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Your dear old cell phone can be and probably is capable of many new things but it's just that you aren't aware of it. These features or capabilities will help discover your cell phones inner PC.

How to Make Calls by SMS

How to Take Notes via Your Camera Phone

I don't have a camera phone so I personally can't take advantage of this feature but my dad does and he is skeptical, well because he's old. How this works is you take a picture of your notes you made by yourself, your boss, or from a printed document. You then send it to the service, Qipit, the email is copy@qipit.com for black and white images and color@qipit.com for colour images. Before sending the image though you need to register with the service, providing your name, country, email adress, cell number, phone model, and service provider. The only cost you pay, is the cost of the MMS (multimedia message) and this service can only support images taken by a 1.3 megapixel camera that is a JPEG.

Google Without a Browser

Most phones that people own don't have a browser so when we forget where a place is, we can't Google it and find the address and phone number. Well now we can! It didn't work on my phone presumably because my service providor sucks but phones in the US and elsewhere will definitly be able to grasp this piece of technology. The text message! Simply text Googl (46645) and type in anything in the message area you would normally type on Google that would get one answer like: define, listing of business or residence, or conversions. Google will then process it and within a minute Google will have replied with an answer.

Send Voicemail Messages via SMS

Before reading on, you must know that you need to be a US resident to use this service. At first I thought it was complicated with sending this and that but now I believe I get it. Correct me please if I am wrong but this is how it works. First you sign up for the service and link your cell phone with it. There are 2 things you can do with this service, you can leave group voicemails (voicemails for a lot of people that are identical) and send voicemail like a text message on your cell phone. Learn much more at Pinger.

Call 411 For FREE!

The cost to call 411 is pretty expensive if you ask me so I was extremely glad to hear about a new way to call 411 for free. Here's how it goes. All you do is call 1 800 FREE 411. The only catch is you have to listen to a short advertisement but other than that it works exactly like the regular 411 with an automated voice to guide you to get the information you need.

Connect With Multiple Friends via SMS

A lot of the tricks I describe here are SMS based as it is a cheap way to connect and this one is no exception. It sadly again only works 22 US cities so me and my other Canadian pals won't be able to utilize this service. Go to Dodgeball and sign up for the service. This site allows you to connect with your social network via SMS by broadcasting your location to friends via the service and then to your all your friends cell phones. For example, say your at this festival and you find it really good, send one text message to the service astating where you are nd it does the rest which is send text messages to all your friends telling them your location and as well it sends a text message to friends of your friends who are within a 10 block radius.You can also use it as a Google search engine to find venues and locations.

Now I personally can't use this information because I don't have a web browser. This information is only for people who have cell phones that have a WAP 2.0 browser and the information is about making the web more usable in a small screen.

Web & Mobile Portals

This is a simple tip and most of you probably know it. When typing in an address on your mobile phone, try and put in mobile instead of "www". Although the majority of sites don't support it, like mine, most major news sites like Yahoo, and The New York Times have a mobile version of their website. Yahoo just announced Yahoo Go 2.0 which has a user friendly interface for mobile users. (mobile.yahoo.com)

Get My Blog on Your Phone

Hey, I thought you just said that my blog wasn't supported on a small phone size. We'll now it is. Instead of using the tip above, although it is much better if they have it available, is to go to PhoneFeeds and enter the name of the blog you wish to view on your phone for later use. The site then processes that and gives you the URL in which to view that blog on your phone in a smaller screen format for easier viewing.

WINDOWS MOBILE PHONE USERS ONLY

This tip only works with Windows Mobile Phone Users, but it is useful if you like the tip. There are sites out there like SharpCast which allow you to sync photos, documents, contacts, and more from your phone, to the computer, and Web. The amazing thing about this service is that once you bring over say a photo from your phone and edit it on your computer, the new updated photo will be on your phone too! Other sites that offer this are CoolMarks and Saki. Note: Other services like these might be able to work on your phone if it isn't a Windows Mobile Phone.

