automatically accept incoming calls.” Once you do this, you’re ready to remotely fire up your cellphone as a remote cameraphone webcam!

To test this, I placed my old Windows Mobile 5 PDA on my kitchen countertop facing a Halloween art project my wife and kids created – a small tree with ghosts hanging on the branches. Running back across the house to my laptop (I seriously ran, I was that excited), I clicked on the green call button and watched as the software initiated the call. Suddenly, the video window changed to a view of what my cellphone was pointed to at that moment.

Now, I should mention a few things about this image. My particular camera is ancient, and a 1.3 mega pixel camera is hardly comparable to the sort of resolution available on most modern smartphones. Secondly, I noticed my image updated about once every 5 seconds or so, which I believe was related to my data upload speed over the cellular data line – and I hardly had a signal in my house. Again, a newer model will most likely perform much better.

Finally, if you do decide to use this technique to convert your cellphone into a cameraphone webcam, make sure you either have an unlimited Internet data plan or your phone is connected to the Internet over Wi-Fi.

Embedding the Video Chat Feature Into Your Blog

Now that we’ve accomplished the first task. I want to show you one more amazingly cool feature with VZOchat that had me smiling from ear to ear – the ability to embed a calling box into your blog or web page so visitors can initiate a video chat with you. Here’s how it works.

When you’re logged into your VZOchat account, click on the “widgets” tab at the top.

Here, you’ll see two options. The first is a neat little VZOchat widget using the iframe tag that lets you embed your profile call gateway into your blog, which I’ve done here on my blog FreeWritingCenter.

Now, the value of just offering such a feature on your blog or website is tremendous. Allow visitors to interact with you directly to discuss a topic you’ve blogged about. Or, maybe you have a tech support website and you could use this feature to let your clients contact you directly video chat right from your web page.

The one drawback with the widget is that when they click on it, it opens a whole different window on VZOchat for your visitor to talk to you. If you want them to stay right at your site, you can use the VZOchat Webclient code instead – and visitors can have a video chat with you right on your own web page.

Here’s me having a chat with myself right on my blog.

After about 10 minutes, I found myself pretty darn boring, so I just hung up on myself. The embedded video chat is still there, as is the sidebar call feature (for now). I’m going to leave it there to chat with MUO readers and others unless I find a better service at some point. If it’s still there and I’m online, go ahead and give me a call and let’s chat!

Can you think of any cool uses for turning your mobile phone into a cameraphone webcam? What about using the service in your blog, or combining the two features so visitors can call you on your mobile? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

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Dropbox for iPhone was finally released at the end of September 2009. How does it fair? Is it as powerful as its desktop sibling?

I installed it on my iPhone and took it on a test drive. Truthfully, I’m a little disappointed. Here’s why.

No Edit Function

Dropbox for the iPhone is nothing more than a glorified file browser. It will only allow you to view the files stored in your Dropbox account. There is no edit function. Sure, the app will allow you to retrieve your documents from wherever you are as long there is an internet connection but then again, isn’t that also possible with Safari?

Without the ability to edit documents, Dropbox for the iPhone is no longer a file synchronization app. It is merely a viewer.

“Previous Versions” Unavailable

One of the many great things I admire about the desktop version of Dropbox is the ability to view previous versions of a file. Dropbox saves past renditions of your documents by recording changes and edits hence, providing you with the chance to retrieve previous versions of the same document. Sadly, that is also not available in the iPhone app.

No Upload Function

Yup, you read correctly. You can’t upload anything besides the odd photo or video from your camera roll. This completely cripples the application because so much potential has just gone to waste. I can easily think of a hundred things that I can do if I’m able to sync files from my iPhone to my MacBook back home.

In all fairness, I have a suspicion that Apple is preventing the developers of Dropbox from implementing this feature. Nevertheless, as the end-user, I’m allowed to have expectations and I want to be able to upload files!

iPhone-Formatted Videos Only

The iPhone can only play h.264 video. Now, here’s a question: if the only accepted media is h.264, wouldn’t it be better to just sync the video over using iTunes? Think about it, in order to have the file appear in Dropbox, I must first have access to my desktop. I may as well have transferred the video file over, rather than to share it online just so that I can retrieve it on my iPhone.

Here’s a tip to the Dropbox developers: why don’t you guys add the ability to automatically convert any video files in a certain folder into h.264? Say, if I were to drop a video encoded in AVI into a dedicated folder in my Dropbox, it would automatically be converted into an iPhone-friendly format. I’m sure many users will enjoy that.

Alright, it seems as though I’m painting a terribly bleak picture here. But like I said earlier, I’m a little disappointed because the wait does not justify the miserable handful of features that Dropbox for iPhone provides. I expected the whole shebang.

If I push the curtain of dissatisfaction aside for a minute, it’s actually a wonderful beginning. Dropbox is still in its very first version and already providing its users with a chance to retrieve their files quickly and easily, not to mention saving them for offline viewing and sharing with friends.

I’d love to see where they’re heading next. I vote for editing functions! What about you? What are your expectations for the next version of Dropbox?

Dropbox runs only on iPhone OS 3.1. As a prerequisite, you must have the desktop version installed. Click here to download it.

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After downloading the app from the iTunes Store, you can set up a free account on Photoshop.com to upload, save, and share photos processed in the mobile app. You can also save your photos back to your camera’s photo library.

Photoshop Mobile includes what you would expect from an Adobe image processing application: exposure, saturation, and tinting adjustment capabilities, a black-and-white conversion tool, plus eight different filters (Vibrant, Pop, Border, Vignette Blur, Warm Vintage, Rainbow, White Glow, and Soft Black and White) for enhancement or creative image effects. It also includes a tool for cropping, rotating, and flipping images.

Using The Photoshop Mobile

Selecting the exposure or saturation tool, for example, involves sliding your finger across the screen a little to get the desired results, while other tools, such the black-and-white conversion or the filter applications entail simply clicking the tool to apply the effect.

The exposure adjustment works well as expected, further exposing and underexposing an image as needed. However, I was surprised to see that there’s no dedicated contrast or sharpening tool in the mix. The black-and-white conversion is straightforward and similar to how you use the black-and-white adjustment tool in a desktop version of Photoshop. But before making a monochrome conversion, you’ll want to make some exposure adjustments and maybe apply an appropriate filter, such the Vibrant setting, to improve contrast as much as possible.

As for the filters, the Vibrant effect works well, boosting the overall color saturation. However, filters like the Soft Focus and Vignette Blur lack the ability to control the direction or intensity of the effect, thus their application will be pretty much hit-and-miss depending on the photo you’re applying the filters to. Also, on the iPhone you need to turn the display into landscape mode in order to see two other filters, White Glow and Soft Black and White, that are hidden when viewing a photo in portrait mode. The app includes both a preview of the effect and an undo button to change back to the original photo.

You can click the red x button on the bottom left side of the application’s interface to undo all the adjustments you made, but once you save your adjustments you can’t undo them. It’s great, however, that when you select a photo from your photo library on your phone, Photoshop Mobile does not change the original; instead, it creates and saves a copy with all your applied adjustments.

A few missing features that could be added to Photoshop Mobile is the ability to copy and apply adjustments you make to one photo and apply them to one or more others, as you can in say Adobe Lightroom, or in another iPhone camera application called Best Camera. Also, if possible, being able to have control over the effects of filters would make them more useful.

While Photoshop Mobile won’t replace the counterpart Photoshop desktop applications, it does help to enhance camera images by adding some often needed contrast, vibrancy, and color saturation. Saving the photos to your Photoshop.com account is a quick easy way to archive them for safe keeping. So all this makes the mobile app a nice addition to a growing repertoire of iPhone camera applications.

If you’re an avid iPhone camera user, let us know what you think of this freeware image editor application.

