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Turn Any Phone into a SmartPhone

Get Smart without a Giant Phone

OVERVIEW: This article will show you how to take a regular mobile phone and give it many of the capabilities of a much more expensive SmartPhone.

Be Jealous No More

Just because you don’t have a SmartPhone, you don’t have to go without all of the cool, useful, and fun stuff that they can do. As long as you have a phone that can take pictures, send MMS, and access the internet (just about all phones made in the last 3 years), you can do a lot more than you think.

Let’s look as some of the key capabilities that make SmartPhones what they are:

• Personal Information Management (PIM)
• • (Calendar, Contacts, Notes & Memos)
• News
• • (Sports, Finance, Weather, etc.)
• Web Browsing
• Social Networking
  
• Instant Messaging

Let’s take a look at how you can approximate many of these features on any phone.

*Some of these options are not free. I know that’s a major departure from how I usually roll, but if you want all of these features for free, you’ll have to pay for a SmartPhone any way.

Personal Information Management (PIM)

Calendar, Contacts, and Notes syncing have always been the main features of SmartPhones. If you’re willing to fork over $15 – $30 you can get those features on your phone. Here are two excellent applications for syncing your computer’s PIM data to just about any phone.

Susteen’s DataPilot – You can sync information between your computer and all sorts of phones.

Mobile Action’s Handset Manager – Pretty similar to DataPilot in that you can sync between your computer and phone.

Just install their software on your computer, configure the settings, and plug your phone in using the provided cable. That’s it! All of your PIM data is synced to your phone.

Get Your News on the Go

The ability to keep up with some key pieces of news is a great capability. There are tons of services that have mobile versions of their pages or will even send news alerts to your phone. Here are a few that you can try.

Headline News – CBS Mobile News, CNN Mobile, Google News Mobile, MSNBC Mobile   

Sports – ESPN Mobile, Yahoo Sports Mobile, Sports Illustrated Mobile

Weather – Weather Channel Mobile, Wunderground Mobile

Finance – CNBC Mobile, Yahoo Finance Mobile, CNNMoney Mobile

Browse the Web with Style

One of the great things about SmartPhones is their ability to browse the web. Let’s face it, the standard browser loaded on a typical non-smartphone is just about unusable. There is an option that makes the internet much more usable on a mobile phone. Opera Mini is a JAVA based browser that can be installed on most regular mobile phones. This is about as close as you’re going to get to a real browsing experience on your phone.

Just point your phone’s crappy browser at: “m.opera.com” and follow the installation prompts. Now you can see all of that cool stuff you’ve been missing.

Social Networking

Do you want to be able to update your Social Networking sites from your phone? Well, there are a bunch of ways that you can do this. If you have instant messenger on your phone, you can use an IMbot to update any of your networks.

Ping.fm is a simple and FREE service that makes updating your social networks a snap! You can post to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and over 40 others just by sending a simple Instant Message. Here is a full list of networks that you can post to.

Here are the ways that you can update your services through Ping.fm

Do you want to post your pictures and videos to services like Flickr, YouTube, and Twitter? Well, you can use PixelPipe.com to post media and messages to over 70 of your favorite social media sites. (Yes there are actually over 70!) Pixelpipe supports photo, video, audio, file, and text posts.

Upload your media from MMS & Email to your private upload address.

To use: Attach your file(s) to a new message and send the message to your personal upload address. Your personal upload address is boulder77banners@upload.pixelpipe.com

Tip: Add ‘Routing Tags’ (denoted by @service) to the body of the message to send to specific destinations or groups. For example, to make a post only on your Facebook and Twitter, type this into your message: “This is a post @facebook @twitter”  

HelloTXT will also let you post updates to many of your favorite social networking sites via a simple text message, email, or Instant Message.

One of the methods that HelloTXT supports is a service called Dial2Do.com . This service allows you to call in and speak commands and information to a virtual secretary. Dial2Do will then carry out your tasks. You can also create and/or hear emails, calendar appointments, to-do’s, texts, and more. That’s way cooler than a SmartPhone.

The following video shows you some of the amazing things that you can do with this service.

See a complete tutorial on using Dial2Do.com as a personal secretary.

How Do You Make Your Phone Smarter?

If you have any tips on making your phone smarter, I would love to hear them in the comments below.

