Take Notes on your Mobile Phone with ShifD or on the Desktop

ShifD, a new note taking application, is a wonderful mix of Instapaper and Clipmarks. Developed by the New York Times, this simple yet very useful app is available for the desktop, web browser and even your mobile phone.

You could either select some text on a web page and its instantly saved as a new note to your online account (like Clipmarks) or you can just save the link (URL) of the current page pretty much like the "read later" feature of Instapaper.

Related Article: Online Note Taking Software

While Instapaper and Clipmarks are limited to the browser, ShifD also provides a desktop client so you can take notes from virtually any Windows or Mac application provided you have Adobe AIR installed. The desktop software will synchronize with the online version so you always have the same notes / web links at all locations.

The most attractive thing is the mobile component of ShifD - you can take notes from the mobile phone using the phone browser or by sending the text/link as an SMS. This works for all phones including BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, etc but the SMS feature is open only for US residents.

The Top Luxury Mobile Phones in the World

Luxury goods companies seems to be realising the potential of Geek fashion. The companies which realised long ago their brands could be extended to more than clothes and bags, have been rushing to embrace the gadgets.

And on the top of their attention are mobiles, which has been a status symbol and part of fashion accessories for some time now. International fashion labels Prada, Dolce & Gabbana and Armani are rushing in to release fashionista mobiles. French fashion house Christian Dior, while rumours are rife that luxury crystal specialist Swarovski is all set to follow suit.

Here's a look into these Designer Mobiles.

Virus Danger for Mobilez

The virus is all set to go mobile. With the cellular phone providing net-enabled features like e-mail, instant messages, multimedia, browsing etc, virus writers who hitherto attacked computers are readying to upload viruses onto mobile phones. In all probability, 2008 might see mobile communication devices become the latest victim of the virus.
At stake is destruction of valuable data and experts say the viruses can worm their way into other devices or networks through infrared, Bluetooth or WAP. And the most worrisome factor is disruption of services can be much more in the case of mobile phones as they vastly outnumber the number of personal computers in the world. Security experts apprehend that the virus can spread much faster in the case of the mobile phones due to the fact that practically everyone has one. The kind of threat in the offing could be gleaned from the fact that there are around five lakh viruses on the prowl on the Internet. While it took almost 20 years for the mischief-mongers to create three lakh viruses, it just took a year for the computer-savvy criminals to make two lakh viruses in 2007.
Jari Heinonen, vice-president (Asia-Pacific) of F-Secure, says that as mobiles have outnumbered PCs, cyber criminals are beginning to target the wireless networks. Already there are hundreds of mobile viruses/worms on the prowl to hack into gullible users' devices. F-Secure experts, who have mapped the shifts in Internet crime trends since 1986, believe that India, along with Mexico and Africa, could be the next hotbed of Internet crime more so on the mobile front. The trend is expected to continue and spread into Central America, predicts Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer at F-Secure. Even Macintosh OS-based Apple's iphone, that claimed not to be fetched by any malicious malware, was found to be affected by a trojan on January 10 this year.

Vishal Dhupar, MD, Symantec India, says: "As phones become more complex, more interesting and more connected, we expect attackers to take advantage and trick users into giving valuable information. As banks are moving closer toward making services available on mobile devices, the threat factor is getting greater. Symantec found 18,424 unique phishing URLs. Banks continue to be the most phished sector with 52% of these URLs spoofing financial institutions."

Free of cost Information on Ur Mobiles.....Take a look

It promises to bring the world at your finger-tips. iMobizo, a mobile value-added service application, offers customised information on any of your GPRS-enabled mobile handset (and it need not be a Blackberry), ranging from applications like cricket, movies, astrology and lifestyle.

A co-branded initiative of Indiatimes and US-based software company Mobio, the new platform would enable users to get information of their choice right on their mobile phones — free of cost. Ramneek Bhasin, founder and chief executive officer of Mobio, said the platform is designed to mobilise web services and not websites.

"We take a platform-based approach, that allows us to create mobile content and applications that are incredibly powerful but also less filling on the mobile phone," he said, adding that users of the service would also get to view a web version of the Times of India newspaper on their mobile phones.

