Get the most from your mobile
Your phone is your life, right? You feel lost, naked and a little bit panicky even without it. But are you milking your phone for as much as it can give you?
Pimp your phone
Ringtones are easy to come by. Usually, all you need to do is send a short text to a short code number and the ringtone is instantly downloaded to your handset. Virgin is a good place to start. PhoneArcade is good for wallpapers.
Buying one or two new sounds isn't going to break the bank, but watch out for "ringtone subscription" services that hide a dodgy deal behind a pile of small print. Unless you read it all, you wouldn't notice that by paying for your first ringtone, perhaps at a discount price, you may also be agreeing to buy loads more ringtones in future, whether you want them or not. Remember: there's no such thing as a free ringtone.
There are a few free, or at least cheap, options. Freesound is an archive of free-to-use samples and snippets from all over the world. Visit Xingtone and find out how to create and edit your own ringtones (it costs about a tenner to buy their software). If you want to give this a go, the Internet Archive boasts nearly 100,000 free audio files including speech, songs and live performances.
Get online
Since phones are so smart, many of them can run web browsers almost as swish as the ones you find on your PC (Opera is the best of them). As a result, some of the smarter websites are offering smartphone-oriented versions of themselves that you can log into direct.
Obviously, we think TheSite on mobile is the first place you should head. If you're looking for a local organisation to get advice or information you can type your postcode in and get the details there and then. If you're a fan of our articles and factsheets you can access them on your phone, too. Aren't we good to you?
If you have a Gmail (or Googlemail) account, go straight to m.gmail.com from your phone and you can check your email. Yahoo has loads of downloads and text alert goodies and you can get Sky's Breaking News sent directly to you. The BBC has some great free stuff, including news, sport and the all-knowing H2G2 Guide. You can download all kinds of free video clips, wallpapers and games from there too.
Watch out, though; downloading data costs money, so keep a close eye on your usage and check the limits specified with your phone account. Some charge for the size of data downloaded, others for your time online. Either way, it's not as expensive as it once was, but it's always good to know roughly how much you're spending before you're hit with a scary bill.
If you really need more bandwidth, haggle with your phone company; they might be able to do a deal. Or shop around; some all-you-can-eat data deals are starting to look like good value.
Txt grws up
Twitter is a new twist on texting. A free account there lets you use text messages to post updates about your life to a website. If your friends sign up for free too, they can check in every so often to find out what everyone in the group is doing. Better yet, Twitter talks to your IM account and your phone, so you can twitter to your mates even when you're away from your computer. It's still quite new, pretty cool and probably going to be huge.
Possibly even as huge as Facebook and Bebo, which do similar things and a whole lot more. Once you've activated Facebook mobile you can add stuff like photos and SMS updates, as well as getting your news feed sent to your phone when you're on the move.
'Moblogging' means taking the same idea a little bit further, and updating a website from your phone with text and photo updates. It's easy to do, plenty of online services have built-in hooks for email or text message updates. Both Blogger and Yahoo! 360 make it simple.
If you think that online blogs are full of dull self-promoting waffle by people who should get out more, a moblog could be more up your street. The whole point is getting out more, and making a record of everything you get up to and everyone you meet.
Sync your phone and computer
One day your phone will get nicked, or dropped in the toilet, and then you'll wish you'd backed up your SIM card data. You can do that pretty easily with most phones, because they use Bluetooth to connect to a computer or another phone.
Syncing or backing up your stuff won't work unless you've "paired" the phone and the PC first. Get the PC to search for Bluetooth devices; once it finds your phone, you just have to press a few buttons to pair them permanently.
Bluetooth eats up battery life, though, so it's a good idea to switch it off unless you really need it. There's also a slim chance of catching a Bluetooth virus - yes, they can happen - but it's unlikely to do much damage.
Phuture phones
We call them 'smart' but today's phones are just the beginning. Apple's iPhone really has turned the industry upside down, and the rest of the handset makers are falling over themselves to create something as exciting and appealing. Pocket devices are merging together faster than they have before - think of having an iPod, a Nintendo DS Lite, a PSP, a Blackberry, and a videocamera all packed into one tiny box. It's not far off now. After that, the box itself will disappear, to be replaced by flexible phones, paper phones, or phones that look like your favourite toy. How about phones made of wood, rubber, or fabric?
Today's phones - and tomorrow's - aren't just phones. Internet phones using services from companies like Skype and Vonage are easy to come by; phones that double as pocket computers are cheaper than ever.
What's slowing things down is the network itself. Wifi hotspots are getting more common, but when you're away from wifi your expensive phone/computer becomes a bit of a brick. In the next few years, it'll be improvements to the network itself that make the biggest difference.
Then, entertainment will change completely. Anything you want online - TV, movies, digital radio, music to download, RSS feeds - will be yours for the asking.
Out with the old...
- Next time you upgrade, don't chuck your old phone; recycle it and help TheSite.org raise money to keep running.
- If you're upgrading, read plenty of reviews and shop around make sure you get something good.
- You could always ditch the mobile - it might make you happier. Might.
Written by Giles Turnbull
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