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With Mobiwee I can not only trace my stolen cell phone but I can also deactivate it.

MobiWee works by way of a downloadable client for your iPhone, Android or Windows Mobile Phone, and the client automatically syncs with the server at preset intervals to get the latest pending “requests” from the web interface.

You can follow the quick instructions to download the client from their website, and then install it via .cab (Windows Mobile), .apk (Android) or on either the Android or Apple App Store.

After installing the software, requests that you initiate from the online site will automatically be sent to and then quickly processed by your phone in the background and then executed silently. Depending on the type of device though, you might want to set the time that the client checks for requests higher to conserve battery life.

If your phone is ever lost, you can use the GPS in the phone to send a signal back and trace stolen cell phone on a Google Map with an address on it. Should it get into the wrong hands and your data is compromised, you can even send signals to the phone to lock with a password or even wipe your data. This will deactivate stolen phone for anybody who takes it.

If I clicked the option (in the picture below) to locate my phone, my phone will get the message, and then get the location via GPS (assuming my phone has GPS reception) and then send the location back.

MobiWee’s suite of other features also allows you to remotely track your phone’s usage and statistics. You can view statistics like the last person who called, battery life, manage contacts, Internet Explorer favorites, files, call forwarding and view call logs, all remotely. You can even remotely install applications to your phone, and grab screenshots of what it is doing.

Depending on your type of phone though, some of these may not work to full functionality due to OS restrictions. But, if I wanted to see who has been calling my phone or who has been calling from my phone, I can pull call logs from it just like the location above:

MobiWee’s other features also allow you to do a lot more remote management with your phone, allowing you to take screenshots for example and add files remotely to your phone as well. Microsoft also offers a similar paid service known as My Phone which can do similar tasks, such as view photos and text messages and ring your phone when lost.

Do you currently use a service to track and/or deactivate your phone? Share your options and ideas for keeping your phone safe in the comments below and also be sure to check out similar phone-finding tools like BlueRetriver and WhereisMyCellPhone in the MakeUseOf Directory.

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Like a lot of other phones, the iPhone has a multitude of keypresses and combinations that perform cool and funky stuff like take screenshots and automatically launching the camera all the way from the 11th home screen.

Not only that, users have found and documented ways to bypass certain, how shall I put it — shortcomings, that the iPhone has. These tips make the iPhone even more functional than it is documented to be. I’ll be listing 6 of my favorite top tips, those that I find most useful in everyday life. Let’s hope that there’s something new and interesting you can learn. If not, feel free to share them in the comments.

Starting off at number 6.

Send Full Resolution Photos Through Email

If you wanted to email photos taken with your iPhone, you’d hit the “Share” button on the lower left corner and press the “Email Photo” button. The photo will then be automatically added into a new email. Press Send and off it goes. Right? What Apple isn’t telling you is: the photo that you’ve just emailed isn’t at its highest resolution — it’s scaled down.

To send full resolution photos via email, open the photo in your iPhone’s camera roll, tap on it and hold until the “Copy” button appears.

Copy the photo, then compose a new email. Press and hold somewhere within the content section, let go and the contextual menu will appear. Press Paste to insert your full resolution photo.

To send multiple full resolution photos, get to the camera roll on your iPhone and hit the “Share” button on the lower left corner.

You’ll then be able to select multiple photos. When you’re done, hit “Copy”. Compose a new email and paste in your photos.

Unlearn words

The iPhone has the capability to learn new words if they are used often. But somehow, something went wrong somewhere — whenever I try to type “the”, my iPhone auto-corrects it to “Tge” instead.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to unlearn particular words. The dictionary can only be reset back to factory settings — it will wipe all learnt words and start from scratch. I figured that’s not as bad as getting “Tge” every time. Here’s how to do it:

1. Enter Settings
2. Hit General
3. Scroll down and tap on Reset
4. Tap “Reset Keyboard Dictionary”

   

5. A warning will pop up to confirm the procedure. Hit “Reset Dictionary” if you’re sure.

   

Sleep The iPod After A Certain Period Of Time

If you frequently listen to music on your iPhone before going to sleep, this is a pretty cool tip. You can set the iPod function to sleep after a desired period of time.

To set the sleep timer, launch the Clock. Select the Timer function. Set the amount of time you’d like to listen to your music before the iPod goes to sleep.

Tap on the “When Timer Ends” menu and you’ll be brought to a page where you’re able to select a particular alarm that is played when the timer ends. Scroll up and tap on “Sleep iPod”.

Open Link In New Page

There have been a lot of tips regarding Safari. A popular tip, if you didn’t already know, is tapping on the top of the screen to bring you back up to the beginning of a webpage. Another time-saving tip is to tap and hold a link then tap on “Open in New Page” to browse the link in a separate browser page.

When you’re done reading, just close it and you’ll be brought back to the main webpage. I find this tip very useful when reading blogs with multiple entries — I avoid pressing on the Back button and the need to reload the page each time.

Forget About .com Domain Extension

Here are some tips to use when typing in webpage address in Safari. If the webpage’s URL ends in “.com”, you can actually leave out the whole “http://www.” and “.com” bits. Just enter “makeuseof” to go to “http://www.makeuseof.com” or “tuaw” for “http://www.tuaw.com”.

If the webpage’s URL doesn’t end in “.com” this trick doesn’t work. However, you can easily type “.net”, “.org” and “.edu” by pressing and holding on the “.com” button until the other domain name extensions appear. Slide to the one you need and let go to insert it into the URL.

Create Silent Ringtones

If you’re the type of person who doesn’t like to announce that you’re getting a call, you’d have your iPhone on silent most of the time — I know I do. Sometimes, I do forget to flip the switch and my iPhone starts ringing notoriously in the middle of a lecture. Here’s how you can go one step further and make sure that it never rings — create a silent ringtone.

This is basically an empty AAC file that has been converted into an iPhone ringtone. I’ve made one that’s 20 seconds of pure silence. Download it here and double-click on the file to add it into iTunes. Sync it to your iPhone and enable it — boom, no more noisy ringtones.

Miscellaneous Tips

The rest of these tips may probably be widely known by most iPhone users but I’d like to share them anyway. Even if you think you may know everything there is to know about the iPhone, read on — you may be pleasantly surprised.

• To force-quit an application: OS 3.0 introduced a new way to force-quit applications. Press and hold the Sleep button (on top) until the “Slide to power off” slider appears. Then press the Home button until you reach the Home screen.
• To take a screenshot: Press the Sleep and Home buttons simultaneously. The screen will flash to indicate that a screenshot has been taken and saved in the camera roll.
• Enable Airplane mode while syncing: If a call comes through while your iPhone is syncing, the synchronization will be cancelled and you’ll have to start all over again. Enabling Airplane mode while syncing will prevent calls from interrupting the sync.
• Call timers: Added in OS 3.0, you can now find out how long you’ve been talking. Launch the Phone application, tap on the Recent call list and tap on the blue right arrow next to any contact to view the call length.
• Delete individual messages: In the SMS application, tap on a message thread then the Edit button on the upper right corner. Tap on the circle next to a message to mark it for deletion. When you’re done, press Delete at the bottom.
• Enable the scientific calculator: Launch the Calculator application and rotate it sideways to bring up the scientific calculator.
• Maneuver between home screens: Usually done by swiping left or right across the screen, you can also tap in the area left or right of the home screen indicators.
• Silent/Reject a call: To silent a call, press the Sleep button once. It will continue to ring without any indications (no ringtone, no vibration) until you answer or the caller hangs up. To reject a call, press the Sleep button twice.
• Customized Home shortcut: You can preconfigure double-clicking the Home button to quickly launch the camera, iPod, favorite contacts or Spotlight. Go to Settings -> General -> Home and set what you’d like the Home button to launch.
• Quickly return to the main home screen: If you’re at the 11th home screen, there’s no need to swipe through all the other home screens to get to the main one. Press the Home button to quickly be brought back to the first home screen.
• Caps lock: If enabled in the settings, double-tapping the Shift button will turn it blue, indicating that Caps Lock is turned on. Tap on it again to disable.

