How to Increase Mobile Phone Battery Life

Sometimes, you’re far from your charger and won’t be back anytime soon. Here are some tips to extend your battery when it’s running low.

Not all of these tips will apply to all phones, so use the ones that match the features on your phone. If your phone, camera or other gadgets frequently run out of power while you’re away from an outlet, consider an economical backup battery charger.

Turn Off 3G and Data

Most data capable phones can operate in different modes. If you turn off the high-speed wireless data mode, such as 3G, you will significantly reduce the power your phone consumes. This is the single biggest thing I find affects battery consumption.

Dim the Screen

The screen’s backlight uses a lot of power, keeping it off as much as possible will extend battery life. On the iPhone, press the top button, on many BlackBerrys, press ALT + ENTER to lock the keyboard and shutoff the screen. If your phone has an option to adjust the brightness, dim it. If it has auto-brightness, enable it. If you can set an “auto off” time then set it to the shortest time allowed.

Text Message Instead of Calling

If you can get away with communicating by text message, this can save power too. Although, it does require your screen, so short messages are better. These messages are embedded in the signals that your phone is already sending and receiving to normally communicate with the mobile network, even when you’re not using the phone, so it’s a very efficient way to communicate.

Turn Wifi and Bluetooth Off

Wifi and Bluetooth are great conveniences, but when you’re away from your charger and worried about losing phone capabilities, they’re a luxury that can go. Most phones with these features, have an option to disable them.

Don’t Play Games or Music

Well-designed mobile phone processors have a low power mode that sips power when the phone is waiting for incoming calls in standby mode. Playing games requires the processor to work at its limit, which requires a lot more energy than standby mode. The same goes for playing music, especially if they’re compressed, high bit-rate or encrypted or drm protected music files — extra processing is needed to process these files and power the headphones or internal speaker.

Stop Background Apps

Some background apps use more power than others, it really comes down to the hardware in the phone the app is using (ex GPS) and how processor intensive the activity is.

Generally, if you’re trying to save power, closing the apps you don’t need can save power. This mostly applies to BlackBerry, Android and Windows Mobile devices.

It isn’t as important on iPhone since background apps aren’t true background apps, they have limited capabilities and therefore don’t consume a significant amount of battery power. That said, if you have a GPS tracking, VOIP or a music playing app running in the background, it could use significant amounts of power over long periods of time and it should be closed.

-Birdy

Web Browser Secrets

Based on the results in the video below, I should start by clarifying that a web browser is a piece of software that you use to view web pages. The top three browsers are: Internet Explorer (Microsoft), Firefox (Mozilla) and Safari (Apple). Google’s browser (named “Chrome”) is a close fourth. There is a 98% chance that you’re using one of these browsers to view this page right now.

Browsers are commonly confused with search engines, which are just web pages that you view using your web browser software. That’s obviously not a surprise to some of you, but like it says in the Google video below, it is a secret to almost 90% of people.

Knowing some browser tricks will make this tool work much better for you.

Modern browsers have tabs, which promote easier multitasking. There are a few ways to perform the tasks listed below, but here are a few of the best (and least used) tricks for managing tabs in the top three browsers mentioned above.

Managing Tabs

• Open new tab: double click on empty area of tab bar
• Close tab: middle click anywhere on the tab (does not work in Safari)
• Open link in new tab instead of replacing current page: middle click on link (instead of left click)

Because we spend a lot of time reading text in our browser, there are a couple of features built in to make reading easier. Try these keyboard shortcuts right now.

Reading

• Scroll browser down exactly one page: spacebar
• Scroll browser up exactly one page: shift + spacebar
• Full Screen Toggle: F11
• Zoom In (make text larger): ctrl + scroll mouse wheel up
• Zoom Out: ctrl + scroll mouse wheel down

If you know other really useful browser secrets, leave a comment so everyone can enjoy.

-Birdy

The Roadkill Waiting List

If you’re a serious deer hunter, this may not be a secret to you: in many states, you can have your name added to a roadkill call list. When a deer or moose is struck near you, they’ll call down the list until they find someone available to get it while it’s fresh. Seriously.

