A lot of people who shop are browsers and impulse buyers. They go out to look around and to see if anything captures their attention and demands to be bought. Smart shoppers don’t do this. Smart shoppers make lists of what they actually need and buy only those items to make sure that they aren’t wasting money on frivolous purchases.

One way to enhance your ability to be this type of smart shopper is to consider the use of mobile classifieds for finding what you want to buy. Classifieds are a great way to find used products at a discount so that you save money on any purchase. Mobile classifieds are even better because they allow you to access the power of classified ads for just those purchases that you actually want to make.

The cool thing about mobile classified sites is that they allow you as a consumer to set up alerts that will notify you via your mobile phone whenever an item that you want has become available. So let’s say that you want a new bed; you enter that information into your account and then you’ll be notified by phone if someone posts a new bed to the site.

This allows you to identify what you actually need to buy. It lets the site do the work of searching for that item so that you don’t get distracted by ads for things that you don’t actually need to purchase. When you receive the alert, you can check the ad and see if it is what you’re looking for. If it is, you can immediately proceed with the purchase. What a great way to get discounted items without caving in to impulse shopping!

Tags: cell phones, classifed ads, kathryn vercillo, mobile classifieds, shopping, spending, Wireless

I think that the development of various mobile phone applications which we have seen grow in the past couple of years is a great thing. The iphone, Blackberry and new Android phones all offer phone users the chance to personalize their phones in such a way so as to make them more fun and efficient to use. However, I think that there are some mobile phone apps out there that are just a complete waste of time.

I’m not saying this just because there are phone apps that I don’t like. There are plenty of phone apps that I don’t use but can see the value of. For example, I am not someone who is interested in instant messaging from my mobile phone so I ignore all of those apps when I see headlines about them in the news. Nevertheless I think those could be valuable apps.

But there are some applications for phones out there that just seems absurd. There are applications that heighten your paranoia by informing you about crime rates in the area that you’re in. There are applications that remind you to pray at certain times of day which I think is something you should be doing without help from your phone. And there are applications that take features that you can already find on your phone elsewhere and try to market them in an appealing way even though you really don’t need the app to enjoy the features. It’s silly.

See my picks for ten of the most ridiculous mobile phone apps out there today. What do you think – agree or disagree on these?

Tags: cell phones, kathryn vercillo, mobile phone applications, mobile phones, phone apps, Technology, Wireless

I remember sometime in the late 1990′s when daily newspaper headlines constantly alerted us to the fact that kids in bad neighborhoods were being murdered for their sneakers. The point of these headlines was to highlight the senselessness of gang violence and other violent crimes. I was reminded of this recently when I did research into a rash of reports about people who have been assaulted for their mobile phones.

Just a cursory glance through the mobile phone news throughout the United States and the UK reveals that there are people all around the world who are getting physically attacked for the purpose of robbing their mobile phones. It’s hard to say in some of these cases whether the victim was assaulted for another reason and then the phone theft was secondary to the crime but it’s clear in at least a few of these instances that robbery of the phone was the sole motivation for the attack.

That’s some scary stuff. It reminds us of just how senseless most crime is. Phones are not that valuable and they’re easily accessible to almost anyone and yet we’ve got these crimes where mobile phones are valued as property to be stolen. It’s frightening and the reports are eye-opening as to what’s going on in the world around us.

Check out my whole article titled Today’s Thieves Want Your Mobile Phones.

Tags: cell phones, crime, law, legal, mobile phones, news, robbery, Technology, theft, violence

I really love looking at gadgets and technology that are only in concept form. I’m a huge fan of concept cars (like Terrafugia) and am also really interested in concept phones. Basically I think that any technology that’s only in concept form has the capability of showing us what things might look like in the future. And I think it shows off the kind of innovation that only a handful of designers in any field are actually capable of working on.

For example I’ve been reading lately about the Kyocera EOS Concept Phone. This is a phone that is made from a bendable polymer that allows you to reshape the phone. I don’t know that it would work well in actuality – you can just see it breaking over time – but I think it’s an idea that is going to be worked into handset design in some way in the future. Likewise the phone’s ability to self-charge using kinetic power is something we’re going to see in tomorrow’s mobile phones.

It’s not that I think every single concept phone brings about change and ends up being the device that we want in the future. It’s just that I think we start moving in a new direction with these types of products. Anything that’s different captures my attention and anything that’s cutting-edge in design manages to keep it for at least a little while!

Tags: cell phones, concept phones, creativity, design, innovation, kyocera, mobile phones, Technology

What do you use your cell phone for most of the time? A few years ago, the answer to that question would’ve been “phone calls” for all but the die-hard CrackBerry addicts. Today, with the option of using phones for everything from texting to sending pictures to accessing the Internet, it is unlikely that the service that you use your phone for most frequently is actually placing or answering voice calls. However, times could be changing again and announcements from three major companies seem to indicate that voice communication could be finding a toehold in the cell phone business once again.

Recent announcements in the world of mobile phones include the launch of Google Voice, the debut of Alcatel-Lucent’s Rich Communications Manager and the development of Skype mobile VoIP for the iPhone. All three of these announcements are related to the launch of new types of voice-based services for cell phones. What all three have in common is that they also feature modern use of advanced cell phone technology to enhance voice calls so that they become more than just voice communication.

I’m curious to see how this area of mobile phone use develops over the next couple of years. There’s been a big push towards unified communications in which your mobile and landline experiences as well as your PC and phone experiences are all merged much more seamlessly than they are today. The developments in voice communication for mobile phones seem to be taking us further in that direction. Interesting how a return to the original use of phones may be a key feature of moving us forward in their development.