As always with these long list of tips, there will always be missing entries. If one of your favorite tips isn’t on this list, please do share them in the comments.

Finally, make sure to download The Underground Guide To The iPhone that we released last month. This concise document full of excellent tricks for the iPhone.

Image credit: Johan Larsson

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One innovation over the last couple of years has been the e-reader, which should solve some of the problems of reading off the computer screen. While these look very promising to me, they’re still in the early stages of adoption and above all, they are still quite expensive. And many of you already carry around a perfectly good e-reader substitute in your pocket, in the form of an iPhone or an iPod Touch. I’ve been using my iPod Touch and I’ll tell you how to read documents such as PDFs or even MS Word documents on your iPhone’s native apps as well as a third party application.

Using your email

The easiest way (and quite usable) to read pdf files on your iPhone is to email yourself the PDF as an attachment. This is simple and you don’t need to install any app to do this. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to organize your emails in folders, so it really is best used for something simple to read. It does have a way to read in landscape mode. It works for MS Word, MS Excel files and most images. The attachments are saved on your device after loading them once so you don’t need a connection the next time you want to read it.

Using Files lite

Files lite is actually the best free app to read documents and PDF files on the iPhone or iPod touch. You create a virtual folder on your computer into which you drag and drop the files you want to read. You can create folders in the application or the virtual folder, so it’s easy to manage a lot of books and articles. I tested this on Windows 7 but it should also work on other version of Windows, Mac and even Linux. I’ll quickly show you how to set it up so you’ll have an idea of how easy it is. The app also comes with a good guide too.

1. Download the app.
2. Setup a network folder using WebDAV. It’s very easy and can be read about in their tutorial.
3. You can setup subfolders in the application or on your computer.
4. Now drag your files to the network folder, make sure that your iPhone is connected to the same Wifi network.

It’s that easy. Now you can carry around your documents and read them wherever you go, without having dying forests on your conscience. And you read it correctly, you don’t need any cables to synchronize the documents. If only iTunes would work that easy when syncing your music!

Alternatives

There are many apps in the App Store that can perform similarly to Files lite, but that you have to pay for. One restriction of Files lite is that you only have 200 MB available to play around with on your iPhone, but that can hold many PDF files. The other apps differ from each other mostly in the way you transfer files, such as over the air, via USB, FTP or downloading from a web address. A good paid app is Good Reader ($0.99) and another is Stanza (free), which is more a complete e-reader which has a PC suite to manage your books and the possibility to download many free e-books.

Do you find reading from your iPhone as comfortable as reading from paper? If you like the e-reader apps, then you don’t really have an excuse to not read your articles and books.

Image credit: nxb

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Well, I’m no doctor but what I do know is that there are tonnes of web apps and tools that you can use to find ways to stay healthy and physically fit. We’ll look at the three main areas of health that affect us in our day to day lives which can be made easier by our web apps; sleep, nutrition and medication for when all else fails!

iSleepDiary

Any doctor will tell you that a good night’s sleep is extremely important. Sleep allows your body to perform at its optimum level whether you’re running a marathon or fighting off a nasty infection.

Basically, in iSleepDiary, you answer ten questions every day about how you slept the previous night. You can see an example in the screenshot where I was asked about how long and how well I slept and about my routines before I went to bed.

All of this is recorded over time and in a few weeks results start to appear as to whether or not you are getting enough sleep and whether you have a sleeping deficiency. This can all be printed out or simply viewed as an easy to read chart in your account.

TwoFoods

Many of us eat food that we think are healthy but in actual fact, they aren’t. This web app will show you the nutritional value in food that we eat every day and it will also compare them to one another. What’s more, it tells you the nutritional value of items without a label such as apples and fresh bread.

In the example above, we compared apple pie and spaghetti. You can see their calorie and other nutritional information displayed below the item. I found this app useful as it raised quite a few warning flags for me. It turns out that spaghetti isn’t healthy if you laze around afterwards! Who knew?

iPills

Everyone, at some point in their lives will be put on medication. It could be antibiotics, anti-depressants, birth control pills (can’t forget that one!) or something more specific to treating an illness. Normally, you’re given strict orders from your doctor to take them at a certain time each day – obviously one of the most important ways to stay healthy is to take your medicine.

iPills is an iPhone app that acts as your virtual pillbox. Instead of simply setting an alarm, your ‘pillbox’ contains all of the pills that need to be taken that day. When you take it, you simply tap the pill (which can be customized to look different to the others) and it goes into the ‘Taken’ box.

Your pills can be set up to re-occur daily, hourly etc. And because it involves almost no interaction other than tapping the pill you just, it’s easy to use and it eliminates the painstaking procedure of organizing it on your iPhone’s generic calendar.

I have selected the three apps above because they all have one thing in common; simplicity. Health issues target everyone, not just web savvy folks like ourselves. Using these apps will get you on your way to being a lean, mean fighting machine. Just remember to eat your apple-a-day!

Which apps do you use to keep yourself healthy and stay in shape?

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Everyone’s different and we have our very own limits — there are just so many hours of work we can do a day until we reach a point when productivity is shot to hell. That’s where these tips come in. They will buy you some personal time. Time to recollect, reorganize your thoughts and re-energize yourself before attempting to take on more work.

Disclaimer: Admittedly, these “tips” are basically lies. White lies, if that makes you feel any better. So, remember that they are for — to buy you some personal time, not to escape working altogether. Use them wisely and don’t get caught. I’ll deny everything.

Tip #1: Reply Emails From Your iPhone

The iPhone has a great (not to mention unmistakeable) default email signature, “Sent from my iPhone.”

Take away the “glamour” of bragging to everyone that you own an iPhone, the signature itself is actually a very convincing statement that you’re on the move and out of your office.

Example:

The boss emails:
Richard, I need you to draft a proposal of Project X by noon today.

You reply:
I’m afraid that’s impossible, I’m with a client until 4pm.

Sent from my iPhone.

If it works out, your boss will have no choice but to accept the fact that you’re currently engaged with a client. Hopefully, the work will be delegated to someone else. Not to mention, the boss will be pleased that you actually took the time to check and reply to the important emails promptly even while you’re with a client.

Other ideas include blaming power failures and computer issues to extend project deadlines.

Example:

Your email to the team/project leader:
Ainsley,

The power suddenly cut while we were working on Project X. We’re relying on generators but it won’t last very long. I’ll send you the final draft as soon as the power returns.

Sent from my iPhone.

Convincing? Let’s hope so. Use your imagination and come up with original excuses. Power cuts and computer issues aren’t going to last forever. And no, you don’t actually need to have an iPhone — sometimes, just adding the signature is enough to fool most people.

Tip #2: Fake A Call

Have you ever been stuck in a dreadfully boring meeting which you have absolutely no involvement in? You don’t need to be there, yet you should to keep up appearances or perhaps formality dictates that you should be present. Precious time is being wasted while work anxiously awaits at your desk. Fake calls are the perfect way to get you out.

Download Fake Caller from Hot Potato [iTunes link] and install it on your iPhone.

Launch the app and tap on Settings. Set the wallpaper to match your existing one, then choose a suitable caller image. Set the caller name to someone credible, choose from the Address Book or set it to “Unknown”. Choose a loud and obnoxious ringtone — I went with Old Phone and blasted that bugger. When you’re done, click on the Back button.

