Cell Phone Tips & Tricks

Making phone calls? Is that all?? There's so much more your cell phone can do. Let's begin by agreeing that a cell phone is not just a phone without wires. It's a whole different ball game.

Before you do anything else, make sure you've protected yourself before your phone gets stolen. Now is the time to do something about it, not after the proverbial horse has been stolen.

MobileActive

A resource for activists using mobile technology worldwide. The time is right for mobile activism; there are 3 billion cell phones worldwide. Mobile phones have been used to mobilize hundreds of thousands of peaceful demonstrators in countries across the world with text messages and brilliant political ringtones.

TXTmob

TXTmob lets you quickly and easily share txt messages with friends, comrades, and total strangers. Think of it as an email b-board system. Sign up to send and receive messages from various groups, which are organized around a range of different topics. Hacktivism lives!

How to Become an Eco Bounty Hunter

It seems so easy: recycle your old cell phones. Them sitting in a drawer somewhere is only slightly better than tossing them in the trash.

Grand Central: One Phone Number For Life

Google is offering us one phone number for life that rings all your phones and more. "How much more?" Read the feature list. Sounds impressive and it's Google! If anyone has the backend to pull of something like this, it's our favorite server farmers.

They're also linked up with the Gizmo Project, adding even more to the mix.

MegaPhone: gaming on your cell phone

You like to play games. You like your cell phone. Advertisers want your soul. Get where I'm going? Yep, the signs beckon you to play with your phone. That's MegaPhone's vision.

Spoken Buzz: Free Calls, Click-to-Call for websites, emails, etc.

Spoken Buzz lets you control who calls you, when, and how. Call them back and they still don't get your real number. Perfect for small businesses, online dating, blogs, or hundreds of other situations.

Trapser: have cell phone, no speeding tickets

With Trapster you'll know where speed traps are and you'll help others avoid them too. Dodging radar meets social networking via mobile phones. The best part is that the more people who use it, the better it gets. Paul Revere meets cell phones.

Vumber: the "spam catcher" for real life

Vumber is a number linked to your home, cell, or work phone. It allows you to "hide" behind a virtual number (vumber, get it?). Sounds like what women having been giving guys they didn't want to hear from for years. Now it's a web business model!

Flypaper: stories that stick

Flypaper claims to be the easiest way to create, edit and share Flash-quality content for live presentations or over the web. Free (like everything these days). They offer templates and hosting too.

Amphibian: cell phones + voicemail

Use Amphibian to manage your mobile voicemail like email, turn your voicemail into text, and make mobile calls from any browser or web page.

Jott: cell phones replace scraps of paper

Cell phones. How do we get along before them? In support of your continuing efforts to squeeze as much outta your cellie as you can, read these cell phone tips.

Another new cell phone-based service that tries to solve an analog problem with a digital solution, Jott came to my attention because they seem to have occupied my old office at ActivSpace The Zoo. Could be a cool idea. I just may give it a try.

TeleFlip: just the emails you want, sent as text messages

Now TeleFlip lets you get only the emails you want on your cell phone without any additional charge. You pay only for text messages through your carrier. You choose whose emails you receive, and you can turn the service on or off anytime you want.

Jangl: email meets cell phones

New and still in beta (who isn't these days) Jangl sounds like it could fill a gap for some. They marry cell phones to email in a unique way. May be of interest to those who make international calls but don't want to pay cell carriers' international rates.

ShoZu: make your world mobile

At first glance ShoZu seems to make your phone do everything: upload photos, download feeds, geotag photos and videos, etc., etc. Almost too good to be true. ShoZu lets you interact with Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Friendster, Picassa, Blogger, LiveJournal, and more. They even let you FTP from your phone. When I have some time to kill I'm going to play with ShoZu!