Most people will know what it is like trying to make a call on the stroke of midnight over new years. Phone lines are jammed and most of us will end up having to try and make that call a little later on, when the networks have been unclogged.
Well there is a chance that this kind of problem is going to occur this summer when the Olympics head to London.
The London 2012 Olympics that will last less than three weeks will see some 6 million people visit England's capital, all of which will have cell phones, well one would assume anyway. This includes all of the spectators from both the UK and abroad, the athletes and anybody they bring with them, officials, media, entourages and volunteers. Spokespeople for the Olympics have said it will be 11 million odd, but that is grossly exaggerated, as many of that number are included as tickets going on sale, which will obviously include many of the aforementioned categories.
I have digressed.....
The point that I am trying to make is that on top of everyone already in and around London, that is a lot of people sending text messages and making calls to each other, and this is bound to put a strain on the networks supporting them. Of course if you are reading this in America and thinking this won't affect you when you head over, well of course it will as while you are here you will be hijacking one of the UK networks, as we don't have your AT&T or Verizon Wireless carriers.
This could cause a problem and prevent people from using the internet on their phones as well, unless something is done in preparation.
It seems logical for networks, and the London 2012 organizers to consider making additional wifi hotspots in and around Olympic venues, where people are most likely going to be in need of using them. Or how about one giant Olympic wifi network, one that would be the biggest in London? I mean after all they are building the world's biggest McDonald's in the Olympic park!
You may think that it won't be such a big deal not being able to use your cell phone for a little while, after all you are there to watch the games and not make calls and surf the internet. However, what if you need to check the latest travel news, check a flight, book an additional night in a hotel. Any one of a number of things that we now do on our cell phones every day, that we may even take for granted, will possibly not be available.
Let's fact it, pretty much everybody these days has a cell phone, and anyone who can afford to jump on a plane and travel to London to watch the Olympics is going to be well off enough to have one. So pretty much every visitor is going to add strain to the network, and increase the possibility of it buckling.
Most people need to get on the internet for work, or any one of a number of reasons, so having access to wifi, or at worse the 3G network is something that is vital to them. With no wifi that means everyone will be on 3G and thus will end up having to pay more as that comes down to mobile data charges.
I know when I go abroad that data roaming charges are not cheap, so with every international visitor having to face this prospect while they are at the games, that is something that is going to disgruntle a fair few people. I generally switch my data roaming off as most smartphones will automatically switch to 3G when wifi goes out of range.
Even
if a rumored public wi-fi network is built in time for the start of the games, it is unlikely to offer
equal access to all users. While it is expected to be free to everyone, there will
be speed and time limits for those who are not customers of the network who wins the bid to host it. Virgin mobile, for example, could offer its customers speeds up to 20
times faster than other guest users. Having read an article from the guardian online, I understand that one network bidder wants to slam a 15 minute a day limit on internet time.
With the games being little over a month away it is still uncertain as to what is going to happen. But it is worth being wary of this little problem if you, or anyone you know are heading over here for the games.
It is always a good idea to check what the deal is with your current network provider when it comes to using your cell phone abroad. They can sometimes amend your tariff to make things cheaper for you, and can also tell you how expensive data roaming charges will be(using your phones internet without wifi, so on the 3g network) as this could end up being rather expensive. If you are on pay as you go at least when your credit runs out you know the score, but those on a contract could come back to a very hefty cell phone bill indeed.
For more information on what the 3G network is, why not check out a page I have all about it on my website, the link is below:
http://www.how-to-text-message.com/what-is-3g-technology.php
Monday 28 May 2012
Tuesday 15 May 2012
What is FaceTime?
I was at the pub the other day with my friends watching the game. When it was over and we all left to go our separate ways I reminded one of them that he needed to call me later as I had asked him to find something out for me. His response was, "I'll FaceTime you".
Now I had to ask exactly what he meant as I had no idea what FaceTime actually was. After having it explained and having subsequently used it several times since, I have to admit that I am hooked!