Here’s where a little planning comes in. Decide how long you want to wait until your phone goes off. I suggest setting the time delay to 1 minute so that your colleagues won’t remember that you were playing with your iPhone before it rang. When you’re ready to pull off the fake call, press the button. You’ll be presented with a fake home screen — don’t lock your iPhone or the screen won’t light up when the call comes.

Alright, place your phone somewhere and wait for it to go off. When it does, add some drama, search for it frantically and pretend to be apologetic. When you answer the call, there isn’t anyone on the other end but the call timer does appear. Look around the room as though to say, “Sorry, I have to take this.” Collect your things and leave.

No one will stop you. On the contrary, they’ll be glad that you left so that they may get on with the meeting. Your supervisors wouldn’t ask you why you left — they know you got a call that seemed important. Inform them that you didn’t return because you couldn’t bear interrupting the meeting a second time.

Mission accomplished. You left the meeting. Do it early so that you’ll have more free time for yourself.

Like I mentioned previously, these tips only buy you a some time to take a break. You can’t expect to keep interrupting meetings or postpone project deadlines forever. If you really can’t handle your work load, talk to your supervisor.

How do you get out of boring meetings or slip away when the job is getting on your nerves? I’m sure that there are a lot of great ideas out there, please do share with us!

Image credit: ghindo

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Over the weekend, the modem provided by my ISP packed up. This is my first day being back to normal. However, I did manage to survive without my own internet connection. And no, I didn’t use someone else’s WiFi connection or scurry down to the local Starbucks. In this article I’m going to show you how to use your basic GPRS cell phone as a modem for your PC – and achieve fast speeds from it. I don’t mean a smart phone with 3G or anything of the sort – just any old cell phone from 2004 onwards.

The most basic way of doing this is to use the disc that came with your phone. My Samsung came with software for loading music and files as well as changing the phone’s settings. Look around on your phone’s software. See if you can find anything about ‘Connections’, ‘Network’, ‘Modem’ or ‘Communications’. If you do, there should be detailed instructions on how to use your cell phone as a modem. Mine was easy to set up, I just told it I lived in Ireland and it detected all of the necessary settings for me.

However, what if your phone didn’t come with a CD, or there was nothing on the CD about turning your cell phone into a modem?

First, connect your phone to your PC using the USB cable (if one didn’t come with the phone there are loads for sale on eBay for many different makes and models of phones for low prices). You can also connect it via Bluetooth, however this will cause the final download speeds to be slower. Your computer should recognize that your phone has been connected to it and begin to install the ‘Drivers’. When this has finished, open the start menu and select ‘Connect To’. At the bottom of the window which opens opt to ‘Create a new connection’. Then select ‘Create a Dial-Up Connection’.

The window shown below will be displayed. For the phone number enter in *99# (this is a kind of universal GPRS number that your carrier will redirect). This will tell your phone to access its GPRS function.

For the username and password you’ll have to do some research on the internet. These are easily found by simply Googling ‘GPRS Setting for [Network Name]‘ or ‘Wap Settings for [Network Name]‘. I am on a network called Meteor so we’ll use them as an example for this article.

Username: my

Password: WAP

One you have done this, finish creating the connection. Then, select the connection from the ‘Connect To’ menu. When it asks for the username and password, enter in the ones appropriate for your network. This will then connect you to the internet.

Because mobile phone technology is at its height, you’ll get fast speeds, especially if you’re in the US. I had assumed that it would be slow like GPRS mobile internet it but this is only slow because of the phone’s browser’s limitations. Not the networks.

I easily checked e-mails, surfed the web and submitted work. Don’t get me wrong, you won’t exactly be streaming HD video but it can be handy when your normal internet goes down. I found that loading complex pages such as makeuseof.com took around 10-12 seconds where as simple pages such as my blog or Twitter only took a couple of seconds.

As with all my articles that require the use of GPRS, I advise you to see if your network has unlimited access for a set fee or capped costs per day like mine does as overusing GPRS can be costly.

Have you done this with your phone? If so, what method does your phone use to connect to the net?

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You see, I didn’t tweet from a PC, nor am I the owner of a high-tech iPhone. I am what you could call a “low-tech tweeter”. I own a Samsung Tocco Lite mobile phone which cost me just under 130 Euros – pretty average if I do say so myself. When you dismiss the touch screen, all the other features are basic and it’s a little slow with carrying out tasks. There is no Wi-Fi and no 3G. Yet, I still tweet while on the move with photos, links and status updates.

I would like to demonstrate a few low-tech ways to Twitter from a cell phone.

Firstly, let me say that to tweet from the top deck of a bus, the beach or a mountain all you need is a mobile phone such as the ancient artifact seen here on the right.

Twitter supports SMS tweets. All you have to do is log into your Twitter account and select ‘Settings’ up in the top right-hand corner of you screen. From the list of tabs that appear, select ‘Devices’ and enter your cell phone number. Then, verify your phone by texting the code that appears on your screen to the Twitter phone number beside it. Also, save this number as this is the number you’ll send your tweets to via SMS.

If you live in the US, UK or other major territories then you can toggle whether or not you want to receive tweets from other people to your phone by sending ‘ON’ or ‘OFF’ to that number.

This is all well and good if you’re a basic tweeter but many of us like a little more interactivity. A previous review of mine here on MakeUseOf holds the answer – Snaptu. In summary, Snaptu is an application for basic cell phones that uses GPRS to get you the weather, film reviews, news, sports updates, allows you to use Facebook and more to the point in this case, Twitter.

The Twitter function is highly detailed and better than what you’d expect for a basic cell phone app. You can tweet till the cows come home by selecting ‘Update Status’, scroll down through hundreds of tweets, reply to tweets, follow links in tweets and view people’s profiles. More information on that little gem in my original review here.

But hey, what about pictures? Well, I tried several applications and I can safely say that for basic cell phones they just don’t make the cut so e-mail is your best option.

I actually think this is better than using applications which require you to start them up and take the picture using their bad camera function. With e-mail, you simply snap and send when you wish. I suggest using TwitPic, which Mark recently reviewed. Go to their site and create an account using your Twitter ID.

Then, click ‘Settings’ and use the options there to set up your e-mail function. You’ll be given a unique e-mail address to which you can send your snaps. A sample one might be JoeBloggs.4528@twitpic.com. Also, when you’re sending the e-mail from your phone, use the subject line as your tweet. As you can see from the picture I tweeted above, my subject line was “My train is here! Yay!”. Needless to say, this will also appear in a link and message on your Twitter profile.

You can use the above methods of low-tech tweeting on basically any cell phone that is post-2005. Once it has a camera and GPRS or EDGE, you should be fine. One tip I will give is to watch out for GPRS charges. They can be costly on some networks. My carrier has a cap of 99c per day and many others the world over offer similar packages. Just phone your network to enquire.

So, how do YOU tweet? Are you old-school or high-tech?

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In many regards, blogging is rapidly replacing the traditional personal diary. So powerful is the medium that jobs have been lost and people oppressed in countries such as Iran and China are arrested just for blogging.

But blogging at your PC can be a pain. Sure it was fine a few years ago but now things are much better when condensed into the palm of your hand, ready to tell the world about your love of old films or your hatred of Christmas shopping in October. The iPhone, pretty much epitomizing the smart phone, is a great tool for the blogger when he/she has the right apps.

Below is a list of my favourite blogging apps for the iPhone that I use for my own blogs.

Shozu

This app is what I would call an ‘all-rounder’. The developers have gone around to each blogging cake, removed all the frosting and thrown it together into this sweet little app.

As you can see from the screenshot it supports multiple blogging platforms which many of us bloggers use. These include Google’s ‘Blogger’, along with different social-networking and sharing services such as Flickr and Facebook. Furthermore, you can add similiar services to your list.

