With your cell phone. This tutorial will offer a few short friendly tips to help spice up your cell phone usage. Nothing revolutionary, but there are a few cool ideas of things you can do.

Today's tutorial is on how to create, purchase, and/or install ringtones onto your phone. Party on.

Oftentimes I think to myself: self, my PDA can do almost everything under the sun, short of doing my laundry. But there's one thing that I really wish it could do - change the channel. Okay okay, so I really don't care if my PDA can be a remote control, but there may be some of you out there who disagree with me. If you are not anti-remote control on the PDA, check this software out.

We welcome TV Remote Controller, a piece of software you can add to your Pocket PC. Third party developers have thought of everything under the sun. Cnet even rated this software 5 stars out of 5. Not too shabby!

While I'm in the whole bluetooth education mode, here is a PC Mag article on their favorite iPhone-compatible bluetooth headsets, complete with listings and linkage. Check them out.

Here are the upcoming AT&T phones. I will have some posts for the other carriers coming soon, and will update this list as I get more info.

LG CU575 trax - July
Moto RAZR2 V9 - July/August
Moto RAZR V3xx pink chrome - July
Moto RAZR V3xx red chrome - August
Moto RIZR Z9 (rumored) - unknown
Samsung A117 GoPhone - unknown
Samsung A517 - August
Nokia 6085 - July

Using wireless headsets aren't the only things you can do with Bluetooth. There's several "profiles" that can be utilized with the technology. With the knowledge of these profiles, you can discover all sorts of stuff you can do to make life better (disclaimer: unless you have Verizon). However, not every bluetooth phone has all these profiles. For example, some Samsung phones can use the earpiece, but can't transfer files.

1. Transfer files. Forget paying 25 cents to send a multimedia message to another phone right next to you. Instead, use the bluetooth link. Most bluetooth-capable phones, but not all, have a file transfer profile. You can transfer pictures, unlocked ringtones, and even address book entries. PDAs with the file transfer profile can transfer attachments, documents, and other large files. If your computer has bluetooth capability, you can easily transfer stuff to and from your phone as well.

2. Print stuff. Either from your phone or your computer, there are printers out there that can print off your favorite pictures or documents.

3. Keyboard. Tired of the tiny keys on your PDA? Some PDAs will have a bluetooth profile that enables you to use a wireless keyboard instead of trying to smash your fingers on the small buttons.

4. Use your phone as a modem. Crazy as it seems, once you add a full internet tethering package onto your phone account, you can take advantage of the bluetooth link to get internet on your laptop from your phone. This is great if you're travelling a lot for business and don't want to shell out the extra cash for a wireless PC card.

5. Listen to music through wireless speakers. 'Nuff said.

6. Use a GPS Navigation System. Most high-end phones and PDAs enable you to connect a bluetooth GPS receiver to your phone, thus allowing you to have an inexpensive car navigation system.

7. There's plenty of other things that bluetooth can do. Check out this wiki article which shows in detail all of the profiles that are out there.

I love Bluetooth devices. The technology is wonderful to have around, especially while driving. It frees both of your hands up to actually steer and/or shift gears, saves your neck from getting sore due to holding your phone to your head. Yet it has taken a while to catch on, which is a shame. Granted, in the state of Washington, Bluetooth is about to catch on REAL quick (see recent post on the ban on handheld devices in cars).

I figure now is as good a time as any to provide a tutorial on how bluetooth works, how to hook it up to your phone, and how to choose the right headset for you. This is a good starter for you. Once you find a bluetooth that works well for you, you'll be hooked.

The bluetooth technology can do other stuff as well, which I will cover in a later post.

One of the first "iPhone killers" is on the loose. The HTC Touch was announced just before the release of the iPhone to give it a bit of competition. This PDA is a pocket PC number and is similar to the iPhone in that you can use different types of gestures on the screen.

This review on PhoneArena will give you all sorts of pictures and goes over each aspect of this interesting new phone. Check it out!

Today's flavor takes on the iPod section of your iPhone. This can be helpful if you're new to the iPhone game.

Read

If you are a Sprint customer and know your good Sprint customer service reps on a first-name basis, this certainly applies to you; most likely because you have received a letter from Sprint telling you that they are tired of taking care of you and they want you to become some other carrier's problem child.

This article says it all. Customers who have called Sprint 40-50 times a month are being let out of their contract. The customers apparently have no say, no warning, no nothing. Granted, I can't even imagine calling the same customer service dept. 2-3 times a day on average, but I don't believe that most of these 1,000+ customers are calling for a friendly chat.

I believe most customers are calling the service reps because there are some major issues to be resolved, or existing concerns that cannot be met on a timely basis. Do you think that these customers don't have something else better to do than to call up customer service this many times? I highly doubt that.