So what is FaceTime? Now you may be reading this thinking that everybody knows what FaceTime is, but considering I have had my iPhone 4s for several months now and know a fair bit about them, I don't think that this is the case.
Yes to make the point early on, FaceTime is in fact something that is solely for iPhone users, and only those with the latest models of iPhone the 4s and 4. Well that is not strictly true as you can now use FaceTime on an iPod touch, a Mac and an iPad, but I meant as far as cell phones go.
I have digressed slightly there as this is supposed to be an explanation as to what FaceTime is.
FaceTime is a way of communicating with somebody you want to make a phone call to, face to face. Instead of finding their name in your phone book and simply calling them, if they also have an iPhone 4 or 4s then you can select the FaceTime option as displayed in the picture below. You will then be able to see them, as long as they are looking at their screen. They can also see you, it is quite simply live video chat!
As you can see this is just the standard contact details page on your iPhone, and like me, you may not have even noticed the FaceTime option on there before.
One thing to remember though is that if you are calling someone with FaceTime who does not have a phone that supports it then it will be ringing for you, but not for them, so they will have no idea that you are trying to get hold of them.
How much does FaceTime cost?
So this is a very cool feature for your iPhone and if you have a good looking partner or just like to see who you are talking to, the chances are you are going to become addicted to it, but how much does FaceTime cost?
To my knowledge FaceTime is free as long as you are connected to your Wi-fi. Depending on what network you are with seems to depend on whether FaceTime costs when on 3G instead. I have looked at a few forums online to check this out and the information is a bit ambiguous. The best thing to do is make a quick call to your network provider to find out.
FaceTime email address
Another useful thing about FaceTime is that you don't even need to have somebody's number as they can register with an email address. So as long as you have that they can still receive FaceTime calls from you to their iPhone.
For those that have no idea what FaceTime is or were just looking for a bit more information on it, I hope that this post came in useful.
I am going to be adding a quick page to my website www.how-to-text-message.com on how to use FaceTime as well so more information can be found there.
Now I had to ask exactly what he meant as I had no idea what FaceTime actually was. After having it explained and having subsequently used it several times since, I have to admit that I am hooked!
So what is FaceTime? Now you may be reading this thinking that everybody knows what FaceTime is, but considering I have had my iPhone 4s for several months now and know a fair bit about them, I don't think that this is the case.
Yes to make the point early on, FaceTime is in fact something that is solely for iPhone users, and only those with the latest models of iPhone the 4s and 4. Well that is not strictly true as you can now use FaceTime on an iPod touch, a Mac and an iPad, but I meant as far as cell phones go.
I have digressed slightly there as this is supposed to be an explanation as to what FaceTime is.
FaceTime is a way of communicating with somebody you want to make a phone call to, face to face. Instead of finding their name in your phone book and simply calling them, if they also have an iPhone 4 or 4s then you can select the FaceTime option as displayed in the picture below. You will then be able to see them, as long as they are looking at their screen. They can also see you, it is quite simply live video chat!
As you can see this is just the standard contact details page on your iPhone, and like me, you may not have even noticed the FaceTime option on there before.
One thing to remember though is that if you are calling someone with FaceTime who does not have a phone that supports it then it will be ringing for you, but not for them, so they will have no idea that you are trying to get hold of them.
How much does FaceTime cost?
So this is a very cool feature for your iPhone and if you have a good looking partner or just like to see who you are talking to, the chances are you are going to become addicted to it, but how much does FaceTime cost?
To my knowledge FaceTime is free as long as you are connected to your Wi-fi. Depending on what network you are with seems to depend on whether FaceTime costs when on 3G instead. I have looked at a few forums online to check this out and the information is a bit ambiguous. The best thing to do is make a quick call to your network provider to find out.
FaceTime email address
Another useful thing about FaceTime is that you don't even need to have somebody's number as they can register with an email address. So as long as you have that they can still receive FaceTime calls from you to their iPhone.