While Shozu is primarily targeted at photo and video sharing its blogging capabilities cannot go unnoticed and it’s a must download for any blogger who perhaps likes a touch of photography. It is available for downloaded here.

LifeCast

When this app first came out a good while ago I dismissed it as lacking in many features – you couldn’t even post to a BlogSpot account! However, they have released a good few updates with the most recent one filling the void left by Google’s refusal to develop a BlogSpot app.

Its interface is quite good as you can see from the screenshot and it’s easy to use. The ‘New Post’ function allows you to add images and text at the same time into the one post which is something lacking or ‘buggy’ in a lot of other competitor apps.

The bad part is that it doesn’t get up close and personal with Blogspot itself which would have angered Google – nobody likes people getting up close and personal with their services. As a result, once you make a post you can’t edit or delete it unless you log in on your computer and do so. However, to compensate you can save the post as a draft and decide when to publish it.

LifeCast is available here.

WordPress

Without a doubt this is the most ‘compatible’ of all the apps here, simply because it comes from the most popular blogging platform and software provider; WordPress. You get what you’d expect from this app.

All the shiny features such as adding images, links, changing the text size and font are included. You can have multiple blogs on the go at the same time and you can add as many blogs as you see fit.

However, while this is nice, you can do all of this on the other apps. What makes the WordPress app stand out from the crowd is that you can effectively manage your blog from your iPhone. This includes moderating comments, editing and deleting posts, scheduling and pretty much everything your get in the WordPress admin screen of your blog.  If you have any blog that uses WordPress or you host your own blog and use the WordPress platform then this one is worth a look.

It can be downloaded here.

TypePad

The best way I can describe TypePad is a toned down version of the WordPress app. It’s not for the power user; rather the guy who blogs on his way to work on the bus or relaxing on the couch. No need to worry about managing their blog as though it was a football team before the final.

It’s easy to use. You can view comments and indeed moderate them, but the main function of this app is posting and formatting that post. You can choose which kind of line breaks you want and how to align the text. All other features such as images and links come as standard.

A nice app if you fancy telling the world why you listen to ABBA every morning in the car to work, without having to moderate all the astounded and hateful comments later!

TypePad can be found here.

So there you have it. For all our iPhone users, these apps should put an end to your ‘blog by email’ days once and for all. Enjoy being able to create great looking blog spots when you’re miles away from your PC.

Once quick word of advice however:

While blogging from your iPhone can be easy and seem like the best thing since sliced bread it can really damage your hand. Ever heard of Blackberry thumb? The name comes from people who blogged, e-mailed and transcribed the Old Testament on their phones – the same applies for the touch screen iPhone. You have been warned!

What blogging apps for the iPhone  do you use?   Let us know in the comments.

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Many themes are made to resemble a popular movie, a video game or given good effects such as Neon or X-ray. Other themes will transform your Blackberry into a Windows Mobile lookalike or just create something so weird you just have it keep it.

All that said, it can cost you, these themes. The average theme can cost anywhere between $5-$10 which can get annoying if you like to change things up often. It’s like a sting in the tail; having already paid hundreds of dollars of your hard earned cash just to get the phone, you now have to pay more to make it your own. But I’ve found three sites that will let you download free Blackberry themes that look just as good as any of the other themes that will set you back $8 a pop.

BlackberryThemes

I’ll warn you, this theme site is the most basic of the bunch but you can strike gold here. When you first go to the site, there will be a list of devices across the top. Select whichever device is relevant to you. For the purpose of this demonstration I’ll select Blackberry 8220 Themes.

As you can see in the screenshot, the site sends me to a page with dozens of different themes for my device. Below each theme there is a download link. When I find a theme that I like I simply click that link to download it to my computer.

Then, using the manager that came with your Blackberry, transfer the file onto the device using the USB cord or simply e-mail it to yourself as an attachment. Open the file on the blackberry and follow the instructions to install it. Once it has been installed, restart your Blackberry and your theme will be ready for use.

Blackberrythemes

This website has a similar URL as the last but rest assured it’s a completely different site. This one goes into more detail with their themes and tells you exactly what you’re getting before you download. When you go to the site, select your device from the tag along the top.

You will be brought to a page with free Blackberry themes for your device. Browse through the themes until one takes your fancy. When you click on the theme it gives you more information about the theme as well as several screenshots.

One thing I found odd about this site was that the download link was hard to find. After a minute or two of clicking and searching I discovered that all you have to do it scroll right down to the bottom of the page, past the Google advertisements and you’ll see the link (pictured).

Use the same method as above to transfer the downloaded file onto your Blackberry and to install it.

CrackBerry

CrackBerry is aptly named as it is “the number 1 site for Blackberry Users (and abusers!)”. This is my favourite with the only downside being that it requires you to sign up (their reasoning in this will become clear in a few minutes).

Just go to the site (make sure you visit crackberry.com/free-themes/) and click ‘Register’ up in the top right hand corner.

Once you have completed your registration and you have logged in, begin your free Blackberry theme search. This site also offers apps and tools for your Blackberry but seeing as this article is about themes we shall focus on them solely (although the process is the same for all downloadable content here). When you have found the theme of your dreams, click onto its page.

You will see information and screenshots of the theme. If you’re still impressed, click the ‘e-mail me the download link’ button. This is why they wanted you to register.

Using your Blackberry, retrieve the e-mail and follow the download link. Accept the file and the download will begin. Once it has been completed (it only takes a few seconds) install it by following the on-screen instructions and restart your Blackberry. Once again, the theme is ready to transform the look of your Blackberry.

Tip: If you’re using another site (which undoubtedly users will post links to below) just be careful that what you’re downloading is from a reputable site and make sure you scan all incoming files with an anti-virus package.

So please let us know if you get your Blackberry themes from elsewhere and if so, let us know the links!

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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The only downside with this is that you have to be sitting in front of a computer, unless of course you have one of those hi-tech phones with internet capabilities.

So where are these free SMS services hiding? We’ll expose them now. Here are 10 great sites to send free text messages to cell phones (SMS).

Yakedi

If you are anywhere but in Australia, unfortunately this service will not work for you. But if you are, Yakedi is absolutely the BEST free site to send SMS messages to Australian and New Zealand users. I have been using this site for years now. When I first joined, they offered unlimited free SMS messages. Unfortunately, they reduced it down to 10, now it is a steady 3 per day.

Pros

• You get the full 160 character for each SMS you send
• The messages come from your phone number and not someone else’s
• You have a contact list so you can select contacts
• Their is no advertisements in SMS messages. However, you do have the otion to include advertisements in your messages
• Since I have been using this service, they have not sent spam to my mobile phone, or to the people I send the text messages to
• The website has a nice, clean, professional design
• Ads are chosen based on surveys of your interest, so you know the ads are targeted towards you
• Ads are from known corporations (could be a pro or a con)
• All messages are kept in your message log so you can keep track of what you have sent (and how much money you have saved)
• You have the ability to earn more free text messages through competitions and email promotions
• You can change your mobile number anytime
• SMS messages take roughly 5 seconds to receive

Cons

• This service can only send SMS messages to Australian and New Zealand numbers
• By default, you can only send 3 SMS messages per day, unless you have won more from promotions
• They are starting to introduce email promotion = a little bit of spam in your inbox (1-2 a month)
• There is a four step process to send your SMS. (1. Send SMS, 2. select recipient, 3. Write text message, 4. Confirm message)

Final Say

If you live in Australia and New Zealand, this is the best site for you to send free text messages to cell phones on a daily basis.

GizmoSMS

The good thing about GizmoSMS is that you can send free text messages to any number world-wide. You do not even have to sign up or have a mobile phone number. It is just a web-based form. But without signing up, the mobile number it is from will not be yours and you only get 80 characters.

