Get me out of here with Getmooh!

The dreaded Monday morning has come yet again, as it’s been doing every week, putting a sudden stop to your utopian weekend like a 10-ton truck ramming into a sports car on a slippery mountain road would. You leave for work, anticipating the most boring and useless Monday morning meeting with the rest of your team, and beg for someone to call your cell phone shortly after the meeting’s begun so that you can fake an emergency and maybe get away with it…

I sincerely hope that your life is more exciting than this - but if it’s not, or if you’re just looking for an excuse to make a prank call to your friends, know that it is possible to schedule a call with Getmooh, a free service that will allow you to get out of some sticky situations easily. Simply sign-up with them for an account, and then you’ll be able to schedule up to 2 automatic calls daily with various messages.

I haven’t tried it myself - I’m a bit reluctant to enter telephone numbers anywhere on the internet. But if some of you try it, leave a comment below to let us know how it went!

It is possible to find out the highest sound frequency you can hear online. It is said that the younger you are, the higher the frequency you can hear. Ultrasonic Ringtones has all the higher frequencies a normal human should be able to hear. You can somewhat test your hearing on this web site, but take this with a grain of salt. It is by no mean a replacement for a test done by an audiologist.

You can also download ringtones of these various frequencies from Ultrasonic Ringtones and use them on your cell phones. The point in this is to avoid disturbing other people who can’t hear higher frequencies when your phone rings. For exemple, you could leave your cell phone turned on in class and chances are good your teacher will never hear it when it rings, but of course you’ll be disturbing the rest of the class. Apparently, these mosquito ring tones are very popular with teenagers.

As for me, despite slowly getting older (26 years old), I can hear 17.7 kHz very clearly. It’s so annoying, my ears feel like they want to start bleeding! If I turn up the volume of my speakers, I can also hear up to the 19.9 kHz frequency, but the sound is very faint. What about you? What’s the highest frequency you can hear?

Are you curious about unlocked cell phones? This article will hopefully shed some light on this gray market if you plan on buying one. First of all, why do unlocked cell phones exist?

Cell phone carriers will usually offer you a great deal on cell phones when you sign a 1 year or more service contract with them. They will lower the price of the handset by hundreds of dollars, and they even go as far as giving you the cell phone for free.

They are actually losing a lot of money when they make you such an offer, and they want to make sure you’re a profitable client. In order to prevent you from breaking your contract with them, they force you to remain with them by locking the new phone you just bought.

This means you are not be able to use your cell phone with another carrier. Even when your contract has expired, your cell phone will remain locked and often you won’t have much choice but to buy a new phone if you want to switch to another carrier.

When talking about unlocked cell phones, we are mostly talking about GSM phones, which use SIM cards to store all your contacts and client information. CDMA phones can be unlocked too, but this article will focus on GSM phones.

What are unlocked cell phones

An unlocked cell phone basically allows you to move from carrier to carrier without having to change your handset. With a GSM cell phone, you could theorically have two SIM cards from two different carriers and switch carriers simply by changing SIM cards. This, however, will only work with an unlocked cell phone.

Why you would want to unlock you cell phone

1. Changing carriers on the go. Say you travel abroad often - you could want to sign up with two carriers in order to reduce costs, saving yourself any roaming charges, without having to carry two phones. You could simply switch SIM cards when you’re in another country.

2. Selling your cell phone. Say you plan on changing your phone and want to sell your old one. You are limiting your choice of buyers immensely if they can’t choose the carrier they want. Cell phones, when bought elsewhere than from a cell phone carrier, are often sold unlocked.

3. The practice of locking cell phones is bad for the consumer. By doing so, cell phone carriers force your to remain loyal to them and can charge you more for less. They are effectively trying to avoid competition with the other carriers.

A good compromise cell phone carriers could put into place would be to keep the cell phone locked for the duration of the contract and offer to unlock it when the contract ends. This would however prevent the user who has to travel abroad from switching SIM cards for the duration of the contract, so this is not an ideal solution. Unlocking your cell phone allows you to choose what’s best for you.

4. Exclusive handsets. Often, some handsets are exclusive to a specific carrier, like the iPhone. At the moment, you can only use an iPhone with AT&T. By unlocking a cell phone, you can use it with any carrier.

There has been some controversy recently on unlocked iPhones, as most unlocked iPhones have been rendered useless by the latest software update, but the idea remains the same.

Dangers of unlocking a cell phone

1. Carrier specific features might not work. Some carriers have specific services built into the handset, such as music downloading and web browsing. These features might not work if you try using them with an unlocked cell phone you did not buy from these carriers.

2. Unlocked cell phone could become non functional. The iPhone is a good example of this. Apple has released a software update which has made all unlocked iPhones unusable. This however happens only under rare circumstances.

