Phone Phun

With your WAP-enabled wireless phone, you can upload and download files the way that you do on your computer. That makes it easy to grab pictures, ringtones, video, and more for your cell phone. But how do you get those files out there so that you can download them to start with? One way is to check out WapDj.com. Like many free file storage services, you can upload media files and other stuff from your desktop to their servers. The difference is that you can then download these files directly onto your mobile device.

When you upload a file, you get an item code. When it's time to retrieve the file, point your phone or PDA at the site, enter the code, and download your file. They've got a 2MB size limit on files, so you're not going to be able to use this for general purpose file storage, but it should fill the bill for getting stuff from computer to phone. Files stay on the site for 48 hours, so there's time to go grab them before they go away.

WapDj.com is a free service. There may be carrier-initiated charges for data transfer, so be sure to check your service contract.

What are those crazy kids talking about? While that's a question that parents and other adults have asked of the younger generation since cave-man days, there have never been so many opportunities for the jargon of the younger set to go totally over the heads of all the old fogies out there. Along with just plain old conversations, there are a wealth of other venues for confusion, including text messages, IM exchanges, even cute little emoticons. If you're not living on the cutting edge, then you probably need a bit of translation to understand what they're talking about.

transl8it! is a free online service that helps you bridge the gap between what you saw/heard/read and what it really means. Just enter the text message, phrase, or emoticon, click the transl8it! button, and you'll get the English-language equivalent of the cryptic message. It works the other way too: enter what you want to say and it's translated for you from English into lingo. Everybody will be impressed at how on top of things you are–the most excitement in your life since you got those white bucs for the prom!

How busy are you? A little busy; crazy busy; so busy you don't have time to figure out just how busy you are…. So how do you stay on top of things? Spinning your wheels may be impressive, but it doesn't really accomplish anything.

Dial2Do can help you keep on top of your schedule, communications, and more, all from the convenience of your phone. Just sign up for a free account, and you'll get a number to call to access the system. Phone them up and you can set a reminder for yourself, "write" and send an email, or create a text message, among other things. With the email option, not only will they do the speech-to-text thing to get your message to your recipient, but they'll also include a link so that your contact can listen to your original voice recording, which might be important if your message is jargon-rich and includes a bunch of stuff their electronic brain might not recognize.

This free service is currently in Beta, which means that there are probably a few bugs still in there. That also means that you probably shouldn't rely on it for mission-critical stuff, like remembering your anniversary–yikes!

Sun or rain? Hot or cold? You can always know the answer, even while you're on the go with Weather Watcher Mobile. Available in flavors that fit your PocketPC or Smartphone, this Windows Mobile app will keep you in the loop, weatherwise.

Drawing on the resources of The Weather Channel, this tool lets you grab current conditions, short- and long-term forecasts, and even severe weather alerts from The National Weather Service. Check out satellite- and radar maps for thousands of locations worldwide as well.

Weather Watcher Mobile is a free application. It runs under Windows Mobile 2003/5/6 and requires version 2 of the .NET Compact Framework.

If you've got friends or family overseas, you know it can cost you a pretty penny to phone them. Even with many of the low cost services available, there are hefty mobile phone surcharges–often more expensive than the actual call itself. C'mon, in this day and age there's got to be some way to beat the system on that, right?

Jaxtr has a service available that lets you make free international calls. You give the service your number and the number of the phone you're calling, and the adventure begins. These folks send an SMS text message to your recipient, giving them a local number–local to them–to call in to. Once they do that, you're automagically connected to them. Since they initiated the call (to the local Jaxtr number) on their end, there's no mobile phone surcharge for you.

This free service is available to you on your landline or cell phone. You don't even have to sign-up, although if you do, there are additional options available to you.

You're so busy you aren't sure whether you're coming or going. Your "to do" list is this long and you've got appointments late into the night. If you have to hold one more piece of information in your head, you just know it's going to explode. You've got all the technological horsepower to try to keep track of stuff, but you just know that there's going to come a time when you have something really, really important that you need to add, but it's really, really inconvenient to do so. That's where reQall may come in handy.

Touting itself as "the best way to remember what's important to you" reQall is a free service that helps you keep up with what's up. Access it via phone, smartphone, or the web. It integrates with Outlook, Google Calendar, and more. Make a call from your car—hands-free, of course—and you'll be able to incorporate that great idea into the rest of your life. No more "I had this idea, but it got away from me."

reQall is available as a free service, or you can sign up for an enhanced paid version for a couple bucks a month.

How many times have you needed to give out your contact information, but really wish you didn't have to? Whether it's an item on eBay, a posting on Craigslist, or even somebody you just met and would like to get to know better, there's that moment of hesitation when it comes to giving out your phone number. Yeah, it'll probably be okay, but you just never know. CallVibe might be what you're looking for.

These guys provide an anonymous voicemail service. After you sign up for a free account, you download their client application to your computer. To leave you a message, all that folks need to do is to call 1-504-353-2500 and enter your mailbox number. The app will let you know when a message comes in; then all you need to do is phone in and retrieve that message.

With this service you can also set up your own conference calls. Get everybody on the line at once and make those decisions that need everybody's input.

CallVibe is a free service. To use their application, you'll need a computer running Windows XP or Vista.

Sure, you get voicemail as part of your cell phone service plan, but is it really taking care of business? If you're tired of your important messages getting deleted after only a week or two, you're probably looking for a better solution.

MessageSling is a free service that replaces your wireless carrier's voicemail service. They provide unlimited storage, which means that you won't have to worry about that important message being deleted just before you need to retrieve it. In addition, they keep track of where all your calls came from, adding them automatically to your contact list. When a new message comes in, they'll text you, giving you a special number to call to retrieve that message—no more listening to the last ten messages just to get to the newest one.

While the basic service is free, we're sure they'd love to sell you some add-ons, including the ability to transcribe your messages.

How'd you like to make free long distance calls? What about international calls? Talkster lets you do just that.

Sign up for a free number at the Talkster web site. You enter your phone number and the number of the person you're trying to call, and Talkster spits back two local numbers, one for you and one for your friend. If you're in LA, you call your west coast phone number, and it'll ring through on your east coast friend's phone. They then call their local number, and through some telephonic magic, you're connected to one another and can talk as long as you like. You can up the ante by using this save service to call folks in dozens of countries around the world, or even to set up group calls. So what's the catch? You have to listen to a ten second ad at the beginning of your call, and you can only hook up five people at once. That's not much inconvenience when you figure what long distance and international calls can cost you.

Talkster is a free service.

If you're the one in charge of getting the word out about your organization's next event, then you know what a drag it can be. You've got to make dozens of basically identical phone calls, and in many cases read your script to an answering machine that doesn't interact with you anyway. It'd be nice to turn that task over to somebody else, and use your talents elsewhere. Phonevite might be what you're looking for.

Phonevite is a free service that lets you automate these types of calls. Whether you're scheduling a meeting, reminding folks of appointments, or any other time you need to get in touch with a bunch of people, you can let this service do the heavy lifting.

Once you've signed up for a free account, all you need to do is record your message, enter your list of phone numbers, and schedule a time to make your calls. You can even ask for RSVPs so you'll have a count of who's going to attend, or have them leave a message for you while they're still on the line. You can notify up to 25 people at once, so everybody will know what's going on.