GizmoSMS is great if you want to send a message or a note to someone who may be overseas. It is quick and easy. If you want a bit more features, you should have a look at Gizmo5 SMS.

SMS Pup

A friend referred me to this program, however, it is not as good as Yakedi as you will see why in the pros and cons.

Pros

• Contains an phone book
• Messages come from your number
• SMS messages take roughly 5 seconds to receive
• Contains a number of other services
• You can schedule your SMS messages
• Provides a number of ways to send free text messages to cell phones such as through the web, email and allows you to turn English text into SMS slang

Con’s

• You have to do a one minute survey before you can start using the service, which gives you 5 free sms messages
• SMS may contain ads
• If your email has a ‘.’ in it, it won’t allow you to sign up
• You only get 136 characters, which means the rest are advertisements (Free sms message by SMSPup.com)
• Unless you want your email inbox to increase, with surveys and advertisments, don’t sign up with an email address you regularly use.

Final Say

Unless you want to do surveys all the time, SPSPup is OK. It still can’t beat Yakedi.

SMSFun

SMSFun not only allows you to send free SMS messages but you also join part of a community. You have access to forums, User Profiles and Useful Tools such as number lookups.

Pros

• You can send SMS messages from email
• Allows you to look up premium numbers to see what they are
• A community based service, which allows profiles
• Has premium SMS services
• If you need more SMS messages, you can upgrade to a Gold Subscription for $2 per week which allows you access to more features on the website

Con’s

• A lot of ads, and a few raunchy user pictures
• Signup process is a bit lengthy
• Have to earn free SMS messages
• You may want to stay away from Premium SMS services that SMSFun offers

Final Say

If you just want to send free SMS messages without all the other features that SMS fun offers, then I would go with Yakedi or SMSPup. Nevertheless, if you want to join part of a community, fill out surveys and earn free text messages that way, you can’t go past this website.

Text4Free

Text4Free allows you to send free SMS messages to most countries world-wide. The only downside is that you may have to know your recipient’s cell phone provider, otherwise recipients may be charged.

A Few Others

Web2msg – You do not need to register and you get 140 characters. This service is only for Australian users,  but it is a quick and free way to send a free text message to a mate.

SendSMSNow – You can send a free SMS to selected countries only. Registration is now free.

FreebieSMS – You need to register your number and your friends number and email address to be able to send a free SMS message.

Mobik – I have not had any experience with them.   Maybe you have and you can tell us a bit about them?

Clickatell

If you want to set up your own SMS website service, then you should have a look at Clickatell. They allow you to develop and integrate your own SMS service on your website. If that is not your thing, you can download a desktop application to send cheap SMS messages world-wide.

If you want to send cheap SMS messages using your computer, it is best to use Clickatell. Any problems, just send them an email, as they have 24/7 online help.

A word of caution

As with any website, please read their terms and conditions, and Privacy Policy before entering any personal information. Remember that these sites make their money by advertisements and possibly selling your personal information to third parties. What I suggest is to buy a $2 SIM card to try them out first, just in case they do spam your mobile number, or steal some credit. When testing these services, I have not had these issues yet.

So make sure you read these pages first before using these services:

Yakedi : T&C, Privacy Policy

SMSPup: T&C, Privacy Policy

SMS Fun: T&C, Privacy Policy

Do you use a website to send free text messages to cell phones? If you do, please share in the comments. If you have used such a service, and it has been a scam, please also let us know and our readers.

Image Credit : Sifter

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Snaptu is the most recent of these discoveries. I actually found this application for my cell phone by chance while doing another article for MUO about getting Google Maps on your cell phone. Snaptu is a free pocket PC iPhone theme that’s available for download from the same website, GetJar.

I would describe it as a mini iPhone on your mobile phone. You can Tweet, get movie reviews, news updates, weather reports for the next three days, use Facebook and loads more all from one attractive home screen.

After going to the download site, enter in your phone’s make and model and you will be presented with two download options.

The first method is to download the application directly to your PC and send it to your phone via the USB cable that came with the phone just as you would with music and videos.

The second is to note the ‘Download Key’ underneath method one. Go to m.getjar.com on your phone’s browser and scroll right down to the end of the page. Select ‘Enter Download Key’. Once you have done so the download will begin and should last less than thirty seconds.

Open up the application from your phone’s ‘Application’ menu. It will initialize and start up for the first time so give it a few minutes. When this is done you’ll be greeted by an eye-pleasing iPhone theme which is similar to the sleekness of an actual iPhone’s.

The main icons you’ll see are FaceBook, TV Guide, Weather, Twitter and News. There are loads of others depending on what region you’re in such as the NY Times, Guardian newspaper or London Underground Status reports.

To add or remove certain icons click ‘Menu’ and then ‘Add or Remove’. Other options here include updating to the most recent version (if you have just downloaded it then you have it) and ‘Help’ which should clear up any problems (although I can’t see anyone having much difficulty as its extremely easy to use).

Twitter on Snaptu is great and is the part I use the most. You sign in for the first time and after that it will remember you automatically. Your tweets, and those of the people you follow appear in chronological order with profile pictures and good colors as backgrounds. At the top of the screen you can select ‘Update Status’ to tweet and you can also check your messages. If you click on a tweet you’re given options such as ‘View Profile’, ‘Delete’ and to follow a link (such as a picture or news story) should there be one in the tweet.

The weather function is pretty cool too. You tell it your city the first time using it and it gives you the predicted weather for the next few days for both day and night. The illustrations for different weather variants are good too along with the tidiness of it all. Very sharp and condensed.

I especially like the news function. You can select from literally hundreds of small and big sites to keep you updated. I live in Ireland which isn’t exactly a news hotspot that developers would include but Snaptu have gone and done it anyway with several websites for the island.

Furthermore, Snaptu gives you a summary of a current story. If you want to read the whole article you simply click and it open your phone’s browser to get the full details. There is also a Reuters function which will keep you updated with quick headlines from the popular news source. These are tied in with the Twitter function in the app as at the end of each news page there is a button allowing you to Tweet it.

There’s several other functions which are self explanatory such as Picasa for viewing photos, BBC news reader, London Pub Reviews and Live Sport Updates, all of which look brilliant and give you good info that you actually want on the train to work; not long winded dribble that will take half a light year to load.

Finally, as I warned users in my Google Maps for cell phones article I shall warn you guys – GPRS charges will apply if you’re using Snaptu on a phone without 3G or WiFi. Unless your service provider has an offer such as 99c per day then free after that (which many are starting to do now. Give them a call to find out) then you’ll have to keep an eye on how much you use Snaptu. There is no direct charge for downloading or using Snaptu however.

Check out Snaptu in action:

Do you use Snaptu or any other free iPhone themes on your Pocket PC or cell phone? If so, what do you think about it? Do you know of any free alternatives?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Luckily, if you have a Windows Mobile device and you’ve signed up for an unlimited data plan through your cellular provider, then you’ve got an excellent option to set up your laptop wireless Internet access through your cellphone from anywhere you have a cellular connection.

James recently reviewed a cool app called JoikuSpot Light, which transforms your mobile phone into an Wi-Fi hot-spot. Without a doubt, JoikuSpot is probably the best solution. However, if you aren’t able to get JoikuSpot working on your device and there are no other similar options available, you may find yourself pulling out your USB cable and trying to remember how you configured your Cellphone to serve as an Internet modem for your laptop. In this article, I’m going to offer Windows Mobile users an easy step by step guide that you can refer to any time you need to configure laptop wireless Internet access through your cellphone.