I think the idea of roadkill sounds strange to most people, but a recent poll at DeerAndDeerHunting.com shows that 19 of the 40 participants have eaten roadkill and another 9 wouldn’t hesitate when the buck drops. I’m sure that number would be much lower on any other website, but that’s not the point. I just heard about this last week, and there is a logical reason for this: there may be $500 worth of meat on a dead deer, and that doesn’t change whether you took it down with a Beretta rifle or a Beretta GT.

State laws differ on this issue. For example: in Texas, it is illegal to posses roadkill, but not in many other states. Generally, you need a permit for this and need to follow the procedure for your area. If you’re interested, check with the game warden (or State Police) near you before attempting to take any roadkill and see if they have a list you can be added to. You also want to do some research on this since you may not want to consume this meat in all cases; although, it might still be OK for your dog.

Sources: NewEngland.com Officer.com GunBroker.com FreeRepublic.com DeerAndDeerHunting.com Dogster.com

Real Names of Celebrities

Top of Form

It appears as though no one is really who we think they are…

• Lady Gaga – Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta
• Pink – Alecia Beth Moore
• Tiger Woods – Eldrick Woods
• Alicia Keys – Alicia Augello Cook
• Jamie Foxx – Eric Bishop
• Portia Di Rossi - Amanda Rogers
• Hulk Hogan – Terry Gene Bollea
• Fergie – Stacey Ann Ferguson
• Jay-Z – Shawn Carter
• Elton John – Reginald Kenneth Dwight
• Meat Loaf – Marvin Lee Aday
• Larry King – Lawrence Ziegler
• Chuck Norris – Carlos Ray Norris
• Mr. T – Lawrence Tero
• LL Cool J (“Ladies Love Cool James”) – James Todd Smith III
• Stevie Wonder – Steveland Hardaway Judkins
• Jon Stewart – Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz
• Muhammad Ali – Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – Ferdinand Lewis “Lew” Alcindor, Jr
• Woody Allen - Allen Stewart Konigsberg
• Jennifer Aniston – Jennifer Linn Anastassakis
• Tony Bennett – Anthony Dominick Benedetto
• Judy Blume – Judy Sussman
• Lil Bow Wow – Shad Gregory Moss
• Garth Brooks – Troyal Garth Brooks
• Julia Child – Julia Carolyn McWilliams
• Eminem – Marshall Bruce Mathers III
• Whoopi Goldberg – Caryn Elaine Johnson
• Pee Wee Herman – Paul Reubenfeld
• Liberace – Wladziu Lee Valentino
• Ralph Lauren – Ralph Lipschitz
• Katy Perry – Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson
• Charlie Sheen – Carlos Irwin Estevez

How to Save 25% on Medical Bills

If you’ve recently undergone some sort of medical procedure and are nervous about the number of digits when the bill arrives, relax. Medical bills aren’t necessarily black and white; some frugal patients have discovered a secret.

According to a recent New York Times article, most hospitals and doctor’s offices are willing to negotiate price if it means at least part of their bill actually gets paid. In a time when the economy isn’t exactly booming and some people can’t afford health care, more and more medical bills are left untouched. If you’re looking to steer clear of collection agencies and maintain your credit, you may be able to benefit from other people’s “dine & ditch” version of medical procedures.

So what’s the trick?

Is To Haggle.

Call your doctor, hospital, dentist etc. and ask them to give you a discount if you pay your entire bill immediately over the phone. Angie’s List recently performed a consumer survey about this topic and found that 74% of people received a discount on medical bills simply by asking for it.

If you’re the planning ahead type, check out the website HealthCareBlueBook.com before scheduling a medical procedure. They’ll give you an estimate of what some of the most common procedures should cost, that way you can shop around and see how much various providers are charging. Once you find the best deal, schedule the appointment, then call afterward to haggle your discount. Check out their section on How to Negotiate Healthcare Prices for even more tips on lowering your bill.

Even if you’ve never used the salesperson of the month parking spot, it’s easy to ask for a discount. The worst that can happen is: they say, “no”

Your request can be as simple as, “Hello. I have a labor and delivery bill from your hospital for $1,700.00 and I heard that if I pay it in full over the phone I can get a 25% discount. I’d like to go ahead and do that today.”

I’m wondering, could this also work at the vet? If you thought medical bills for humans were outrageous, try having a puppy and you’ll soon learn what astronomical looks like.