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What I would Like to See in Tech for 2010 (That Probably Won't Happen)

This is my 2010 technology wish list. These are the things that I would love to see happen or be invented in 2010. Some are reasonable and others are just plain crazy. Enjoy!

10 Best VitaminCM.com Articles of 2009

Looking Back on Another Fun Year of Blogging

What’s a Year End Without a Countdown?

As 2009 draws to a close I decided to do a quick look back on the top posts of 2009. The list is based solely on the amount of visits that each article received, however I threw in a few of my less appreciated favorites. Without further ado, here’s the list.

10 – You can Create the Web Operating System Today (My Personal Favorite)

This post shows how to cobble together a complete Web-Based operating system from a bunch of common, free web apps. The main tools used are iGoogle, and Zoho apps. This was a fun article to put together.

9 – iPhone Photoshop Application Review

One of my favorite iPhone apps is Photoshop. You can do quick, simple edits to your pictures right on your phone. There are just enough features to make your photos go from blah to good.

8 – Never Forget Another Idea – Capture Everything with Evernote

Evernote is one of my very favorite productivity tools. This tutorial shows you how to use it on Windows, Mac, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Linux (via the web). If you need a great note taking system that goes anywhere, take a look at this article.

7 – How to Upgrade the Memory in your Netbook

If you have a netbook computer, one of the biggest drawbacks is the performance. If you max out the RAM, you will get a noticeable boost. This video shows you how to replace the existing memory with a new stick.

6 – Add Magical Powers to Your Browser with Bookmarklets

Bookmarklets are like regular browser bookmarks on steroids. They have javascript commands that add extra functionality to your favorite web sites. Bookmarklets can do things like open a url in an email, subscribe in Google Reader, send a link to Twitter, and many other things in one click. See how to make it happen in this article.

5 – Remote Control Your Computer From The Internet

Did you ever wish you could log onto your home computer from work, a friend’s house, or even your iPhone? Well, this tutorial shows how to use VNC and your router’s Port Forwarding to do just that. You will be able to access your computer from anywhere in the world.

4 – Sync Files on Multiple Computers Using DropBox

If you work on multiple computers (work, home, etc.) then you know what it’s like to not have the files you need. DropBox will cure this problem for good. This tutorial shows you how to set up and use DropBox on all of your machines.

3 – 36 Ways to Work Seamlessly on Two Computers

If you use more than one computer with some combination of Windows, Mac, and Linux and a Smartphone than you know how difficult it is to have all of your stuff when and where you need it. I’m going to show you a variety of tools and strategies to help you have everything you need, when and where you need it.

2 – 26 Best Free Mac Applications

This year I switched from exclusively using Windows to spending most of my time on a Mac. I cover a collection of very useful free applications that you can use on the Mac. If buy a Mac and have no money left to spend on apps, take a look at this article.

Drum Roll Please…

This was far and away the most popular post of the year. It actually had 10 times more visits than the second place finisher.

1 – 22 Most Useful Free Applications for your PC

List of the most useful free applications for your Windows computer. Firefox, Digsby, filezilla, Picasa, Cute PDF Writer, rocket dock, windows live writer, etc. If you’re looking for some great free apps for your PC, this is the article for you.

What Was Your Favorite?

I would love to hear what your favorite article was. Also, if there is something that you would like to see covered I REALLY want to hear that. So jump into those comments and let your voice be heard.

And Thanks for another great year!!!

Ultimate Portable Computer Rescue Kit Saves Any Computer

Build a USB Rescue Drive with Free Portable Utilities

OVERVIEW: This video tutorial shows how to set up a collection of portable apps on a USB drive that can be used to diagnose and repair almost any broken windows computer.

The Difference Between Men and Monkeys is Tools

During the holidays I typically spend a great deal of time travelling to see freinds and relatives. As you may have guessed, I frequently get asked to "fix" everybody’s jacked up computers. When I’m not at home with all of my resources, it’s pretty hard to figure out what’s wrong and even harder to fix it. What if thier internet connection is down? There goes just about all of the things that you can download to fix any problems. These are the sort of catch 22′s that I’m usually up against.

Since I’m not about to carry my laptop and a bunch of other junk to a New Year’s Eve party, I decided to build myself a portable USB Rescue Kit that takes up no space in my pocket. Now, next time I get asked for help, I can spring into action, diagnose, and fix thier PCs in time to see the big ball drop. If you’re the "computer guy or gal" in your family, you can prepare yourself to handle these situations by investing about $10 and 30 minutes of your time building your own kit.