The following procedure is grouped into three steps. First, setting up the laptop and the cellphone for Internet sharing, rather than connecting via an application like ActiveSync. Second, configuring both the laptop and the cellphone for the Internet connection, and finally, initializing the connection. Once you’ve completed steps 1 and 2, you’ll never have to do them again. The next time you want to access the Internet with your cellphone you simply “redial,” and you’re online. This particular setup is based on the HTC manufactured series of windows mobile devices. In my case I still use the now-ancient HTC Cingular 8125, however these steps work for the later models (and most Windows Mobile devices will also be similar).

Step 1: Getting Things Ready

The first thing that you need to do before you can establish a laptop/modem connection is to kill the current application that’s handling communications between your laptop and cellphone. In my case, I’m running ActiveSync, so I kill that process using the Task Manager.

For ActiveSync, you just find wcescomm.exe and kill the process. If you’re particular Windows Mobile device uses another application, you’ll need to find the process name and make sure that you kill it. Secondly, you’ll need to also shut down the communications software on your phone. In the case of ActiveSync, in Windows Mobile you go to Start -> Settings -> System -> Memory -> Running Programs, and then if ActiveSync is listed you’ll need to stop the process.

Once you’ve stopped the communications software on both the laptop and Windows Mobile phone, you’re ready to establish the connection between the laptop and phone as an Internet modem.

Step 2: Connecting The Cellphone As a Modem

The only real configuration required in Windows Mobile in order to set up your device as an Internet modem is to enable the “Modem Link.” The Modem Link configuration can be found by going to Start -> Programs.

Once you’re inside the Modem Link configuration, just change the Connection setting to USB. It’s likely that your other settings are already configured, however if they are not just make sure that the Access point name has the name of the connection you configured on your mobile device for Internet access. When everything looks good, click “Activate” at the bottom, and the “Status” at the top should change to “Active.”

If your device is already connected to your laptop, you’ll get the “Found New Hardware” wizard pop-up immediately. If you’re not yet plugged in, then now’s the time to do it.

Just make sure that you select to install from a specific location so that you’ll have the option to manually select your driver file. Click next.

On the next screen, you’ll click the browse button and go to the folder where the driver file is located. In my particular case with the Cingular 8125, and for most HTC mobile devices, you’ll need the USBMDM.INF driver file as well as the HTC USB Modem Dialer application. Both are offered as a free download from xda-developers.com. Download the zip file and put them wherever you’ll remember. Then in the Windows Wizard screen above, browse to the directory where you extracted the INF file. If your Windows Mobile device is non-HTC, check with the manufacturer for a USB modem driver for your device.

The Wizard will recognize the device. Depending on your particular device and the version of the driver, you may see the error message above. Just click “Continue Anyway.”

Finally, the driver’s installed and you’re ready to start using your new Mobile USB Modem anytime you want to, and anywhere you have a cellular signal!

Step 3: Initializing the Internet Connection

To establish your new mobile Internet connection using your laptop, run the executable that you downloaded from the link above. Regardless of your device or your cellular carrier, you’ll typically always need to enter a User Name and Password. You can access that information (if you don’t already know it from setting up Internet use on your mobile device) by contacting your cellular provider and asking for the User Name and Password to use with your Internet data plan.

Enter those details into the USB modem dialer, and after a few moments it’ll inform you that you’re now connected. Yes, that means that at this moment, even while you’re sitting in the middle of the lake with a fishing pole in one hand, your laptop is now connected to the Internet via your cellphone signal. It may not be lightning fast – but when you’re desperate to submit your latest article (or check on your team’s latest game results), sometimes such a connection is all you need.

Have you ever configured your laptop with an Internet connection through your cellphone? What configuration or software tools did you use to accomplish the task? Share your insight in the comments section below.

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Say I want to install Google Mobile Maps on this phone. Many people would laugh saying you’d need a smart phone or a PDA to do so. However, I do in fact have Google Maps on my phone that works very fast to give me maps and satellite images of anywhere in the world along with directions, traffic flow alerts and the ability to add my own favourites.

To get Google Mobile Maps on your cell phone, first simply go to Get Jar. This is a website that has thousands of applications for cell phones. To go straight to the page with Google Maps for mobiles, click here.

You’ll be shown information about the app, how many people have downloaded it and the different download methods open to you. Select what device you have and then continue.

You can both download the file onto your computer and then send it to your phone via USB cable or Bluetooth, or you can do what I did; get it on the WAP site. To do this,  note the download key (normally five or six numbers) in the file description.  Go to m.getjar.com on your mobile’s browser. This is normally under icons such as ‘Web’ or ‘Network’ in your phone’s menu. Scroll right down to the end of their homepage and select ‘Enter download Key’. Put in the download key you got off their website and then download the file. This should only take a few seconds as it’s just a few hundred kb. It’s 100% free to download.

Once you have the application downloaded, open it up from your phone’s application menu. It should initialize and start itself up. The first map that will appear will most likely not be anywhere near your home. However, it will be highly detailed, in great color and with excellent resolution. This is what you can expect from any area of the worldwide map.

Press the ‘Menu’ button on your phone and select ‘Search Map’. Enter in your town or city. It should load in a few seconds. When you have a bird’s eye view of your area, key in a destination or address and Google Mobile Maps will be able to find it, just like in the web based version.

If you need directions from A to B, simply open the menu as before and select ‘get directions’. For both your start and finishing point you can either enter an address or select the point on the map. Once you enter these in and hit ‘Get Directions’ a list of turns and routes will display on the screen which will lead you to your destination.

There are three travel modes, ‘Driving’, ‘Transit’ and ‘Walking’. Each one will give you different routes for the job (well you can hardly walk on the highway!).

To save an area as a favourite just select the pinpointed area on the map and select ‘Save as favourite’. If you want the Google Earth experience (i.e. a satellite picture), open the menu and select ‘Satellite’. This gives you a crisp image of the area you were viewing on the map.

Remember, all of this can be done on a basic cell phone, even those that are a few years old. One thing to watch out for is the operator charges. They can be costly. Each map screen is around 100kb and many operators would charge 1c per kb. I suggest looking for cheap network charges such as mine where mobile internet is free after 99c per day.

Below is a list of the keypad controls for Google Maps Mobile:

Press 1 to zoom out

Press 2 to get a satellite View

Press 3 to zoom in

Press 7 for traffic Info (Only works in major cities)

Press * for favourites

This is a great app that could be vital in an emergency. How many people get lost every day in cities and rural areas and wish they had something like this?

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

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Within just a few years of the advent of Voice-Over-Internet-Protocol, Skype emerged as a leader in the industry. The reason Skype became the leader was because, at least in the U.S., you could install Skype on your Internet-connected home PC and make completely free phone calls to any phone number in the U.S.

Today, the structure of the VoIP industry has evolved to meet the demands of increased infrastructure costs to support such a large VoIP user base, as well as to compete with the frightened but savvy telecommunications industry. In addition to becoming public enemy number one in the eyes of the big telecom companies, Skype also finds itself faced with a plethora of VoIP competitors. Today, we’re going to focus on one particular competitor – the emergence of an application called Gizmo. The following head-to-head VoIP review compares the features and costs of Skype Vs. Gizmo so that you can decide if Gizmo might be worth a try.

A Skype Vs. Gizmo Comparison Reveals Features and Flaws of Both

If you’ve used Skype, then understanding Gizmo is easy because it’s practically a perfect clone. In a few areas, the application is a bit too much like Skype, to be quite honest. With that said, there are some benefits to Gizmo that deserve mentioning, so this Skype vs. Gizmo feature will lay out those features side-by-side with Skype. At the end, we’ll review whether or not Gizmo has a chance of outpacing Skype in capturing VoIP customers.

This particular review is focused on the PC-based application, but it should be noted that each service, both Skype and Gizmo, offers a very useful application for your mobile phone that can save a great deal of money in both calling minutes and text messaging.