For those that have no idea what FaceTime is or were just looking for a bit more information on it, I hope that this post came in useful.
I am going to be adding a quick page to my website www.how-to-text-message.com on how to use FaceTime as well so more information can be found there.
Sunday 13 May 2012
New Samsung Galaxy S3 phone is the official Olympic phone
Looking through the list of primary sponsors, or 'partners' as they are called, for the London 2012 Olympic games, I noticed that familiar name in the world of cell phones that is Samsung.
It was not a huge surprise that they are going to be associated with something as big as the Olympics as they already have a huge part in sport sponsorship with their name at the forefront of international athletics, on the English Premiership shirts of Chelsea FC and various other sports such as Baseball in Korea.
One thing that occurred to me though was whether or not they were going to be releasing some sort of official Olympic Cell phone. New Samsung phones fly off the shelves as it is, but surely some sort of Olympic smartphone was going to really get sales up this summer.
So after doing a bit of research I found out that there is in fact an official phone for the Olympic games, and that it is going to be the new Samsung Galaxy S3 phone. Not only will this be the official cell phone by name, but there are also going to be various limited editions of the phone produced as well. This is of course going to be a big way that Samsung are going to bump up their ROI from the deal.
The exposure at such an event is epic, as people from all over the world tune in to watch the 27 day spectacle on television, and the internet, as well as listening to it on the radio and reading about it in the media. There are an awful lot of avenues to get the new Samsung Galaxy S3 in the face of the consumers!
Naturally this is Samsung's opportunity to make a huge impact on the smartphone market, so this model was always going to have to be something very special, and of course it is!
So what does the official Olympic phone offer the consumer?
* 4.8 Inch Super AMOLED screen boasting incredibly high resolution of 1280 x 720.
* 8 mega pixel camera with autofocus, and an LED flash
* The Samsung Galaxy S3 also has a 1.9MP front facing HD camera and 720p video capture
* Full HD 1080P video capture and video at 30fps
* The S3 will also support geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and image stabilization
* Includes the latest eyetracking technology
* Ultra-slim design of 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm
* Powered by a 1.4 GHz Coretex-A9 quad-core CPU
* Includes 1GB of RAM
* Exynos 4212 quad chipset
* Runs the latest Android 4.0.3 ice Cream Sandwich OS with Touchwiz UI 4.0
* Replaceable 2100 mAh battery
* Battery life and improved graphics are enhanced by Mali 400 MP GPU as a USP
* The standard memory sizes are 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, however with a microSD slot available, the highest memory the phone can go up to is 128gb.
* 4G LTE 700 network band as well as 3G bands HSDPA 850/900/1900 and 21000 MHz, dependent upon the region it is being used in
* Wifi and Bluetooth capability
Perhaps the most remarkable function that the phone offers is the ability to pay for things using the new Visa Paywave application. This can allow handset owners who pay with Visa to simply swipe their handset across a Paywave terminal, with the money then being debited from their account. This is human interaction, something that all cell phone manufacturers are looking at implementing.
Another pretty damn cool thing about the Samsung Galaxy S3 is that is supports wireless charging, so no cables and no plugs.
Additionally it is possible to take a still picture whilst recording video!
Find out more about the brilliant Samsung Galaxy S3 at Samsung's website. This really does have the potential to be one of the biggest selling phones on the market!
If there is one way to describe how impressive this phone is, one might decide to actually say 'Olympic', as it really is going be right up there with the best in it's field.
How much will the Samsung Galaxy S3 be?
Well in all honesty I have not been able to find out a sure price for the Samsung Galaxy S3, but with it's release imminent in the next couple of weeks it is something that we all want to know. Having read a few articles and other blogs the benchmark has been set at around about $900, or approximately £550. This will of course be to buy the handset outright, getting a contract deal will of course see the price drop.