3. Possible compatibility issues with foreign phones. There could potentially be some compatibility issues if you buy a phone from a foreign country, say somewhere in Asia, unlock it, and try to use it in your home country. Some features might not work properly because of differences in the cellular networks.

4. Some extra configuration might be required. In order to use some of the features like multimedia messaging and web browsing, you might have to configure your unlocked cell phone when switching to a new carrier.

How to unlock a cell phone

So, you’re considering unlocking your cell phone? There are many resources around the net which can help you achieve this. You can either:

Buy an unlocked cell phone. By buying a cell phone that is already unlocked, you’re saving yourself the hassle of reprogramming your phone. This is not a big deal - if you plan on buying a new phone and then unlock it, you should buy it unlocked in the first place. If you are interesting in buying an unlocked cell phone, you might want to check the following popular models from Amazon (aff):

Motorola RAZR V3 Black Phone (Unlocked)
LG KG800 Chocolate Black phone (Unlocked)
Nokia 6800 Cell Phone (Unlocked)
Sony Ericsson Z710i Twilight Black Phone (Unlocked)

Obtain an unlock code. You will usually find services around the net which will allow you to obtain an unlock code for your handset model. Some independent cell phone stores will also offer you to unlock your cell phone for a fee. You should keep the unlock code carefully in case your phone “relocks” itself - some carriers have been known to do this even when you did not buy the phone from them in the first place.

By locking cell phones, carriers are offering you a service at a higher cost and tend to develop less features since it makes the competition stagnate. By buying an unlocked cell phone, you are also making a statement against this practice. What do you think about unlocked cell phones? Are they worth it? Share your comments with us below.

Have you ever had the need to charge your Motorola RAZR but did not have access to a charger? It happens to me all the time. I have only one charger and I leave it at home. Often while I’m at work, my RAZR lets out its distinctive cry to warn me it wants to be fed. Well, know that it is possible to charge it by connecting it to a computer via the USB port. All you need is a mini-USB cable handy, such as those used by many MP3 players and digital cameras.

Charge your Motorola RAZR via USB

The RAZR charges via its mini-USB port. However, it will not charge if you simply connect it to a computer. You’ll need to install special drivers to achieve this. Fortunately, Motorola has made available these drivers for members of the MOTODEV (Motorola developer community), and anyone can join in, create an account and download the RAZR drivers for their Motorola phone. Note that these RAZR drivers are only available for Windows based PC. Once you have installed the drivers, your Motorola RAZR should begin charging up as soon as you connect it to a computer.

Use your RAZR as a modem

As a bonus, these drivers allow you to use your Motorola RAZR as a modem. That means if you have access to a dial-up internet connection, your RAZR can allow you to connect your laptop to the internet from virtually anywhere. Once you have installed the drivers, the Motorola modem should be available to use in Windows just like any other modem.

If you don’t feel like creating an account with MOTODEV and messing around with drivers, you could always buy a spare charger… They seem to be selling chargers for the RAZR pretty cheap nowadays.

Google SMS is a service from Google you can access by sending a text message from your cellphone to GOOGL (46645). This service, currently available in Canada and the United States, allows you to retrieve information such as driving directions and movie showtimes from Google. You can use Google SMS to:

1. Get driving directions.
To get driving directions, simply text “start to destination”, for example “Washington to New York”. You can use a combination of addresses, cities, postal/zip codes and even airport codes in your query.

2. Search the web.
Text “G query” to have the first two search results of your query sent to you in a SMS.

3. Get business listing at your location.
Craving for some sushi but can’t find a place? Text “sushi” along with your location (city, zip code) for a listing of sushi restaurants in your area.

4. Ask simple questions.
You can send simple queries such as “toronto population” to Google SMS and it will answer you. Note that Google SMS is still in Beta and many of my queries were not answered correctly. For example, “earth population” and “world population” didn’t work for me.

5. Find word definitions.
Simply text “define word” to obtain a definition of ‘word’.

6. Perform calculations.
Text the calculation you’d like done such as “6+4*3″. Most cellphones come with a calculator nowadays but it’s still handy for more complex calculations.

7. Get movie showtimes.
You can receive various information such as movie showtimes, critics and theater listing by texting Google SMS. To get details on a movie, simply text “movie name”. To get showtimes and a listing of theater playing it near you, add the location to your query, for example “movie name New York”. To get a listing of the top movies, text “movie: location”, where ‘location’ is a city or a zip/postal code.

8. Perform translations.
Text “translate word to language” to have ‘word’ translated into ‘language’.

9. Convert currency.
Text the conversion such as “currency of Canada in US money”.

10. Lookup area codes.
To see which region an area code covers, send a SMS with the area code such as “604″.

11. Retrieve flights info.
Text your flight number to receive information such as arrival/departure time and flight status.

