Another cool thing your mobile can do

Have you locked your keys in the car? Does you car have remote keys?



This may come in handy someday. If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone. Hold your mobile phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other "remote" for your car, you can unlock the doors.

Emergency number for mobiles

I didn't know this - the Emergency Number worldwide for mobile phones is 112 .



If you find yourself out of coverage area of your mobile network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialed even if the keypad is locked.

Recycle your mobile phone

If you are thinking of upgrading your mobile phone, take a look here. This is a site where you can recycle your phone and get cash or Argos vouchers for it. Not bad for something that you were probably just going to chuck into a drawer and forget about - and you get to do your bit for the environment as well. It's a no-lose situation !

Line Rider - the next generation !

I posted an entry a while ago about a great little game called Line Rider where you draw lines on the screen and a little figure sledges along the lines - very simple, but very compelling (see original post here). Someone has now taken this to the next stage. Now you still draw the lines, but instead of a little bloke sledging, you control a bike rider who rides the course. You can add stars along the way for them to coolect and do all sorts of other things.



This is a great game that has just got even better. Well worth a try - click here to give it a go.

Get cash back just for shopping

I have just signed up to a cashback shopping site called (very originally) TopCashBack. The idea is that if you do any shopping online, then you go via this site and if you make a purchase you get a certain amount of cash back - either a percentage of what you spend or a fixed amount. This site is simply a gateway to the other sites - you do not pick goods from this site, but merely click through to the retailer sites from here. All very simple.

This seems like a no-brainer to me. I tend to do a lot of shopping online - from books, CD's, etc to electrical goods and even the weekly grocery shop. If I can get cash back on all those purchases, and I don't have to do anything to get it, then that sounds like a pretty good deal to me !

You can sign up (for free of course) and get £2.50 just for signing up by clicking here.

Tips and tricks

I came across this page which has some really useful tips and tricks on it. Nothing earth shattering, but one or two things that might just help out. Take a look.

Handmade mens shoes - 2 pairs for £99 !

I have just come across Samuel Windsor shoes and am very impressed. They are 100% handmade shoes that are selling for £99.95 and when you order a pair, you can choose another pair for free ! They offer a full 30 day money back guarantee and even supply pre-paid return labels, so it is free to return them. This really shows confidence in their product.

I have just ordered a couple of pairs (well one pair as well as my free pair) and am eagerly awaiting them. Take a look at their website by clicking here.

Cheap glasses online

For those reading this in the UK, I have come across a fantasic site to get glasses online at ridiculously low prices. They have been set up to combat the crazy prices that opticians have been charging and seem to
be doing pretty well. To quote from their site: "Back in 2004, the average cost of a pair of glasses bought at big high street chains like Specsavers was £148.85. Now you can get quality glasses, custom made to your precise prescription for just £17.50 complete."

Check out their website here.

7 New Year's resolutions for your PC

Continuing on from the last post about backing up your PC, here is an excellent article from Lifehacker - a great PC-related site. It has the golden rules that everyone should be following to keep their PC in tip-top shape. This may not be everyone's idea of fun, but this will really make such a difference on how your PC performs. Do these 7 steps and your PC will be flying again.

Seriously, I cannot recommend this enough !

Backup your PC - now !

OK, I know that it's not the most exciting thing in the world, but backing up your PC is extremely important. These days, when we all have so many digital photos, so much music and all those important letters and other documents stored on our computers, what would we do if we suddenly lost the whole lot ? Are you willing to lose all those family photos ? Would you be annoyed if your music collection disappeared ? Might you perhaps need those letters that you wrote to the insurance company ?



The fact is that hard drives can, and do, fail and if that happens, you're stuffed ! You should make sure that you back up your computer on a regular basis, so that if the worst happens, you can simply restore all your files from a backup. The simplest, and cheapest, way of doing this is to use one (or more) of the free online backup services available. My favourite is Mozy - it gives you 2Gb worth of storage free and allows you to schedule your backups - you can schedule them for 1.00am so that no-one will be using the computer.



Honestly - if you only do one thing to your computer this year, make a backup of your important files - you might just thank me one day !