How to Set Up Portable Apps on a USB Drive

Here is a tutorial for loading portable apps on a usb drive that I wrote a while ago. It walks you through the process of setting up a portable application suite on a USB drive.

What Apps to Load on Your Rescue Drive

Now that you know how to set up your USB drive, you need to know which applications and utilities that you want to have in your arsenal.

I set myself up with the following applications (in no special order):

• Antivirus (ClamWin)
• Disk Defragmenter (JKDefrag and Defraggler)
• Archive Tool (7zip)
• FTP Tool (Filezilla, Putty, WinSCP)
• Remote Access Tools (VNC, RDP)
• CD / Disk Imaging Tools (InfraRecorder)
• Screenshot / Screen recorder – (Lightscreen and VTuteRecorder)
• Spyware Remover – (SpyDLLRemover and RootKitRevealer)
• Password Manager – (KeyPass)
• System Cleaner – (CCleaner and Revo Uninstaller and PC Decrapifier)
• Registry Tools – (Wise Registry Cleaner and Dial-A-Fix)
• Media Player (VNC and K-Lite Codec tool)
• PDF Tools (Foxit and PDFTKBuilder)
• Software Serial Numbers (ProdUKey)
• Communications – (Skype and Pidgin IM)
• Startup Management – (Startup Manager and CCleaner)
• Wi-Fi – (WirelessKeyFinder)
• Plus any Office, Internet, and Graphics tools that you may think you need.

ReadWriteWeb recommends a good list of portable apps and utilities that you can use to repair a computer. A Computer Repair Utility Kit You Can Run From a Thumb Drive (Just about all of them are included in my build.)

Where to Get Good Portable Apps

There are a few great sites that have all of the applications on this list and plenty of others.

PortableApps.com has a great suite of applications and a very nice launcher tool that basically makes your portable suite into its own operating system.

LiberKey.com has a 270+ applications in their extensive catalog. If you can’t find the right tool here, it probably doesn’t exist.

PenDriveApps.com has a large, albeit poorly organized collection of useful application and utilities.

LupoPenSuite.com has a collection that combines dozens of USB and Web-Based apps that can perform typical productivity, media, and maintenance activities.

Video Tutorial for Building a USB Recue Kit

The following video will show you how to install and configure your USB Rescue Kit.

What to do After Everything is Fixed

After you get that nasty mess cleaned up, you may want to do a little preventative maintenance. Set up this newly healthy machine with a few good tools:

• Antivirus Protection (AVG or Avast)
• A Good Browser (Firefox, Chrome, or Opera)
• Malware Protection (Spybot Search and Destroy, Malwarebytes, Microsoft Security Essentials)
• PDF Tools (Foixt Reader and CutePDF  Writer)
• Safe P2P Downloading (uTorrent and eMule)
• Zip Tool (7zip)
• System Cleaner (CCleaner)
• VNC Server (RealVNC so that you can connect to their machine and fix it later)

Before you balk at how much time this will take to set up, there is a great tool that will make this take just a few minutes. Ninite.com allows you to create a "batch installer" that will download and install dozens of great free applications in just a few clicks.

Set yourself up with a bulk installer of recommended applications and keep that on your USB drive to install once your done. Since they download the actual files at the time of installation the files will take up less than 200K on your drive.

My Holiday Gift to You

Here’s the prize for the diligent PC repairman who has read this far. On Christmas Eve (December 24th, 2009) I will select one random commenter to receive a 4 gig USB drive that I set up with everything mentioned in this article, plus a few extra goodies. The rules are simple: Just leave a comment about who you would help with this USB Emergency Kit. Good luck to all!!!

36 Ways to Work Seamlessly on Two Computers

Complete Guide to Seamlessly Using Multiple Computers

Most people work on more than one computer during the course of their day. A typical person might have their home computer, work computer, and some type of smartphone that offers increasing capacity, connectivity, and power. If you do use more than one computer with some combination of Windows, Mac, and Linux and Smartphone than you know how difficult it is to have all of your stuff when and where you need it. I’m going to show you a variety of tools and strategies to help you have everything you need, when and where you need it. As always, my emphasis will be on using as many free applications and services as possible.

I keep my stuff accessible by using a few important strategies:

• Keep your data in the Cloud
• Rely heavily on Web Applications
• Integrate your desktop applications with Web Services

Many of these techniques can be a little involved, so I’ll refer you to articles that cover each topic more in depth where necessary.