The first, basic part of any application to consider is the main page. In this respect, Gizmo has figured out how to make the navigation and control of the communication software much more clean and straightforward compared to Skype. In Skype, I’ve often spent a fair amount of time trying to remember how to get to the dialing pad or how to view message history.

In Gizmo, every major feature is clearly outlined in a tabular format at the top, and the most common actions, such as sending a text message to mobile users, adding a contact, or sending a message to other IM users, are clearly identified as large icons at the bottom.

Basic Features – Dialing Landlines and Adding Contacts

For the most part, if you do a Skype vs. Gizmo comparison on the dialing feature alone, they almost come neck and neck. Skype’s dialpad is a bit more aesthetically pleasing with blue stylized buttons with large white numbers on the keypad. Gizmo, on the other hand, features a somewhat boring, standard gray keypad with black letters.

But what it lacks in style, it makes up for with functionality by adding the ability to send various sound effects during your phone call. If you can picture how your friend would react when you click on the “BOO” button after they say something you disagree with, I’m sure you can imagine how funny some of these would be.

When it comes to adding a contact, Gizmo scores a point over Skype. As you can see below, Skype allows you to add other Skype users to your contact list. The one other IM app that Skype is integrated with is MySpaceIM. On the other hand, Gizmo offers users the ability to add contacts from GoogleTalk, Jabber, MSN, AIM and other major IM networks.

The one thing any communications company should understand is that not all users are every going to be using the same applications, and expecting everyone to adopt your application isn’t realistic. Interoperability is a key element to success.

Advanced Features – Sending/Receiving SMS and Voice Conferencing

Once you start getting into the more advanced features, you’re more likely to discover fees or you may need to purchase the “pro” version of the application for it to work. Comparing Skype versus Gizmo on these terms reveals that in both cases the applications offer some very cool and useful features – but if you want it to work you’re going to need to be willing to pay some small fees of one form or another.

One of the most valuable features that I’ve found all of these VoIP applications have been adding over the past few years is the ability to send text messages to mobile users. While this is a feature that’s just sort of “neat” when you’re using it as a desktop application, when you consider that these applications have a mobile version, the value becomes much more clear. You can even disable text messaging on your mobile plan, and just use your Internet connection to send and receive SMS. Both services, Gizmo and Skype, offer this feature.

Another valuable feature is the ability to set up conference calls. In both cases, Skype and Gizmo allow this feature for free among their own users, but if you want to have a landline conference call, expect to pay for it in some way – either through the landline pricing or a fixed fee.

Conferences are easier to set up in Skype, where you simply add users or phone numbers (who you call out to first). In Gizmo you need to go through setting up a conference call number that everyone can connection to. This is an extra step in Gizmo, but it does create the convenience of everyone having a central number to call in to.

Another interesting and valuable option for both Gizmo and Skype is the option to have a voicemail box. In the case of Skype, the voicemail feature isn’t available unless you pay for the upgrade to Skype Pro. For Gizmo, the voicemail feature doesn’t make it clear whether there are any charges or fees applied, however the feature itself does appear enabled in the free version of the software.

Advanced Options and Configuration

Finally, each application has a whole series of screens where you can configure your PC audio and microphone settings, videocam options and all of the other specific features of the software.

This is the one area of the Gizmo software that really raised my eyebrows. If you look closely, you can see how Gizmo developers apparently just reverse-engineered the options menus and screens from Skype. This section of the Gizmo software makes it painfully obvious that, at least in this area, Gizmo is very much a clone of Skype’s application. With that said, the additional features that Gizmo offers beyond the Skype features make up for this – but not by much.

Ultimately, my own summation of this Skype vs. Gizmo comparison is that Gizmo simply does not offer enough additional free features or services to effectively compete with Skype.

Have you ever used any VoIP software other than Skype? Which ones are your favorites? Share your own opinion in the comments area below.

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Basically, there are a bunch of iPhone keypad codes that you can type in and get back certain information about the your mobile carrier, phone and billing details.

To use any one of these codes, open your iPhone’s “phone app” and make sure that the keypad button is selected in the bottom menu. Then, type in the code from the list below and press call.

iPhone Codes: Network & Phone Information

*3001#12345#*- Opens up the “Field Test” settings on your iPhone, which allows you to see many, many advanced network settings on your phone including cell site information and more.

*#06# – Displays your iPhone’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number (this code also works on many other phones).

*#21# – Displays any call forwarding settings enabled on your iPhone.

*#43# – Shows you if call waiting for various parts of your phone are either enabled or disabled.

*#30# – Shows you if you have the call presentation (to see who is calling you) setting enabled or disabled.

*#33# – Displays call barring settings for your iPhone, and weather they are enabled or disabled.

iPhone Codes: Carrier & Billing Information

*646# -View available minutes on your AT&T plan (*min#).

*777#- View available minutes on your AT&T pre-paid plan (if you get the “Account Not Found” error, you do not have a pre-paid account and you should try the code just above this one for postpaid accounts).

*3282# - View wireless data usage statistics (also *data#).

*225# – Check the bill balance on your AT&T account (also *bll#).

*729 – Makes a call to AT&T to pay your wireless bill.

Do you have any other iPhone keypad codes / shortcuts to share? Let us know in the comments and also be sure to check out other MakeUseOf iPhone articles here.

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Who knew that your career would end to the song you moonwalked to at your junior high dance?

How about getting a ringtone that actually sounds like a real phone? Remember those Bakelite behemoth’s that used to hang on the kitchen wall or the rotary that sat in your dad’s den? Ahh, those were the good old days – when the Weather Channel was known as a window and a leaf blower was known as a rake.

With a good, “real phone” ringtone, you’ll probably find that you don’t get as many strange looks when that electronic ball and chain goes off in public. People are still used to the ordinary phone ring and find it less offensive than hearing about your humps, your humps, your lovely lady humps.

Here’s some of the best free, “real phone” ringtones I could find online. Most of them were found through forums where people said they made the recordings themselves. I presume since they put them on the forums, they are free and royalty free.

Universal Phone Ring -

This one should sound familiar to almost everyone as it is the phone ring used most often in old movies and TV shows. Thanks to Hollywood Lost and Found for this one.

Black Rotary Phone Ring -

Sounds just like the one that your dad might have had in his office, doesn’t it? Those were the days.

Candlestick Phone Ring -

Ever seen those old phones where the earpiece hung on the main phone that looked like a candlestick? This is the ring from one of those.

French Rotary Phone -

Looking for that certain je ne sais quoi? This one is the ticket. C’est bon!

Classic British Phone -

I like the distinctive double-ring of the UK phones. Reminds me of old episodes of Coronation Street.

Higher Tone UK Phone -

Here’s the same kind of UK ring, but with a little higher pitch.

Now for some famous classic phone rings…

Maxwell Smart’s Shoe Phone Tone -

This is the ring that Agent 86’s shoe phone made.  Yes, there was a TV show of Get Smart before the not-so-good movie.

Our Man Flint/Austin Powers Phone Ring -

This one is my favourite! It seems not many people under 40 know that the phone ring from Austin Powers was taken from the Our Man Flint movie, starring James Coburn. It was also a sort of spy-spoof movie.

Counter Terrorist Unit on 24 Phone Ring -

Apparently this is the ring tone from Jack Bauer’s CTU unit on 24. Honestly, I’ve never made it through a full episode of this show, but the ringtone is pretty cool.

If what we have here doesn’t fill your boots, there is one other really good source for classic real phone ringtones that I found over at BeepZoid’s Vintage Phone Ringtones. With over 60 different ringtones in MIDI, MP3 and iPhone formats, there’s a good chance you’ll find what your looking for.

What do you think of “real phone” ringtones versus all the clips and top 40 stuff out there? Got a favourite ringtone to share with us? Drop us a line in the comments below. I’ll have my people call your people.

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