There's only one reason I could ever think of that justifies what Sprint is doing; getting rid of the costly problem customers will free up some additional revenue. This revenue could be highly needed smack dab in the middle of a huge merger. Or perhaps Sprint, now feeling like a new company, wants to start anew and build themselves up again; and this is the first in a major series of cleansing yet to occur.

But the truth is, these customers are not the ones costing Sprint their desperately needed revenue. The customer service reps are. Sprint is losing $200 (per ETF) for each customer they let go for calling too much, and who knows- maybe a credit for a similar amount was all the customer needed. They could've come up with alternate solutions within the FIRST 5 CALLS that 1. would've saved time and money and 2. retained a (could have been) happy customer who would spread news of their good experiences to their friends.

Instead, each customer that has been let go now has an even MORE sour taste in their mouth. Think about how sour they already were about having to call customer service that many times! Now add on the fact that Sprint is proving they don't really care about those customers and would rather be rid of them than resolve their concerns, and voila - there is now a very very angry ex-customer. That move alone can hurt the reputation of Sprint a lot more than the cost of keeping them as a customer.

I could understand if Sprint at least investigated each individual customer in this situation first! Have a superviser or someone with some real power to go the extra mile for that customer, see what the concerns are, and take care of them. If they cannot take care of them, then and ONLY then offer to buy them out of their contract if they would like to go elsewhere. Most customers would at least appreciate that gesture, I would think.

One other thing I can't help but think. Contracts are agreements that are held between two parties; when we sign a contract with our wireless carrier, things should go both ways. Why no warning? Why no extra communication from Sprint to the customer? No "please stop calling us or else we may have to drop you" letter or anything.

Indeed, this move seriously jeopardized Sprint's reputation - ESPECIALLY in the area of customer service. If customers have to call 40-50 times a month to get their problems fixed, why would we want to sign up for their service?

A Cnet Weekend Project that discusses how to completely sync your phone up with your computer, and the benefits of doing so.

Here is the new VX8550, aka the Chocolate 2, which came out at Verizon July 9.Will it receive the same buzz as its predecessor? Not sure, but here are some reviews on it. What's so different about this one? Not much, it seems. A tiny bit slimmer and lighter, a new 2.5 mm headphone jack, and other minor adjustments. Most of the changes were in style.

PhoneArena
Cnet Crave

So many choices. So many carriers. These days, choosing your wireless provider is a HUGE deal, especially when making the wrong decision would cost you at least $175-200 to cancel your contract with them.

This cnet article gives a brief explanation of each major carrier's strengths and weaknesses. It definitely helps to do a little research before you make the big plunge.

In what will hopefully be a regular series, I want to give tips on extra things you can do with your cell phone other than making calls.

Today's article is on how to transfer contact numbers from one phone to another. This definitely comes in handy from time to time.

One thing i want to add to it, however; if you use a GSM network such as AT&T or T-Mobile, you can store up to 250 numbers on your SIM card. If the numbers are on the phone itself, most phones give you a "copy" option where you can simply transfer the numbers over to the SIM card. Samsung phones give you a "management" option. SIM cards cannot, however, store pictures or ringtones. They can't even store addresses or other contact info. Just the name and the number.

In a recent Seattle Times article, the Washington state legislature has passed a resolution that as of January 1, 2008, motorists will be required to use a hands-free headset if they want to talk on a phone while driving. Teenage girls across the state are TICKED.

About to go on a trip? Curious to know how well the reception will be at your destination? Just got word of a new website that allows everyone to report how many bars of reception we get. signalmap.com is meant to give you the chance to report your cell signal at any location you want to share with the general population. Check it out and add your two cents!

Still the only kid on the block that doesn't have an iPhone? Wondering if you're missing out on anything by saving yourself 6 C-Notes? It's time to find out. A week old, there are now plenty of reviews of this new gadget out there, so let's put them all together.

MobileBurn
"Considering this is very much a version 1.0 product, Apple is to be applauded for the overall stability of the device and the amazing performance of its user interface. "

PhoneArena
"While the iPhone is just remarkable in what it does, the lack of key features may be a turn off for some users."

Cnet
(8/10) "Despite some important missing features, a slow data network, and call quality that doesn't always deliver, the Apple iPhone sets a new benchmark for an integrated cell phone and MP3 player."

Laptop Mag
A whole comprehensive guide to all things iPhone.

PhoneScoop
"Apple didn't set out to create something that would match existing smartphones feature-for-feature. Rather, they set out to re-invent the whole idea of a mobile phone, and they succeeded."

AT&T Official Support
For those who already have the iPhone and need to know where to go for extra help.

I will post more as I find more articles.

This isn't official by any means, but the FCC has just approved the Samsung SGH-T639 with UMTS 1700. Considering 1700 is the band T-Mobile 3G will be using, we are putting two and two together. Hopefully this will be the first of many announcements in the near future about T-Mobile's 3G plans.