Web-alerts.com, a free web service that forwards RSS updates to your mobile phone by SMS message, offers a helpful way to stay on top of important-but-infrequently-updated web sites. Type in a site’s URL or feed address, then your mobile phone number, and you’re on your way to mobile updates. You can also preview your feed messages and have only updates with certain keywords sent along. We’ve previously highlighted a similar RSS-to-SMS solution that utilized Gmail and a feed-by-email service, but Web-alerts.com seems to do the same thing without the go-between.
Web-alerts.com [via The Boy Genius Report]Unless your friend happens to carry the exact mobile phone you’re looking to buy, getting a hands-on demonstration isn’t always easy. Provider stores are often stocked with non-functioning dummies, or lack the exact model you’re eyeing. New web site TryPhone aims to help phone buyers go beyond looks and see how a phone operates when you, say, pull up recent calls or start typing a new text message. The site only carries four popular models at the moment—the iPhone, BlackBerry Pearl, Verizon Juke and Sprint Muziq—but claims it will be adding phones weekly. If you’re wavering between two phones, TryPhone’s interface preview could help make the decision.
TryPhone [via CNET News]Social money management webapp Wesabe has just added a mobile interface, eliminating the memory gap between purchases and spending records. Along with entering in purchases and withdrawals, Wesabe Mobile lets you see your recent transactions and balances from your cell phone, PDA or Blackberry—a helpful willpower tool for anyone trying to break a once-a-day Starbucks habit (or Tim Hortons, for you northerners). Those with SSL-enabled mobile browsers and an existing Wesabe account can head to m.wesabe.com.
Introducing Wesabe Mobile [Wesabe blog]Ars Technica’s Open.Ended blog has a nice walkthrough up detailing how one editor got his Ubuntu system and a Bluetooth cell phone from Verizon hooked up and happy. The first segment is somewhat Ubuntu-specific, but if you can get your phone and computer paired in any Linux distribution, you can follow the rest of the guide on using BitPim. Not all phones and computers will play nice, of course, but even the notoriously restrictive Verizon phone can be stuffed with MP3 ringtones, videos and the like. If you just want to back up your contacts, you could check out Yahoo Mobile.
Using a Bluetooth phone with Linux [Ars Technica]Google quietly added mobile functionality to its Notebook web clipping tool recently, giving phone browsers some of the functionality of Notebook and its recent Bookmarks integration. The mobile version lets users add notes to a “Mobile Notes” notebook and browse their existing bookmarks and notes. That’s about it, unfortunately—no adding of bookmarks or labels, note editing, or searching from the smaller screen. But for devotees of the Notebook—and those using it to Get Things Done—it’s a nice tool to have on the go. Like most mobile Google webapps, Google Notebook requires an XHTML-compliant browser that also allows SSL traffic.
Google Notebook Mobile [via Google Operating System]Java-enabled phones: Opera Mini 4, a mobile browser that brings full web pages to your phone screen, is out of beta. New features (at least new to non-beta users) include the Opera Link bookmark synchronisation function, a two-click switch to “landscape” views, and a virtual mouse for easier scrolling. And like its predecessors, this version of Opera compresses content before it reaches your phone, saving the pay-by-the-kilobyte crowd a few bucks. Opera Mini 4 is a free download and requires a Java-enabled phone. Photo by Kai Hendry
Opera Mini 4 [via OSNews]If you’ve got an account with the Google-acquired one-phone-number-to-rule-them-all web application GrandCentral and a free dial-in number from the popular Skype alternative, Gizmo Project, you can use the two together to get unlimited free incoming calls. One major benefit of this is that—while Gizmo Project limits you to a Nevada area code with your free number—GrandCentral offers a wide range of call-in area codes for free. That means that no matter where you and your computer are, your friends and family can call your GrandCentral number and you’ll continue to get free calls through Gizmo. It’s always cheap for you and—if they’re in your GrandCentral area code—cheap for the person making the call. GrandCentral’s Gizmo support isn’t exactly new, but I suspect that whenever Google decides to re-open GrandCentral’s doors, a lot of users will want to jump on it.
GrandCentral and Gizmo…free calls everywhere [GrandCentral Blog]Windows only: Freeware application SmartJournal archives your Windows Mobile cell phone’s call history—including incoming, outgoing, and missed calls—with Outlook’s Journal, a lesser-known feature of the popular email client. After you’ve installed SmartJournal (which is in German—though that shouldn’t affect any operation, since its actions are all behind the scenes), the program runs alongside ActiveSync and writes the phone number, the type of call (incoming, outgoing, missed), date, duration, and name of contact (when available) to the Outlook Journal. SmartJournal is freeware, Windows only, requires a Windows Mobile phone. My Windows Mobile device is on the fritz so I was unable to test this, but if you give it a try, let us know how it worked for you in the comments.
SmartJournal [via Inspect My Gadget]