Tags: cell phones, communication, development, google voice, kathryn vercillo, mobile phones, phones, unified communications

California has only recently changed its cell phone laws to make it so that you can’t text while driving. Prior to this change, you couldn’t talk on the phone while driving but you could text. How smart is that? After all, texting obviously requires more of your attention to be focused on your phone than on the road right?

The reason that I’m thinking about this is because I recently researched an article on 10 Tragic Accidents Caused by Cell Phones. These are primarily car accidents involving someone who was texting or talking on the cell phone whilr driving and hit and killed someone else. There was also the tragic case of the LA Commuter Train accident that was partially caused by the distraction of cell phones. And even one case in which a man merely went inside to go get a forgotten cell phone and ended up getting run over by his one car.

I’m not honestly sure how I feel about talking or texting while driving. I do think that it causes accidents. On the other hand, I don’t think that talking on a cell phone is particularly more distracting to drivers than talking to the three kids in the back seat or trying to navigate around an unfamiliar area by fiddling with the GPS system.

What do you think? Is it good that texting while driving has been banned in California? Should we ban other types of fiddling around in cars?

Tags: cell phone laws, cell phones, driving, issues, kathryn vercillo, laws, mobile phones, texting, transportation, Wireless

Marketing has been a big business for a long time. Mobile marketing has also been around for quite awhile. Basically, as soon as mobile phones started being a popular item, savvy marketers started wondering how they could use it as a way to deliver marketing messages to people. But in the last few years, as mobile technology has seen some serious advances, the interest in the mobile marketing business has really finally boomed.

Mobile marketing refers to basically any type of marketing or advertising that is done through the mobile phone. In the past, the primary method of marketing has been through sending text messages that advertise a product. However, with mobile Internet growing so quickly, mobile marketing is now much more focused on advertising and marketing through the mobile web.

It will be really interesting to watch the changes that take place with mobile marketing in the next few years. The mobile web is starting to look a lot more like the desktop-based web so there may be no difference at all in how we receive marketing messages between the two. Then again, phones and computers still do have their differences and smart marketers may harness those difference to change the face of mobile marketing in a way that the rest of us haven’t yet predicted.

What do you expect to see from mobile marketing in the next few years?

Tags: business, cell phones, kathryn vercillo, marketing, mobile, mobile marketing

I am interested by almost all types of art. I’m just as happy to browse through a small independent gallery as a huge art museum, to attend a dance event or a live music performance, to fingerpaint or take a sewing class. I believe that exposing yourself to art of all kinds broadens your perspective on life and enhances your creativity.

But there are some types of art that capture my attention more so than others, of course. Found art is one of those types of art, as I’ve mentioned here on the blog before. And another is art that is combined with technology. One such type of art is mobile phone art.

There are a lot of different types of mobile phone art out there. People actually take recycled mobile phones and use them in sculptures and found art pieces, creating mobiles and structures that are visually stunning despite the ordinary-ness of the mobile phone. Other people use the phone as the means to make art, creating interactive audio and visual performances from the phone or filming videos on the phone and turning those into art.

I find this all to be really interesting. We use our phones every day but most of us don’t think twice about them in terms of their potential for creativity. As mobile phones get more and more advanced, that potential just opens up even wider. I think it’s inspiring … it makes me look at my own cell phone in a whole new light!

Tags: art, cell phones, creativity, found art, hubpages, kathryn vercillo, mobile phone art, mobile phones, phones, recycled art, tech art, Technology

Last week I asked the question: how long should you keep your cell phone? As part of a life of frugal living, people should probably try to make their phones last as long as possible so that they aren’t spending more than necessary on new phones and increased phone bills.

Another important question to ask is how much should you pay for your cell phone? What do you think is a reasonable price to pay for a device? And is your decision impacted by the monthly cost of services on that phone?

I did a Nokia N97 review recently which highlighted all of the reasons that a lot of people are really interested in this new phone which is set to come out in the summer. But there are rumors going around that the phone is going to have an outrageous price of $1000. Even if those rumors are incorrect, the price is likely to be at least half that. Is $500 too much to pay for a cell phone?

I come from the school of frugal living as far as phones go. I try to keep both the cost of the phone itself down and also try to limit my monthly spending. However, I do think that it’s sometimes wortwhile to pay for added convenience which is probably why so many people are footing the bill for the advanced smartphones that can do so much more than a basic cell phone can. So it’s a balancing act, I guess.

What is the most that you would pay for a cell phone?

Tags: cell phones, cost of phones, Frugal Living, mobile phones, phones, price of phones, shopping, spending, what to pay for phone, Wireless

Two of the topics that I write about most frequently are technology and personal finance. Specifically, I often write about mobile phones and I also often write about how to save money in your life. Every once in awhile I get to combine these two areas of interest in one article. That’s the case with an article I recently wrote about how to make your mobile phone last for a long time.

I know that most people upgrade their cell phones about once each year. Some people that I know get new phones long before that year is up. I, on the other hand, tend to hang on to my phones for at least a couple of years. Yes, I certainly have an interest in the latest new technology (and have been eyeing the Android phones a lot lately) but I also think that it’s a good idea to hold off on getting a phone until I really need one.

Every time that I have upgraded my phone, I’ve increased the cost of my phone bill. This means I’m not only paying for the phone but also paying more each month for the services on the phone. I’m fairly certain that’s going to happen again when I upgrade the next time because I’ll be adding a data plan which I don’t have now.

I’m not saying it’s not worth the money and convenience to get the new mobile technology. I just think that people who are trying to cut back on spending right now may want to hold on to their phones for a bit. What do you think?

Tags: cell phones, keep phone longer, make phone last, mobile phones, Personal Finance, save money, Technology