Phone Phun

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.

In a sticky situation that you need to get out of? Not sure if that date or meeting is going to go well? Maybe you should cover yourself and arrange for a call to come in, that'll let you excuse yourself to take care of some important matter? Maybe you need Getmooh.

Getmooh ("GETMeOutOfHere") is a free service that lets you phone yourself, after a manner of speaking. On their website, you can enter a number to call—most likely yours—a time to call, and a choice of messages to use. On their FAQ page, they warn that their system has some kind of bandwidth cap placed on it, such that if that capacity is exceeded, your call may not get made. I suppose there's really no such thing as a mission-critical "get me out of here", but if such a thing were to exist, you'd be well-served not to rely on these folks to guarantee that the call's going to be made.

You do need to sign up to take advantage of this service, and your phone number is included with all outgoing messages, so if you're planning to have a call made to somebody other than yourself, know that your recipient is going to know who's responsible for the call.

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.

Nothing beats a good story. It's great entertainment, and studies show that the more kids are read to, the better they do in school. While we'd all love to spend more time reading with our kids, sometimes that's just not possible. In that situation, the second best thing may well be having somebody else read with them.

The San Francisco Public Library has a free Dial-A-Story service. It's available in English at 1-415-437-4880, Spanish (1-415-437-4882), and Cantonese (dial 1-415-437-4883). The folks at the Library recommend it for children ages 2 and older.

When we called the number, we didn't get a story; rather we heard a lively children's song (who knew that "Here we go Loopty Loo" would be such an ear worm?) that went on for a couple of minutes. Presumably they rotate their content, so you may want to call back often.

The Dial-A-Story service is available 24/7. It's not a toll-free call, so you'll want to consider the possible cost you may incur when calling.

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.

So what's the weather going to be like today? Sunny or cloudy; windy or calm; cool or warm? You can ask the folks at The Weather Channel to keep you updated on the latest forecast.

All you need to do to get the current forecast is to text your ZIP Code or city name and two-letter state abbreviation to 42278 (4CAST), and they'll shoot back their 36-hour forecast for your area. That means, for example, that you'll get info for today, tonight, and tomorrow as well.

If you're interested in a longer-term commitment, you can also subscribe to their forecasts. This time you'll need to text SUB + FCST + your ZIP Code (something like SUB FCST 90028) to 42278. They'll get back to you everyday for a month, letting you know whether to bring an umbrella or sunscreen.

These Weather Channel forecasts are a free service. As they say on TV, standard text messaging rates apply.

Want to wish somebody a happy birthday, but don't want to make it just another Hallmark moment? Maybe you should check out BirthdayDialer.com.

A free service, these guys will send your greeting along to the lucky Birthday Boy (or Girl). You can choose from several different greetings—there's a traditional rendition of "Happy Birthday to You", a banjo version, and even a "Bollywood Birthday". And of course, there's Marilyn Monroe's breathy "Happy Birthday Mr President". There's a generic "happy birthday" message that goes out along with the fancy-schmantzy one. Your call is placed in real time, so you'll need to remember to visit the site on your friend's birthday.

These guys also offer a paid version, where you get to schedule the call, and add your own personal message as well.

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.