Cell Phone Tips and Techniques

scanR

Turn your camera phone into a scanner, copier, and fax. Scan, copy and fax with your camera phone or digital camera with scanR.

Qipit

Get Qipit who call themselves a free mobile online copy service. They convert things to PDF files you can email or FAX from your phone. Pretty cool idea if you ask me.

foonz : Call a group!

foonz lets you call a group of people or leave them all a message from your cell phone. foonz invites people to join your call by texting their cell phones. A group can be any size and all of this is free! With foonz you can get a group of people on a call instantly or leave them all a message from your cell or home phone, anytime, without pre-planning.

ICE: In Case of Emergency

I lost my cell phone recently flying out of SeaTac airport. Imagine my surprise when my kids emailed me to say that someone at the airport had found it and called them. How? I have an ICE entry in my address book. ICE was conceived by British paramedic Bob Brotchie in April 2005 as a way for emergency workers to determine who to call when someone is unable tell them. Simple create an entry named "ICE" in your phone's address book that lists who you want contacted. List more than one person designated as ICE1, ICE2, ICE3, etc. It's so simple, why not do it?

311 (instead of 911)

311 is a special telephone number in many communities in Canada and the United States that provides quick, easy-to-remember access to non-emergency municipal services or a Citizen Service Center. Dialing this number allows city residents in certain cities to obtain important non-emergency services through a central, all-purpose phone number quickly and effectively. 311 is available in several major American cities, including: Akron, Albuquerque, Austin, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Detroit, Hartford, Houston, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Mobile, New York City, Rochester, Orlando, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, San Francisco, San Jose, Somerville, and Washington, D.C.

IMEI number

Type *#06# into your cell phone and it will display your phone's 15-digit IMEI number. Write the IMEI number down so you can give it to your provider if your phone is lost or stolen. Even if a thief changes the phone's SIM card, your phone can be disabled by the carrier.

Cell phone as baby monitor

How to create a baby monitor with a cell phone. Not that this sounds like particularly good parenting to me.

Cell phones for car surveillance

Using a cell phone for smart (sic) car surveillance. This isn't something that interests me but you may find it engaging.

Cell phones help me remember

I use the camera in my cell phone as digital ink. A pocket polaroid. To capture the cover of a book so I can search for it online later. Why reach for paper and pencil? To record an address or landmark I want to search using Google Maps and/or Google Earth. To remember the exact name of a pepper or tropical fruit I buy on a whim in the store. Something that's new to me. Using that always with me camera as a memory aid or snapshot of what I want to recall and act on later. Quick & easy.