12. Retrieve stock quotes.
Send a SMS with “GOOG” to get Google’s latest stock quotes.

13. Get help.
You can always get help information on Google SMS from Google if you simply text “help”.

Google SMS is still in beta and far from perfect, but it has already proven very useful and it can only get better.

Ever since the iPhone’s been announced, fanatics of the brand have been making iPhone skins and themes for their favorite mobile devices. If you own a Motorola RAZR and would like a glimpse of what the iPhone user interface might look like, you can now download a user-made iPhone theme for the RAZR.

Apple is quite angry at people for making these themes though, so it is unknown how long the files will remain online.

Source: Motox via Gizmodo

So, you’re looking forward to the new iPhone but you don’t want to let your old cell phone rot on a shelf? Did you know you could donate old cell phones? They’ll be refurbished, you’ll contribute to saving the environment and maybe make someone who’s looking to buy a used cell phone happy.

The battery in your cellular phone contains many toxic agents that are very harmful to the environment. By recycling your old cell phone, you are preventing these agents from contaminating the soil.

If you want to donate old cell phones, the following organizations are dedicated to refurbishing them. They make a donation to charities for every cell phone you send them.

1. Charitable recycling
2. Collective Good
3. Wireless Recycling

Also, many cell phone carriers will actually give you a rebate for returning your old cell phone. Get in touch with them, you might be surprised.

Using a sugar cube, Instructables shows us how to remove unwanted logos from a cell phone. The idea behind it is to use a sugar cube to scratch off the stickers on the cell phone. The sugar should not leave a mark on plastic or metal. Process with the following steps at your own risk - in the worst case, you could damage or leave a scratch on your phone.

1. Place tape around the area you’re going to scratch. This is important because you don’t want sugar to get in the phone.
2. Scratch the sticker with a sugar cube until it has disappeared completely. Repeat until the cell phone looks clean.
3. Remove the tape and clean up the remaining sugar with a dry cloth.

If all went well, you will have a clean unbranded cell phone, with those pesky stickers from your carrier gone forever. Apparently, this trick will not work on some cell phone covers though - the sugar cube will leave a mark.

Antony Pranata offers a very nice tip on Exif data on his blog which might be good for camera phone and digital camera users alike.

Exif data is metadata stored in JPEG and TIFF image files by digital cameras. It allows you to view the settings used for taking the picture, including the camera model, aperture, focal length, exposure, flash used and a lot more.

A subset of Exif data is readable by the Windows XP operating system. Simply right-click on the file, go to Properties and then in the Summary tab, pick Advanced. As you can see from the picture, some information is missing, such as the flash used.

Under Mac OS X, you can view Exif data with the Finder. Simply do a Get Info on a file and expand the More Info section.

Alternatively, you can use a free program such as Exif Reader (WinXP only) for retrieving Exif information from a file to obtain information not displayed in the file properties of your operating system.

Source: Displaying Exif Information from JPEG Images

While most cellular phones now support all three types of ringtones, it is good to know the difference between monophonic, polyphonic and true tone ringtones before spending bandwidth (or worst, money) on a ringtone version of the latest James Bond theme.

Monophonic ringtones

In the early days of cellular technology, most cell phones were only able to emit basic tones on different frequencies. The monophonic ringtone uses basic sequencing technology to play a song: it’s a one instrument, one note at a time thing. Monophonic ringtones are a good choice if you are looking for a clear, easy to discern ringtone for your cellular phone. Most monophonic ringtones are available for free or for very little money because they have since been outclassed by the more popular polyphonic and true tone ringtones.

Polyphonic ringtones

Like the monophonic ringtone, the polyphonic ringtone employs sequencing technology but to a much higher level. Instead of playing only one note at a time, up to 40 notes can play at the same time. Polyphonic ringtones can also emulate different musical instruments, simulating a digital orchestra in your pocket when your phone rings. Polyphonic ringtones lack one thing: the ability to use digitalized audio samples.

True tone (or real tone) ringtones

True tone ringtones, also called real tone or full music ringtones, can play actual music. Addressing the issue of instrument samples limitation, the true tone ringtone can play fully digitalized audio samples such as MP3s, including the vocals. While true tone ringtones can be highly personalized, they are often quieter and harder to discern in a busy environment so they might not be the best choice for someone who works in a shopping center. True tone ringtones gave birth to the most annoying ringtone ever created, the Crazy Frog ringtone.

The ringtone business is currently flourishing: worldwide, it’s a $4 billion market. With over 50% of all US cell phone users having downloaded a ringtone at least once, ringtones are also a great marketing tool for audio products. Do not be fooled by the possiblities a true tone ringtone offers you though: nothing will ever replace the stunning clarity of a monophonic ringtone!