Genuine Curiosity

Author Dwayne Melancon is always on the lookout for new things to learn. An ecclectic collection of postings on personal productivity, travel, good books, gadgets, leadership & management, and many other things.

 

Find stuff locally on your Blackberry

I've written about Samecell a few times here. It's a free utility to let you know when your friends are nearby, based on the cell towers your mobile phone signals are bouncing off of. The application will also use your GPS if it's available to provide even more accuracy. After using it for about 9 months, Samecell has been very stable and has helped me connect with friends when we happen to be in the same airport, at the same trade show, etc.

The folks at Samecell continue to improve and expand the functionality of their cool tool - and the latest addition is a local search function.

With this application, Samecell builds on its knowledge of your location to add smart searching capabilities to help you find points of interest that are nearby. If you travel a lot, as I do, you'll understand the difficulty of finding a particular type of restaurant in an unfamiliar town. Samecell Search is a great way to get the job done - you simply choose a category or keyword, send the results to the server, and you get the results back right away. The results are complete with addresses, phone numbers, and clickable web links.

And, yes, it's also free. Go check it out today. I run both the Samecell application, and the Samecell Search application.

Enjoy!

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Make your luggage stand out

My "Make It Great!" pal Phil Gerbyshak pointed out a company called "UBrand" that makes 3D, self-stick decorations to help you customize your luggage, gear, etc. to make it stand out from the crowd.

I think this is a great idea - how many similar pieces of black luggage do you see on the luggage carousel at baggage claim in the airport? How can you tell your laptop, phone, or music player from someone else's? UBrand provides you with a way to personalize your stuff in a way that reflects your personality. They also sell some professional-looking monogram letters if you want a more dignified look.

Sure, you could use regular stickers, but these are designed to be tough and (as they say) "semi-permanent."

Check them out and see what you think - and if you want a chance (through September 25) to win 3 monogram letters, check out this post at the Business Opportunities Weblog.

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Superior airpower



When I boarded my plane this morning, I sat in my emergency exit row seat (next best thing to a First Class upgrade) I was pleasantly surprised to see that this plane, a Continental Boeing 737-800, has power outlets throughout the plane!
Of course, the plane *didn't* have video or audio on board, but I'll take a "bring your own" model with power any day. Now, if only they'd add these to every plane...
By the way, this also gave me an excuse to try out Typepad's mobile client for the iPhone to snap the phot and write this post. Pretty cool little app.

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iPhone 3G battery life, part 2

Yesterday I wrote about how I extend my iPhone 3G's battery life (using Kensington's Mini Battery Extender and Charger for iPod and iPhone).

Iphonebattery_little Well, I've got another day under my belt with both the phone and this device, and have some additional thoughts:

  1. The battery on my iPhone 3G seems to last a bit longer each day, and was noticeably better today. Maybe it needs some "breaking in" through a few days of use, or something like that. I am assuming it will level out soon since it can't continue to get better forever, can it?
  2. I decided to try recharging my phone with the Kensington battery extender today, and I find that it will charge the phone very quickly - much quicker than I'd expected. In less than an hour, it brought my phone from approximately 25% charged to fully charged.

I still haven't fully tested its effect on talk time (i.e. live use of the Kensington battery as a power source while talking vs. just as a charger when I'm not using the phone) but I'm still quite pleased with this device as a way to keep the juice flowing in my iPhone 3G.

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My solution to iPhone 3G battery life

Well, I took the plunge on Saturday and moved from a Blackberry to an iPhone 3G. I am working on a more detailed review of the pros and cons of what I've done but, in the mean time, I wanted to let you know my solution to the shorter battery life of the iPhone 3G.

For the record, the battery life is "just OK" - it isn't abyssmal and, as PC World reports, the iPhone 3G's battery life is better than that of competing smart phones.

What's my solution? I bought Kensington's Mini Battery Extender and Charger for iPod and iPhone (available via Amazon and elegible for free 2nd day shipping for Amazon Prime members). I've only had it for a couple of days but I love it already. On a call-heavy day, I start to run out of juice on my iPhone by late afternoon / early evening. By plugging this battery extender into my phone I get a few more hours of talk or browsing time (I haven't had it long enough to give you definitive times, but it definitely lets me finish the rest of the day).

This battery extender plugs into the docking connector on the bottom of your iPhone (original or 3G, and it works with the iPod Touch, too). It is small enough to carry in my pocket which I did all day today, for example. When you attach it to your iPhone, it is small enough that you can still use your phone without feeling like a mutant and you can continue using your headphones since the iPhone's jack is on the top of the phone.

This battery comes with a retractable charging (but not syncing) cable which plugs into your USB port or iPod charger, and you can charge it alone or while it's attached to your iPhone (in which case both will be charged). The LED's on this battery are very useful. When you are charging it, the three blue LED's (on the left in the photo) indicate when the charge level has reached 20%, 60%, and 100%. The red LED (on the right in the photo) is lit during charging and during use with the phone, it begins blinking to let you know when you have less than 20% remaining.

As I said, I've got more coming about my iPhone conversion but this was just too exciting to wait.

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