Archives

If you’re being plagued by cell text message spam (cell txt msg spam) like this one we received from 702-541-4047 – “Do you have $20,000+ in CREDIT CARD DEBT? Our national program REDUCES it by HALF! Reply “DEBT” to see if you qualify! (cuturdebts.com-optout,reply:out)” – you’re not alone. (What is SMS? Short Message Service SMS service is a way to send short text messages directly to a cell phone). The problem is that those unwanted SMS messages that you see as cell phone spam, the sender sees as an SMS campaign. Those rude SMS text messages – often anonymous SMS text messages – are bulk SMS messages sent by the SMS sender as a text message advertising campaign (often facilitated by free SMS text message services). Sending SMS text messaging spam is illegal in most states, but figuring out how to go about reporting spam received on your cell phone can be tough. Here’s how to submit your spam that you receive via SMS message to the right authorities, as well as how to stop it. (Bonus: The elusive Verizon customer service phone number!)

Using your cell phone as a modem is perhaps the most overlooked of all Internet connection options. But a mobile phone Internet connection, whether as a tethered modem or, using bluetooth, a wireless cell phone Internet connection, is easy to set up, and with a laptop and cellphone you can check email and surf the web from anywhere, any time!

While we personally find this vaguely-to-very disturbing, some of our readers may be interested in the newest thing for long-distance relationships: sending ‘actual’ kisses across the Internet. The Kissenger, which calls itself ‘the world’s first mobile kiss messenger’ accessory, and exhorts you to “experience Internet kissing”, is an add-on to your iPhone that you actually kiss, and which translates and sends that kiss to anyone who also has a Kissenger, who will feel the kiss you sent against their own lips, cheek, or other body part*. {Ed. note: Obviously this will be put to uses other than lip-to-lip or lip-to-cheek kisses.}

A law that was passed in California last year, and that went into effect on January 1, 2017, makes it illegal for anyone operating a motor vehicle to hold a cellphone in their hand while driving. Assembly Bill 1785 (“AB 1785”) criminalizes “driving a motor vehicle while holding and operating a handheld wireless telephone or a wireless electronic communication device.”

We just love our new T-Mobile G2 phone, but figuring out how to remove or replace the micro SD card is darn near impossible. The little diagram sticker label on the SD card holder makes it look as though you just need to flip the holder up to remove the SD card from the G-2, but it’s not quite that simple. In fact, trying to simply flip up the SD storage card holder on the G2 doesn’t work, and the more you try to pry it up, the more it seems as if perhaps you might break it – it clearly doesn’t simply pop up. Here is the secret…

Siri has made it incredibly easy to set reminders on your iPhone. Want to be reminded of something you have to do at a certain time? Tell Siri to remind you when it’s time. Want to be reminded of something you need to do when you arrive somewhere? Tell Siri to set a reminder based on location. But what if you want to set a reminder manually – silently – without invoking Siri? Maybe you’re in a meeting, or church, or somewhere else where you don’t want Siri blabbing her loud mouth?

Facebook Chat Heads were fun for about 5 minutes. Then they became annoying. They take up real estate on your phone screen, and if you also use Facebook Messenger they are completely superfluous. So, naturally, people want to turn Chat Heads off. Here’s the good news, and the bad news, about how to turn off Facebook Chat Heads.

The response to our tutorial on how to password protect and disable the wifi on an iPod Touch or iPad (or iPhone, for that matter) has been amazing. So many people want to be able to completely disable Internet access on these smart devices so that they can let their children use them without worry that they will get into something online that they shouldn’t. So here is our tutorial on how to disable wifi (with password protection) on an Android phone or tablet.

Turn your cell phone into a wifi router with WM WIfi Router! No more trying to figure out how to tether your laptop with your mobile phone; now your phone can be a wireless access point for any wifi-enabled device, be it laptop, another phone, or even a desktop computer! With WM Wifi Router you can turn your cell phone into a wifi hotspot effortlessly, and it works on dozens of different mobile phones!

Apple giveth, and Apple taketh away. In this particular case, we are talking about the maddening changes in reminders and alerts (the alert notifications) that came with iOS 10. If you relied on being able to snooze a reminder alert notification, and can’t figure out how to snooze reminder alerts in iOS 10 so that you get another notification in 15 minutes or an hour, you’ve come to the right place. We also explain how to find that damned View button.

Samsung has issued a massive recall of all Galaxy Note 7 phones that have batteries which have been found to catch fire and in some cases explode. The recall affects all countries in which Samsung has sold the Note 7 containing the defective battery, except China; the Galaxy 7s sold in China have a different battery.

T-Mobile, or, as it calls itself, the Un-Carrier, is taking a novel new step in customer incentives: giving away shares of T-Mobile stock to their customers. Called “Stock Up”, the stock offering is just one of many different free incentives being offered by T-Mobile to their customers.

Remember flip phones – phones you could fold in half? Remember how much more convenient the folding phone was to stick in your pocket? Then came smart phones, which signaled a death knell for phones that you could fold and put in your pocket. Until now.