There will no doubt be the opportunity to buy and win this phone all over every type of media there is associated with the London 2012 Olympics, as well as at the games itself. If you are lucky enough to get your hands on one before I am, I would love your comments on what does, and doesn't work well with the Official Olympic phone.
It was not a huge surprise that they are going to be associated with something as big as the Olympics as they already have a huge part in sport sponsorship with their name at the forefront of international athletics, on the English Premiership shirts of Chelsea FC and various other sports such as Baseball in Korea.
One thing that occurred to me though was whether or not they were going to be releasing some sort of official Olympic Cell phone. New Samsung phones fly off the shelves as it is, but surely some sort of Olympic smartphone was going to really get sales up this summer.
So after doing a bit of research I found out that there is in fact an official phone for the Olympic games, and that it is going to be the new Samsung Galaxy S3 phone. Not only will this be the official cell phone by name, but there are also going to be various limited editions of the phone produced as well. This is of course going to be a big way that Samsung are going to bump up their ROI from the deal.
The exposure at such an event is epic, as people from all over the world tune in to watch the 27 day spectacle on television, and the internet, as well as listening to it on the radio and reading about it in the media. There are an awful lot of avenues to get the new Samsung Galaxy S3 in the face of the consumers!
Naturally this is Samsung's opportunity to make a huge impact on the smartphone market, so this model was always going to have to be something very special, and of course it is!
So what does the official Olympic phone offer the consumer?
* 4.8 Inch Super AMOLED screen boasting incredibly high resolution of 1280 x 720.
* 8 mega pixel camera with autofocus, and an LED flash
* The Samsung Galaxy S3 also has a 1.9MP front facing HD camera and 720p video capture
* Full HD 1080P video capture and video at 30fps
* The S3 will also support geo-tagging, touch focus, face and smile detection and image stabilization
* Includes the latest eyetracking technology
* Ultra-slim design of 136.6 x 70.6 x 8.6 mm
* Powered by a 1.4 GHz Coretex-A9 quad-core CPU
* Includes 1GB of RAM
* Exynos 4212 quad chipset
* Runs the latest Android 4.0.3 ice Cream Sandwich OS with Touchwiz UI 4.0
* Replaceable 2100 mAh battery
* Battery life and improved graphics are enhanced by Mali 400 MP GPU as a USP
* The standard memory sizes are 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, however with a microSD slot available, the highest memory the phone can go up to is 128gb.
* 4G LTE 700 network band as well as 3G bands HSDPA 850/900/1900 and 21000 MHz, dependent upon the region it is being used in
* Wifi and Bluetooth capability
Perhaps the most remarkable function that the phone offers is the ability to pay for things using the new Visa Paywave application. This can allow handset owners who pay with Visa to simply swipe their handset across a Paywave terminal, with the money then being debited from their account. This is human interaction, something that all cell phone manufacturers are looking at implementing.
Another pretty damn cool thing about the Samsung Galaxy S3 is that is supports wireless charging, so no cables and no plugs.
Additionally it is possible to take a still picture whilst recording video!
Find out more about the brilliant Samsung Galaxy S3 at Samsung's website. This really does have the potential to be one of the biggest selling phones on the market!
If there is one way to describe how impressive this phone is, one might decide to actually say 'Olympic', as it really is going be right up there with the best in it's field.
How much will the Samsung Galaxy S3 be?
Well in all honesty I have not been able to find out a sure price for the Samsung Galaxy S3, but with it's release imminent in the next couple of weeks it is something that we all want to know. Having read a few articles and other blogs the benchmark has been set at around about $900, or approximately £550. This will of course be to buy the handset outright, getting a contract deal will of course see the price drop.
There will no doubt be the opportunity to buy and win this phone all over every type of media there is associated with the London 2012 Olympics, as well as at the games itself. If you are lucky enough to get your hands on one before I am, I would love your comments on what does, and doesn't work well with the Official Olympic phone.
Saturday 12 May 2012
Be careful with your texting acronyms, they can easily be taken out of context!