Dinesh Wadhwan, MD and CEO of Times Internet Ltd (TIL), said special care has been taken to tune the information for web-based applications. The market for value-added services was on the rise in India, he said, pointing out that it provided a new opportunity for such applications as people wanted immediate access to information. "We would provide up-to-date information to our users and it would be real-time, considering that it would be updated every five minutes," he said.

The application would also have its own set of advertisements, some of which would also be useful for the users like providing access to top-up cards for pre-paid mobile users. "However, we would ensure that the mobile screens are not cluttered," Dinesh Wadhwan said.

Of the 40 million GPRS-capable handsets in India, it is estimated that only about 3 million use it to browse the internet. "This number is going to go up substantially in the coming time," Wadhwan added.

Bhasin said in countries like India, where broadband penetration was very low, the mobile phone was gradually becoming the preferred mode for getting access to information. "The mobile phone has become the de-facto device for getting information from the web," he said, emphasising that iMobizo would provide "only the tastiest bits of the web and deliver personalised mobile applications that consumers can use in three clicks or less with minimal to no data entry."

He said the application were as easy to download as a game or a ringtone. "You can have the application on your GPRS phone by sending TOI to 58888 or Enjoy to 58888," he said, adding that the applications run on GPRS on the GSM networks of Airtel, Vodafone, BSNL, IDEA Cellular, MTNL Mumbai, MTNL Delhi, BPL Mobile and Spice Karnataka.

Scan, copy and fax with your camera phone or digital camera using ScanR

Finding scanner won’t be ever a problem again? ScanR is a service that helps you easily capture information from paper documents or whiteboards and quickly digitalize it.

How does it work?

Step 1: Use your mobile phone or digital camera to photograph documents, whiteboards and even business cards.

Step 2: Send all images to scanR (send to doc@scanR.com for documents and to wb@scanR.com for whiteboards)

Step 3: scanr will send you back nicely formatted PDF versions of documents.

If it’s you first time with Scanr you will need to register for an account. Registration process is rather simple and requires not more then 2 minutes. All you need to do is to provide your email and verify it by entering activation code. Afterwards you can start using service by emailing it whatever images you want to get converted to PDF. You can also use your moblie phone to send images and get back PDF versions.

Ooh, I almost forgot to mention that Scanr works on your image to make it look muuuuch better. That’s to say, not only it will convert your file but also make them look better. Check out snapshots below, showing scanr in action

Important thing to remember is that the camera you plan to use should have at least 1 mega pixel lens.

Some more things you can do with Scanr

• Get properly formatted PDF versions for captured files
• Save all documents, whiteboards and even business cards in your account
• Easily search through documents, whiteboards and business cards
• Download data to your computer if needed
• Transfer data from the business cards (that you have created from taking snapshots of paper business cards) to preferred contact management application (i.e., Jigsaw, Plaxo, Salesforce.com)

I was impressed by the performance of this service. It actually does what it shows and much more. It is not completely free to use but whatever comes with basic service is more then an enough for an amateur Joe. Anyways, with basic service you get following:

• Option to scan business cards and convert them into searchable PDF files
• Convert photos of whiteboards or documents into legible PDF files for use in the future

Scanr promises more features, but my guess it will be mainly available for premium members. There you go, here we had another web based service that offers free features and does not require any installation. Try it out and add it to your bookmarks, I am sure one day you will need it.

Make Free Conference Calls in India

The next venture of Hotmail co-founder Sabeer Bhatia is SabeseBolo - an Audio Conferencing service that lets you make conference calls through regular landline or mobile phones within India.

The service is completely free and all you need is an email address to get a unique conference number and pin. All the participants will then dial that number to set up a conference call.

You can have at most 10 people per teleconference session. There’s probably no direct way to record conference calls though you can refer to previous hacks.

Sounds simple and there’re no fees for using the conference service but the meeting participants may have to pay national calling charges (if some of them are outside Mumbai) because they are not dialing a toll-free number.

SabseBolo.com - *SabseBolo means “Talk to Everyone”

Phone to follow your spouse

London, January 14 : Want to know where your spouse is at all times? Well, if you're living in Hong Kong then you can solve this problem by signing up for a service called 'Follow Me, Follow You'.

The only hitch is that your partner will have to agree to be part of the service too.

According to the South China Morning Post, the service, which comes for 3.5 dollars a month, helps subscribers keep a check on their spouse by identifying the location of their mobile phone signal.