Archos has a line of Portable Video Players that end in 04 and the newest addition to that lineup is the Archos 704 wifi. It's predecessor the Archos 604 wifi with a 30GB hard drive and 4.3 inch touch screen was the first of it's kind in the fall of last year and acted liked a media capable PDA unlike the wifi capable media players today that focus on using that technology for acquiring music. Archos used it for better things; for accessing e-mail and using a browser. The reason though this Portable Video Player (PVP) didn't fair so well, was because it was slow and choppy. This version however sports double the resolution of the 604 giving it a 7 inch touchscreen and provides up to more than double hard drive (80GB); also being available in a 40GB version. With add-ons it's even more lucrative because it will be able to put shows from your DVR/PVR/TiVo onto it as well as take videos from your PC, with the PC part being free. Now I'm excited about buying this but I'm not going to rush into it as the price tag is a throw off, $550. It is simply a stripped down Mercedes and to get all the extras you'd expect in a Mercedes you'd need to spend hundreds in upgrades.

Now as I was doing research on this product I learned that Archos had brought in a new version of the 604 wifi called the 605 wifi. The main differences I saw that were huge was battery life and weight. The 605 has a 17hr music and 5.5hr video battery life compared to the 704's 25hr music and 5.5hr video battery life. The other difference is the weight with the 605 weighing in at 260g and the 704 weighing in at a whopping 630g. When you put the two side by side you'll easily notice the difference in size and another difference is the startup time time is much more time consuming for the 704. As well the screen brightness, although it might be changeable, is far brighter and clearer on the 605. For more information on both of these wonderful and exciting products visit Archos.

Now this phone should remind you of the iPhone and it’s no surprise that it’s designed by Samsung as well as designed to be an iPod...scratch that, iPhone killer. With the touchscreen almost the same size as the iPhone, 2.8inch, and the one small button below it, it’s no wonder they are mistaking for an iPhone. The only major difference is hidden away, the QWERTY keyboard. This feature will be a major draw for potential iPhone buyers and possibly somebody who wants more style over their Blackberry. This phone is sure to steal some buyers. Over the past couple years; Samsung has been continually developing their phones to become thinner on top of keeping their OS way up to date.

Now the camera on this phone is sure to be eye catching with the massive number beside megapixels but really is it that good? No not really. Why? It’s all because of the quality of the camera lens which is not up to par as it should be when it’s matched up to a 5 megapixel camera and until it can be there is no need to get all excited about this feature.

The network on this baby is an ultra high speed network called HSDPA. For the techie people out there this one’s for you. A High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA, also known as High-Speed Downlink Protocol Access) is a 3G (third generation) mobile telephony communications protocol in the High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA) family, which allows networks based on Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) to have higher data transfer speeds and capacity. The Samsung Ultra Smart F700 comes equipped with 7.2Mbps worth of speed which is the second best you can get.

Imagining surfing the web on a rainy day while using your umbrella. Imagine somebody tapping you on the shoulder on a rainy day and asking to borrow your umbrella to check his e-mail. This is the vision that two Japanese entrepreneurs have in mind. The reason they chose this object was because in Japan it is an everyday object and so they wanted to make it more precious by equipping it with Internet. Now by no means is it ready for production but the Japanese move fast just as much as the rest of the Asians. The umbrella comes equipped with a projector and a camera with the camera being then able to post all pictures taken from it onto Flickr with the help of the internet. Right now the way to access the internet on it is through a laptop which taps into cell phone towers which is unreliable at the moment, but in time, it will be able to access the internet just as well as the cell phone. As well it comes equipped with a GPS system so Google Earth will be able to show the user where they are relative to landmarks.
A cool thing about the umbrella is that the way you scroll through the screen is with a wrist snap of the shaft. I myself find that being able to ‘tag’ photos with places like restaurants and towns, you’d be able to get recommended places that would pop up on the screen when you are near there. So far though, no business or individual has stepped up to help develop and run with the product, so don’t be expecting to see it on the streets of Tokyo any time soon.