There are 3 things certain in life: Death, Taxes, and needing new cell phones. The average person gets a new cell phone every 18 months. This means that in the past decade, the average person has had at least six different phones. So what do people do with the cheap cell phones that are no longer in the starting lineup?
The sad truth is most people either let them collect dust in a drawer, or they simply throw them away. Continue reading »
Last week, Google launched yet another feature that will not doubt make your life easier. “Near Me Now” is Google’s newest feature, for iPhones or new and refurbished cell phones running Android software, which allows you to very simply find information about a specific business in your immediate vicinity or about several businesses around you.
There is a video on Google’s blog that illustrates how Near Me Now is useful when you’re standing outside of a restaurant, wondering if it’s good. With Near Me Now, you just go to Google.com, click Near Me Now, then click restaurants, and a list of the restaurants closest you appears. Just click the name of the restaurant you’re standing in front of, and their information appears including contact info, menus, and user reviews – all without having to type or say anything.
Near Me Now also makes things like finding a coffee shop after getting off an unfamiliar train stop simple. Just click Near Me Now, then Coffee Shops, and you get results for all of the coffee shops near where you are. Gotta love Google. They make everything so simple.
It’s easy to let life become so busy that you forget what and who is most important to you. Fortunately, technology is available to make life easier, even when it comes to prioritizing and maintaining the relationships that matter most in your life. Here is a list of five text messages that, if sent out every day from your new or refurbished cell phone, will not only keep you on track but will help you and your loved ones succeed in all of your endeavors.
Number 1: “I love you” – This seems obvious, but I’d wager that most people don’t speak these words as often as they should (or want). Think about how nice it would be to receive a text that says, “Hey (your name), you know I love you, right?”
Number 2: “I miss you” – What’s almost as nice to hear as “I love you”? Simple, “I miss you.” One of the beautiful things about technology is that it makes it easier to express our emotions. Letting people know that you miss them is an easy way to brighten anyone’s day.
Number 3: “Thank you” – Thanking people is an easy way to show people that you appreciate them and your relationship with them. Even something as simple as, “Thanks again for dropping by last week,” will change a person’s impression of you a great deal for the better.
Number 4: “Hey, remember that idea you had about… that was really a great idea. I think you should pursue it further” – Reminding someone of an idea they had but let fade is a great way to keep your friends and loved ones encouraged. Encouragement leads to action, and action leads to success. You can be sure that the more your friends and loved ones succeed, the more they will help and encourage you with your own aspirations.
Number 5: “Hey (name), you know I’m always here for you if ever need to talk.” – With life comes obstacles and setbacks. More likely than not, someone you care about is going through something difficult. Letting them know that you are available to listen and talk can really make it easier for them to get through a rough time. This one requires that you will actually be available when they call.
Positivity attracts positivity. If you send these five texts out every day, your circle of friends and loved ones will be charged with positive energy on a daily basis, which will undoubtedly come back to you.
I just found a website called tx2ph that if you enjoy reading as much as I do, you’ll love. The cite works with pretty much any phone that can access the Internet, but it works best with smart phones with faster connectivity and larger display screens.
The site is a source to download electronic books (e-books) in order to read them on your cell phone. Now your first reaction might be that a cell phone is too small to read an entire novel on but when you think about it, especially if you have a phone with a large display like an iPhone or a Blackberry, reading a book on your phone is actually quite easy. Your phone has its own backlight, so you can easily read in bed, and tx2ph allows you to adjust the font settings of the novels to make the text as easy to read as possible. You can also choose to rotate the text 90 degrees so that that it displays the text long-ways (meaning you have to turn your phone sideways to read it.) The site has hundreds of books to download, ranging from classics to contemporary favorites, and the best part about the site is that it’s free to join!
Once you’ve signed up with the site, you don’t have to download or install any software. You simply download the pages that you are reading. The site allows you to choose how many pages you’d like to download at a time, so you use hardly any memory storing pages. Another cool function of the site is that they also have downloadable e-flashcards for learning other languages. You can choose to be shown words in your native language or you can choose to have the words shown in the language you are trying to learn, and the program will filter out the words as you learn them so you are not repeating unnecessary cards.
After having a long conversation with a friend about relationships, I began to think about why I constantly find myself getting sick of a girlfriend after hitting that six-month mark. I think of my parents and wonder in amazement about how they have managed to put up with each other for so long, but then it dawned on me – the problem with relationships in our generation is the cell phone.
Social networks like Facebook and Myspace play a role in this as well, but the cell phone is number one culprit when it comes to the quick demise of what started as a great relationship. Think about it. Our parents grew up in a world without cell phones. Typically, the man held down an eight hour, 9-5, job with lets say a combined commute of an hour each day. Even if we factor in a 15 minute phone call from a lunch break and then maybe another at the end of the day, this adds up to over 40 hours a week of non-conversation between a couple.
If I were physically unable to converse with a girlfriend for 40 hours per week, I’d bet that I would be twice as excited to spend time with her. She would represent everything other than the stress of work, and both she and I would have eight hours a day to develop and store topics and ideas, which would lead to hours of exciting conversation in the evening. Today, there is no barrier of personal space between couples.
Yes, initially, cell phones and text messaging offered a way to send cute messages to your significant other throughout the day. But now they’ve morphed into what seems to be a constantly open line of communication, a day-long running conversation if you will, which we are expected to be constantly keeping up. After hours and hours of meaningless, forced messages and conversations, how could we not get sick of each other? I used to think my dad was ridiculous for refusing to get a cell phone. Now I’m certain he’s one of the smartest men I know.
After years of anticipation, the Blackberry desktop manager for Mac has finally arrived, and it’s getting great reviews. You can now sync your Blackberry cell phone with your Mac and easily manage your contacts, music, applications, and media. What seems to be the greatest feature of the new Desktop manager is that iTunes syncs with Blackberry Media, and it does it in the same application that manages your info, so you don’t have to deal with any other programs like Roxio, which PC users have to mess with. It is now really easy to sync music and playlists from your iTunes account to your Blackberry.
Mac fanatics are a little disappointed with the straightforward layout of the application as it is not really aesthetically pleasing as is standard for all things Mac, but this is something that will undoubtedly be taken care of in the near future.
Other crucials like your contacts, calendar appointments, tasks, and notes also effortlessly sync with the Mac applications that users love and use on a daily basis. The manager will backup and restore all of the data on your device (which can be encrypted), but, by default, the application is set to only create weekly backups. You can also manage more than one device with the manager, so His and Her Blackberrys need only one Mac. You can also, of course, wipe data from your Blackberry via the manager as well.
The system requirements for the desktop manager are:
* Mac OS X v10.5.5 and above (Only 32-bit mode is supported on Mac OS X v10.6)
* BlackBerry® Device Software v4.2 or higher
* iTunes v7.7.1 or later
