Personal Technology Tips in Plain English
Blackberry
Are You A Text-a-holic? Yeah, I’m Talking To YOU.
Sep 17th
A friend just sent me a link to a parody video and said I was the first person to cross the mind while watching it.
Are you one of those people that have the phone handset glued to your palm? You can’t put down because you’re doing one of a couple of things, over and over and over again, even if it’s not for texting alone:
- Checking your email since the last time you pressed check email 1 second ago
- Browsing your Facebook app
- Trying to take photos and tweet them to the world that isn’t really listening since you have only have 12 followers
- Checking your email in between tasks
- Texting a friend 2 C wuzup?
- Downloading totally useless apps and playing them whenever you get a chance.
- Checking your email just in case you missed an email that might have just came in.
IS THIS YOU?
Here’s the funny video — check it out for yourself:
What do you think?
It’s funny alright. . .
But is it true?!
A Snapshot of the Top 5 Snapshot Cell Phones Today
Nov 10th
The photographic capabilities of mobile phones are increasing with each new batch of handsets and now it is almost impossible to find a high end smartphone which does not offer high definition video capture along with a high megapixel count for still shots.
Here are five of the best. . .
iPhone 4
With a five megapixel camera and LED flash the iPhone 4 is the best in Apple`s range when it comes to taking pictures. It also has the ability to shoot 720p video clips at a smooth 30 fps and has extra features such as touch to focus and various effects to apply. A forward-facing VGA camera supplements its rear-facing snapper for video calling and with 16GB or 32GB of storage space on board you can capture hours of footage and thousands of photos without filling it up.
Nokia N8
The N8 is intended to be a serious camera phone, so it is no surprise to see its 12 megapixel camera outclassing every other handset in this list. With a Xenon flash it is also the most capable when it comes to illuminating dark spaces. Digital zoom of up to 30x magnification is on offer when you are taking stills or recording video in 720p HD and like the iPhone it has a forward-facing secondary camera for video calls. Geotagging is applied to both videos and photos so you can find out the location later and there is 16GB of onboard storage space expandable by an extra 32GB if you buy a separate microSD memory card, which should be more than enough for all of your media.
HTC Desire HD
With an eight megapixel camera and dual LED flash the Desire HD is able to handle solid still photographs and can also shoot video in high definition at the same 720p resolution as its rivals. You can enable the LED flashes to act as a light for videoing in dark situations and you can tweak the settings from sharpness to exposure using simple on-screen sliders which are touch sensitive and intuitive. The autofocus is fairly competent although unlike other phones you do not get a dedicated macro mode for close-up shooting, which might be a problem for some users.
Samsung Galaxy S
Like the Desire HD this is an Android smartphone and it packs fairly similar five megapixel camera which matches up with the iPhone 4`s unit. Thanks to the 1GHz processor onboard it is responsive and easy to capture images or shoot video at 720p. You can find Galaxy S variants with 16GB or 8GB of onboard storage, which should give you enough room to work with as long as you upload images from time to time. Sadly the lack of any kind of flash, LED or otherwise, means that when the light is dim the Galaxy S is less than perfect.
BlackBerry Torch
Another five megapixel camera is affixed to the Torch, showing that this is the de facto image capture resolution for a high end mobile phone. An LED flash is also present although it is not as bright as the dual-LED solution of the Desire HD or the Xenon flash found on the Nokia N8. You can alternate between different shooting modes depending on the situation, but a lack of HD video capture lets it down.
DO YOU TAKE MORE PHOTOS WITH YOUR CELLPHONE CAMERA OR YOUR DEDICATED POINT AND SHOOT CAMERA?
(iphone + App Store) – iPhone + Blackberry = Blackberry App World
Jan 26th
It looks like Blackberry has wised up and launched a new web portal to give Blackberry owners something iPhone users have been bragging about for the last couple of years — an app store where you can download custom apps for your phone.
Blackberry App World is a slick new platform for crackberry addicts to get more digital content and applications for their smartphones so they can use them for more than just email.
The App Store is new, so there aren’t as many apps available as there are for the Apple iPhone but still, you’ll find over 1,000 games to choose from in the Blackberry AppStore.
There is a Free Blackberry App category which list apps such as Facebook, Pandora, Dictionary, and some other useful apps most BB users will want to download immediately.
Do you have a Blackberry? What applications have you downloaded recently from the Blackberry App Store? Please leave a comment below and let us know which apps you have downloaded.
How To Send Free Text Messages From Your Apple iPhone (or any other cell phone)
Apr 5th
The original iPhone cellular plan from AT&T included 200 free SMS Text Messages per month…
But AT&T and Apple got wise as they started to sell millions of new iPhones and no longer include free text messaging in the data plan.
Now, you have to pay $5 or more to add on buckets of text messages or else you’re stuck paying $0.15 per text message a la carte.
And especially if you have a teen daughter that did nothing but send 10,000+ text messages in a single month at school, home, and everywhere else, you’ll be stuck with a massive cell phone bill (imagine getting a cell phone bill from Verizon Wireless for $4,756.25 in a single month?) you need to know about this free service.
Here’s a great tip for how to send free text message from the iPhone WITHOUT any additional text message plan.
Of course this also works on any other web-enabled smart phone like Windows Mobile devices… Read the rest of this entry »
Using Your Blackberry for More Than e-Mail
Sep 22nd
Blackberry = email. Period. Right?
With the introduction of the Blackberry Curve and other models, RIM has tried to break out of that “email” shell and bring web browsing and other smart phone features into the minds of the customer.
But the problem so far has been that there just aren’t many useful 3rd party applications to help Blackberry addicts use it for anything other than that good ol’ email application. . . here’s another attempt to help the Blackberry user to try something new. . . Read the rest of this entry »
Samsung Blackjack Tip: How to check your DATA USAGE on AT&T Wireless
Aug 26th
If you’re smart, you’re already signed up for the MediaMax 200 or Unlimited data plans for your Samsung Blackjack which is just $20 more per month — they give you unlimited data, email, web usage on your Samsung Blackjack.
However, not everyone needs unlimited data, and if you’re on one of the limited data packages, you probably want know on any given day if you’re close to your limit or if you’re already over your monthly data usage quota. . . Read the rest of this entry »
I love tech, gadgets and the web. Hope you pick-up a useful tip or two here today that helps you use technology to your advantage! Better yet, why not share your own expertise in a comment on a post today to help the other readers that land here for answers!