Not everyone needs an 80 GB MP3 player. Many people simply need to have a couple playlists with a few hundred songs at most. So perhaps, instead of paying close to the tune of $300 to purchase more than you need, think about turning your cell phone into a MP3 player.

More than that, many phones out there will play AAC songs - ie. iTunes format. Thus, you can turn your cell phone into a 2 or 4 GB iPod without paying hundreds of bucks.

So, which phones play AAC? Here's a list of a few:

AT&T:
Nokia 6555
Nokia 6126
Nokia 6085
Motorola V3i
Motorola V3xx
Motorola V9
LG CU515
LG Shine
LG Trax CU575
AT&T Tilt
Motorola Q9 global
Pantech Duo

Other phones from other carriers coming soon!

Here's a new idea (not practical in my opinion, but neat nonetheless). Instead of sticking a mouse in the laptop bag whenever you travel, use your cell phone as a mouse. According to PC World, companies are currently working on making this happen using Bluetooth Technology.

How does it work? According to the article:

"After communicating a cell phone's field of view through a live camera feed to a computer via Bluetooth, the PC establishes the coordinates of its monitor which it sends to a camera phone. Once the camera phone registers the image on the cell phone and recognizes the display coordinates set by the PC through image processing technology, the computer knows exactly what the phone can see, which sets the stage to scroll a PC.
Users can then move the phone or use a stylus on a touch-screen to scroll a PC or move items. The PC and camera phone work together to continuously reposition a PC monitor's coordinates as the phone moves, allowing the cell phone to scroll a PC from any position in a room.
The researchers have developed the software for the Symbian and Windows Mobile OSes for PDAs (personal digital assistants) and camera phones, the researchers said."

Check out the article here!

Most carriers charge around $1.50-1.80 per call to 411. You may save some bucks on each month's bill by using Free Directory Assistance. There are 2 numbers to call:

1-800-GOOG-411
1-800-FREE-411

Click on the links for more info on each number.

Some families have several phones on their account and may not need every single phone. If you have a family with young kids and have an extra line of service that you no longer need, but are deciding whether to cancel the contract, here's a unique idea you may not have thought of: use that unused phone as a baby monitor!

Here's how.

AT&T, as early as Tuesday, February 19, is reported to release their version of the Palm Centro. A white Centro with a green number pad. This is certainly not the color I would have chosen for the first Palm device to be released on the network in over a year, but...maybe the powers that be at AT&T know something I don't.

Allow me to compare the Centro colors from AT&T and Sprint.

If you are considering a purchase of a new smartphone, allow me to present to you the latest study showing how happy the majority of smartphone owners are.

72% of iPhone users are satisfied.
55% of Blackberry users are satisfied.
Rounding out the bottom,
30% of Palm users are satisfied, while Samsung, Motorola and Sony Ericsson are tied at 34%.

Holy cow!

So with that independent study, we find that the happiest customers have either a Blackberry or iPhone. There must be something to this. However, keep in mind that this is just a study, taken from a sampling of phone users. It may not exactly reflect your personal experience with any of said phones.

Link

So after a 6-month hiatus from the blogging world, I decided to go in and see how my ol' blog was doing. Was it still afloat? As I have discovered, more visitors have been to my site each day since I last posted than when I did post! How does THAT work? I stop maintaining a blog and it becomes more popular????

Now I'm starting to change my mind and get back into blogging. Stay tuned.