Keep Your Data in the Cloud (whenever possible)

Store as much of your data in the cloud as possible. If you have your office files, pictures, music, calendar, contacts, etc. as possible stored or backed up on web services, then you will be able to access them from or sync them to any computer and most smartphones.

There are a lot of ways to use the cloud, while you can spend yourself into bankruptcy, there are plenty of great free services to help you out.

Making your Data Portable

You can choose from a number of great data sync services that will backup and sync specific folders and files on your computer to the web. Here are a few that I have tried and would recommend. (Most give you 2 gigs for free, then have various paid programs for more storage.)+

DropBox – This is my personal favorite tool for syncing files between computers. See how to use DropBox. (Supports Windows, Mac, and Linux)

SugarSync – Does a really nice job of syncing files across multiple computers and phones. (Currently no Linux support)

Box.net – Similar service, but they only give 1 free gig of storage.

Microsoft Live – Microsoft’s version of sync tool. (Windows and Mac compatible)

MobileMe – Sync Email, Contacts, Calendar, photos, and data betweeen Macs, PCs, and iPhones. ($99/year is expensive, but it does work nice.)

Windows SyncToy – Windows only tool that will keep folders in sync on multiple devices (phones, usb drives, share drives etc.)

Ubuntu One – Linux users have a service of their very own. 2 gigs free, plus paid options.

Roll your own – If you have a web hosting service for your web site, you are probably only using a fraction of the available storage available to you. You can backup/sync data from your machines to this drive so that it is available from everywhere. Follow these steps to set this up:

1. Create a destination folder on your web hosting server.
2. Set up a backup application that allows you to back up to an FTP server. (Windows, Mac, Linux)
3. Map a drive on all of your machines to this FTP server. (Windows, Mac, Linux)
4. Password protect the folder on your server.

If you are on someone else’s computer, you can just navigate to the folder on your web site, log in, and access your files. (I do this from my iPhone and my parents’ computer all the time.)

Use Web Applications to Create your Data in the Cloud

One of the best ways to have all of your stuff available from anywhere is to use as many web based application as possible. If you create information right in the cloud, you don’t have to worry about getting it there in the first place. You can create everything from office documents to audio and video using web services. Here are some of the most useful ones that I have found:

Office / Productivity

Google Docs – Create word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations all in your browser. You can share files and have multiple people update them in real-time. This is such a collaboration booster. Plus you can load all of your desktop files into your Google Docs account and export the online ones into a zip file and download them all at once. That’s pretty convenient.

Zoho Applications – Works pretty similar to Google Docs, with tons of other applications too (email, notebook, wiki, web conferencing, etc.). They have a great integrated interface that makes it feel like you are using a well polished set of desktop applications. Plus, they are integrating with other web services all the time.

RememberTheMilk – This is an awesome To-Do list tool. It is dead simple and you can have your to-do’s show up on your Google Calendar. See why I love RememberTheMilk so much.

Evernote – This is the best “capture everything” note taking tool that I have seen. Use it from your desktop, the web, or your phone. If you see something you like, make a note with text, your voice, video, or a photo. I always take pictures of the whiteboard at the end of a meeting from my iPhone. It just syncs right to my desktop before I’m even back at my desk. People love it when you attach it to the meeting minutes. See how Evernote can help you remember everything.

Dial2Do – This is one of the coolest services that I can think of. You set up the services that you use (SMS, Calendar, Notes, Email, Twitter, etc) on your account. Then, when you want to make an update to them, just dial the number that they provide and speak your tasks into the phone. Example: Call your Dial2Do phone number, Say “Twitter”, then speak your update. Bam, your voice is converted to text and your Twitter status is updated. See how you can create your own secretary with Dial2Do.

Calander – Pick any good web based calendar system (Google, Yahoo, 30 Boxes, etc.) and use it. If you have a desktop calendar tool like Outlook or Lotus Notes, you can sync them with each other and your phone to have a truly up-to-date schedule.

Contacts – Same as the calendar, use a web based contact management tool to have your contacts available all the time.

Keep your calendar and contacts in sync between your desktop and the web with Plaxo’s syncinc service.