And, Hutchinson Telecom, the company behind the service insists that of the tens of thousands who signed up for it, not all are suspicious husbands and wives.

Download YouTube Videos Directly to Your iPod via iTunes & Tooble

Tooble is a free software that lets you watch YouTube videos on your iPod. Such a thing has always been possible but Tooble makes the whole process extremely simple even for novice users.

Tooble will automatically download your favorite videos from YouTube and converts them to MP4 format.

The converted YouTube videos are then imported into iTunes library so the next time you plug-in the iPod, the YouTube videos are automatically transferred from the computer to the iPod.

And not just the iPod, you can also consider using Tooble for watching YouTube videos on your computer using any media player that supports MP4 (like VLC, QuickTime).

Tooble is currently available only for Mac but a Windows version is coming

Interesting Uses of Camera Mobile Phones To Stay Productive

Some creative and productive uses of camera mobile phones (and digital cameras):

Computer Screen Capture - You can use the Mobile Phone cameras for capturing screenshots of error messages that popup while you are reinstalling a copy of Windows or modifying some BIOS settings. In situations like the dreaded Blue Screen, Print-Screen key is useless but any phone-cam will get the job done.

Remember Dates - Some time back, I had gone to a nursery school for submitting the admission form of my son. I don’t remember the exact date now but luckily, I had snapped a picture of the school and so that date is automatically stored with the image.

Cable Connections - Before removing the cables from your home theatre system, gaming console or the computer, it is a good idea to capture the connections with your phone camera. Then you won’t have problems plugging the cables again in the right ports as the pictures will show you “what goes where”.

Use Mobile Phone as a Web Camera - There are some free utilities that will convert your mobile phone camera into a web cam for your computer. You can use the web camera via a USB cable or wirelessly through Bluetooth.

Car Parking - Most shopping malls here have huge underground parking but there aren’t any signboards so it gets tough to locate the car. So when you park the car, just look towards the escalator (or the exit door) and take a picture or record some video. This will save lot of effort (and time) when you return with all those heavy shopping bags.

Scan Printed Documents - Mobile phone camera can work as scanners for capturing clippings of text from newspapers, library books and printed magazines. Just photograph the page and use a service like Qipit or ScanR that extract the text out of pictures taken with a mobile phone. (See “Use Mobile Phone as a Scanner“)

Replace Paper and Pen - Your wife has prepared a long list of items that you are supposed to pick from the grocery story. Why tear down that paper from the diary or put extra pressure on your memory - just click. You can also use the camera phone for capturing information written on whiteboards, subway maps and notice boards.

Google Maps and Directions - You are traveling and need the driving directions from Google Maps onto your mobile phone. If your phone has no Internet or you are not too sure how to transfer data from computer to the phone, just open Google Maps, press F11 for full screen and click with your phone.

Rent A Car - If you are taking a car on rent, capture all the areas with dents and scratches so that you don’t run into a dispute when returning the car to the agent. Thanks CraftyGirl.

Security Weapon - Before you board a taxi in some unknown place, take a picture of the license plate and driver details that are generally written near the passenger seat. Email the picture to your spouse or friend as a security measure.

Shopping Alone - If you are in a store shopping without your spouse, get his/her opinion on the stuff you are about to purchase by emailing pictures though your phone. A word of caution here - some shop owners may consider your action as “digital shoplifting” and this may lead to an embarrassing situation.

As a Mirror - When you are about to reach the party, take a self-picture with your mobile phone to make sure that that makeup and hair style is in perfect condition.

Apple iPhone Vs Windows Mobile Phone

Inspired by the Mac vs PC ads, this one is for smart phones - iPhone vs Windows Mobile

How Can I Watch Live TV on my Mobile Phone ?

With the new DVB-H-enabled Nokia N77, you can watch live TV channels on your mobile phone without requiring any external livetv software.

DVB-H offers smoother and clearer TV picture than 3G streaming. Program contents and guides are offered by providers while consumers select the channel they want to watch.

HandiTV is another program for watching Live TV on Windows Mobile phones. It’s a one time purchase allowing you to watch CNN News, MSNBC, NBC, BBC, Bloomberg, MSNBC and other news channels on your mobile phone.

Flo TV is a subscription based service to watch TV programs on cell phones. It supports FOX, NBC, ESPN, MTV, CBS and most other popular sports channels. Flo TV is currently only available for US subscribers.