You don't need me to tell you just how common the use of texting acronyms, abbreviations and symbols are these days. If you all take a look at the last message that you sent or received on your cell phones, I guarantee that there will be one of these in there. Whether it's a 'lol' in reference to something amusing, a smiley face, or simply an 'x' at the end symbolising a kiss. If I am wrong then I apologise, but I'm more than likely not!
A rather random experience the other day really hit home with me that despite the fact text language is something almost everybody with a cell phone uses, it is still more than possible for there to be some rather major misinterpretations. I will relay this is in a quick story for you.
One night last week I was at my friends house watching the game on television, he is a big Chelsea fan and they were playing my team Liverpool. The game was a very entertaining one, and despite the fact our attention was totally on the screen in front of us, it would have been almost impossible not to hear the howl that his girlfriend suddenly let out in the next room. She genuinely sounded like a wounded wild animal and both of us got up to dash into the other room to see what was wrong.
Half expecting to see that she had dropped her laptop on her foot, I was relieved to see that she was holding her cell phone in her hand and sitting at the table. She had clearly come to no harm, and through her sobbing she slowly explained that she had been sent an upsetting text message.
My friend took the phone from her hand and read it out loud, "Lou, I have only just got back from traveling in the far East and I am so sorry to hear that your Dad passing away, lol Katie".
I straight away realised what the problem was, and so did my friend. This was no laughing matter as Lou's Dad really had died a few months back, and I knew that she was still grieving for him. But she had clearly got the wrong end of the stick.
The text message, although totally innocent, could have been taken out of context quite easily by anyone, and this is what had happened.
You see whereby most people know that the texting acronym 'LOL' stands for 'Laugh Out Loud', it can also be used as an acronym, to say 'Lots Of Love'. The latter is clearly how her friend Katie had meant it.
It took us a few minutes to calm Lou down and to explain that Katie had in fact not meant anything bad in her text. We suggested that if she has been away traveling for so long she could quite easily have lost touch with her text message acronyms and that it was an innocent mistake.
I guess the moral of the story is that if you are one of the many people who likes to use texting symbols, abbreviations and acronyms in their messages, it is always worth reading over what you send first so that you don't end up upsetting somebody!
A rather random experience the other day really hit home with me that despite the fact text language is something almost everybody with a cell phone uses, it is still more than possible for there to be some rather major misinterpretations. I will relay this is in a quick story for you.
One night last week I was at my friends house watching the game on television, he is a big Chelsea fan and they were playing my team Liverpool. The game was a very entertaining one, and despite the fact our attention was totally on the screen in front of us, it would have been almost impossible not to hear the howl that his girlfriend suddenly let out in the next room. She genuinely sounded like a wounded wild animal and both of us got up to dash into the other room to see what was wrong.
Half expecting to see that she had dropped her laptop on her foot, I was relieved to see that she was holding her cell phone in her hand and sitting at the table. She had clearly come to no harm, and through her sobbing she slowly explained that she had been sent an upsetting text message.
My friend took the phone from her hand and read it out loud, "Lou, I have only just got back from traveling in the far East and I am so sorry to hear that your Dad passing away, lol Katie".
I straight away realised what the problem was, and so did my friend. This was no laughing matter as Lou's Dad really had died a few months back, and I knew that she was still grieving for him. But she had clearly got the wrong end of the stick.
The text message, although totally innocent, could have been taken out of context quite easily by anyone, and this is what had happened.
You see whereby most people know that the texting acronym 'LOL' stands for 'Laugh Out Loud', it can also be used as an acronym, to say 'Lots Of Love'. The latter is clearly how her friend Katie had meant it.
It took us a few minutes to calm Lou down and to explain that Katie had in fact not meant anything bad in her text. We suggested that if she has been away traveling for so long she could quite easily have lost touch with her text message acronyms and that it was an innocent mistake.