Communication

Email – I had a very hard time leaving Microsoft Outlook and moving to a full web-based email system. I think that getting an iPhone and a Mac helped push me into the pool. I love being able to have all of my email in sync on my computers, phone, and the web. If you have to use a desktop client, you can still read your Gmail through it and keep it on the web server by using IMAP email delivery. (I love Gmail, but Yahoo and many others offer great web-based email services.)

Skype – Why burn a hole in your pocket using your land line or cell phone when you can call with Skype? Plus, your landline can’t do video conferencing with three other people. See how to get even more from Skype using extensions.

Google Voice – Did you ever wish you had a sophisticated phone service? You know, screening and forwarding your calls, different ring tones and messages for each caller, sending your calls to wherever you are (Work, Home, Mobile), transcribing your voicemail to text and emailing it to you. That’s Google Voice. This service is awesome.

Multi-Protocol Instant Messenger – Do you have friends that you IM with who are on AOL, Yahoo, Skype, Facebook, MySpace, etc? It’s a pain trying to log in and out of all of those services to keep up with everyone. That’s why you need a multi-protocol tool that will log you into everything all from one interface. There are a number of options available for each operating system. Here are a few of my favorites: Pidgin (Windows / Linux) Digsby (Windows) Trillian (Windows) Adium (Mac). If you bounce around from multiple operating systems, try the web-based Meebo. You can log in from anywhere. Here is information on even more IM tools.

Connect your Desktop Applications with your Web Services

I still love using Microsoft Office and some other desktop applications to create files. This doesn’t stop me from using my online files. Many web services have API’s that allow you to integrate with traditional desktop applications to create and edit files.

Microsoft Office – Save local documents to the web or open web documents on your local machine.

Google Docs – You can use OffiSync to connect MS Office (2003 or 2007) with your Google Docs files. Here’s how it works.

Zoho Applications – “Zoho Plug-in for Microsoft Office” enables you to work offline on their documents and spreadsheets with Microsoft Word/Excel and have these changes reflected directly in your Zoho account.

Sync your desktop Calendar and Contacts

Plaxo – Sync your Windows or Mac desktop apps with your web contacts and calendars (Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, etc.)

Google Sync for Mobile Phones – Get your Google contacts and calendar quickly and easily to your phone. With Sync, you can have access to your address book at anytime and place that you need it. Using your phone’s native calendar, you can now access your Google calendar, and be alerted for upcoming appointments with sound or vibration.

Keep all of your Browsers in Sync – You can keep all of your bookmarks, history, passwords, extensions in sync across all of your machines using Xmarks. Just install Xmarks on each computer you use, and it seamlessly integrates with your web browser and keeps your bookmarks in sync. Works on Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Chrome. (Sorry, no Opera support.)

If you want to have your favorites available everywhere, use a Delicious plugin in your browsers and all of your bookmarks will be available on the web.

Put your Music and Pictures in the Cloud

Last.FM – Install the Last.FM plugin to your favorite music player and have all of your listening history and ratings transferred to your web account. Then, you can log in to Last.Fm on any computer and listen to your music over the web.

Picasa – After you load your new pictures to your computer, you can easily upload them right to your Picasa account where they are available for the world to see.

ORB – Your music – at the office, in the hotel, at the Wi-Fi hotspot. When you have Orb on your PC: You can stream music to your laptop. Select songs, make playlists, right from the laptop. ALL your music is available (and internet radio, podcasts, and videos). This is a really cool service.

Access and Control Your Computers Remotely

Even after you take as many of the previously listed steps as humanly possible, sometimes you just need to do something on your other computer. Luckily, there are a ton of options that will let you remote control your computer from another machine (or even your phone).

VNC – You can use free, open source software called VNC (Virtual Network Computing) to do just that. VNC software consists of two parts: the Server, which sits on the machine that will be controlled remotely and the Viewer, which another computer uses to control the first machine. See how to use VNC to remote control your computer.

RDP – RDP is built into Window machines and it allows another user (think help desk) to remotely control your computer. You can use this to remote control your computer from somewhere else.

LogMeIn – LogMeIn Free gives you remote control of your PC or Mac from any other computer with an Internet connection.

Portable Applications

When in doubt, take your favorite software with you. You can load numerous free and useful applications onto a USB drive and take a solid computing environment that can be used on any PC on the road. See how to run portable applications from a USB drive.

What’s Your Best Tip?

These are a bunch of my ideas, but I’m sure that there are plenty of other good ones out there. Please add your best tips in the comments below.