I guess the moral of the story is that if you are one of the many people who likes to use texting symbols, abbreviations and acronyms in their messages, it is always worth reading over what you send first so that you don't end up upsetting somebody!
Are you a textaholic and fluent in text langage?
If there is one things that cell phones are used a lot for, it is sending text messages. There are always going to be those who prefer to talk on the phone, and those who prefer to text, but the fact is if you are shy and don't like to talk on the phone much you will only send text messages, but if you are someone who prefers to chat the chances are you will also be sending text messages too. This makes pretty much 100% of cell phone users texters!
Over the last decade or so, text messaging has gone crazy and become a serious habit for millions of people worldwide. Considering nowadays you can get deals both on contract and pay as you go phones, where you can text for free all month for a small charge, it is no wonder that so many people have become textaholics.
One of the main things that has come from so much text messaging, other than sore fingers and thumbs, is a new text messaging language. This new language is compiled of a huge range of texting abbreviations and symbols, as well as texting acronyms.
On my website www.how-to-text-message.com, I have various pages that provide many examples of these, and to be honest the more I text, and the more I look around the internet, the more it is possible to expand on them. At the end of the day it is possible to shorten and abbreviate almost any word in the dictionary, and that is what people are doing with their text message abbreviations.
Sometimes I receive text messages from people and at first glance it looks like a code that I need to refer to the military to break. I wonder to myself is it really necessary to be abbreviating every single word in there?
I have several friends that are teachers and on many occasions I have heard each one of them berate the use of text language, because it always ends up in the schoolwork of their pupils. The fact is you really have to draw the line somewhere and although there is no harm in sending social messages with all of these acronyms, symbols and abbreviations in, there is definitely no place for them in school or at the work place. But if someone has developed a habit it can be hard to break, there is truth in that.
It can work wonders to shorten your text messages though so you don't feel as though you are writing an essay each time. Texting language can shorten what you have to say down saving you both time and effort. Personally, I don't tend to use them as I like to be clear in what I am saying, and if that means I take ages to reply and compose my text message so be it.
If you are somebody who likes to use texting language in your text message, or you want to find out some of the most commonly used examples, check out my webpage devoted entirely to it where you will find all of the text message abbreviates, symbols and acronyms that you could ever possibly want!
Over the last decade or so, text messaging has gone crazy and become a serious habit for millions of people worldwide. Considering nowadays you can get deals both on contract and pay as you go phones, where you can text for free all month for a small charge, it is no wonder that so many people have become textaholics.
One of the main things that has come from so much text messaging, other than sore fingers and thumbs, is a new text messaging language. This new language is compiled of a huge range of texting abbreviations and symbols, as well as texting acronyms.
On my website www.how-to-text-message.com, I have various pages that provide many examples of these, and to be honest the more I text, and the more I look around the internet, the more it is possible to expand on them. At the end of the day it is possible to shorten and abbreviate almost any word in the dictionary, and that is what people are doing with their text message abbreviations.
Sometimes I receive text messages from people and at first glance it looks like a code that I need to refer to the military to break. I wonder to myself is it really necessary to be abbreviating every single word in there?
I have several friends that are teachers and on many occasions I have heard each one of them berate the use of text language, because it always ends up in the schoolwork of their pupils. The fact is you really have to draw the line somewhere and although there is no harm in sending social messages with all of these acronyms, symbols and abbreviations in, there is definitely no place for them in school or at the work place. But if someone has developed a habit it can be hard to break, there is truth in that.
It can work wonders to shorten your text messages though so you don't feel as though you are writing an essay each time. Texting language can shorten what you have to say down saving you both time and effort. Personally, I don't tend to use them as I like to be clear in what I am saying, and if that means I take ages to reply and compose my text message so be it.
If you are somebody who likes to use texting language in your text message, or you want to find out some of the most commonly used examples, check out my webpage devoted entirely to it where you will find all of the text message abbreviates, symbols and acronyms that you could ever possibly want!
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