(flickr upload by mpd)

As a friend and former coworker put it, I am on a quest for the Holy Grail of convertible-friendly, wireless mobile phone headsets. In my latest effort, I tried the brand spanking new, military noise-canceling technology using, can hardly find them anywhere ’cause they’re sold out Jawbone Bluetooth headset. Alas, it failed miserably. Oh, it’s definitely a great headset and does a wonderful job of eliminating ambient noise. It fails where all others fail: noise from wind across the mic. If you’re a convertible junky like me, you know of what I speak. If you’ve received a call from a convertible junky, you know of what I speak. C’mon folks! It’s time for a wireless headset for convertible drivers!

I have a wired headset by Etymotic that is the BEST solution for yapping with the top down. Though a bit pricey, it’s proved to be well worth it, for I can converse at speeds in the 50’s with the top and windows down and voice quality is great and I can hear the other party very well, too. At speeds of 65+, if I roll up the windows, the call quality is still very good. If you drive a convertible and need a good headset solution, try Etymotic’s ETY•COM headset.

Now, for mobile phone holders, there are TONS of options out there. The ProClip Mounting System is by far the best I have found. Again, it’s a pricey solution, but it’s well worth it - there is nothing I’ve found that comes close to being as solid and simple. I also like the one-handed friendliness, for I am often driving away and then remembering I need to pop the phone into the clip. Doing that and then inserting the headset jack while driving was not-so-smart, two-handed thing I did several times before getting my ProClip.

I use a RAZR phone and the battery life is deplorable. Since it charges via the same port that I have to use for the wired headset (great design Moto!), I can’t charge it while driving. I bought an Energizer phone charger last year and it has saved me several times. Get one; AA batteries are practically anywhere you go and you can carry your phone around while it’s being charged.

OK, now to niftycool FREE applications for your mobile phone:

• K7 is something I’ve used for several years now. Register with them and you’ll get a phone number that’s based on the west coast (so you might want to make sure you have long-distance in your calling plan) that is associated with your email address. Call the number and leave a message. Within seconds, the message is in your email inbox as a wav (audio) file attachment. I use the custom greeting feature and have nothing as the greeting. When I call the number, I hear the beep and leave the message. I use this to help me remember things later.
• Jott is the next step beyond K7. Like K7, you can leave yourself messages. You can also leave them for anyone else whose email address you’ve entered into your Jott address book. Also, instead of sending a wav file, Jott (using some mix of human and computer transcribers) sends an email with what you said as the text of the email. One thing I don’t like about Jott is it is not as fast as K7 - it takes some time for the transcription to occur and I’m sure that varies based on time of day.
• Pinger is like sending a text message to someone except it’s a voice message. Often (and especially while driving) I want to leave a message for a friend - a non-urgent, don’t need to converse, don’t want to engage in a full-fledged phone call type of message. When that’s the case, I use Pinger. I simply call Pinger and state who I want to message and then speak my message and hang up. If they’ve registered their phone with Pinger, they get a text message stating they have a Pinger message. All they have to do is open the text message and press send. Their phone dials into their account and automatically plays the message. If they want to reply, they just press 1, speak their message and hang up. Then the process repeats. If they don’t have their phone registered with Pinger, they receive an email that has a link to the message. They do not have to register or jump through any hoops to hear the message - big plus! Another big plus is I can message multiple recipients - so, one voice message to many friends with one simple service.
• Google 411 is fabulous! Add this phone number to your contacts: 800-466-4411. Dial it and follow the prompts. Super simple, very friendly and they’ll dial the number for you… for FREE!
• HouseFront is great for house hunters. Simply send a text message to 46873 that includes the house number, street name (rd, dr, ave is not necessary) and zip code. (Separate the street name and the zip with a comma. Also, instead of zip, you can send city and state. Separate them with a comma.) Within seconds you’ll get two text messages with lots of public domain info about the property. Zillow also offers this service, but HouseFront’s text messaging provides more information. However, Zillow is better online for this and more information about the property.
• Frucall is the latest I’ve discovered. Call or text the barcode number of a product and get the lowest prices at which said product can be obtained. And the prices include estimated shipping! (At least if you’ve registered…)

One way to make your and others’ day a bit nicer is to share an electrical outlet. As our personal gadgetry proliferates, so does our need to top-off the batteries while out and about. Unfortunately, many of the places where we use our laptops or have time to charge our phones simply do not have enough electrical outlets accessible to their customers. Until establishments add more outlets or offer some other means by which customers can get an electrical top-off, it is up to the consumers to provide the solution. Here’s one:

Just pick up a 3-outlet adapter or an extension cord and throw it in your laptop bag. The next time your in the coffee shop and all the outlets are in use, ask if you can share an outlet using your adapter. Better yet, if you already have outlet access and you see someone who is in need, offer to share your outlet and make a new friend.

This device is going to make life simpler. I have TONS of wall-warts (i.e. AC chargers) and frequently have to add outlet strips to my already burgeoning supply, just to be able to plug in the charger for my latest gadget. Behold the future of gadget charging:

This little pad will replace the wall-warts and any device that’s configured for WildCharge can simply be placed on the pad and have its batteries topped off. Of course, the catch is that it’s unlikely many of my current devices will be adaptable to the new charging method. Some likely will, like my cellphone.  However, I’ll certainly include this feature in the set of those that are most desirable for my future gadgetry acquistions.

WildCharge is expected to be on the market in early 2007. Look for gadget manufacturers to be touting it in the near future.

How convenient will it be to walk into you home (or even a hotel room or coffee shop!) and simply place your phone or other device on the pad for a quick top-off?! I’m truly looking forward to this tech and hope early adopters of it really push it into ubiquity.

Over the past few months, I’ve been using a dual-monitor setup on a couple of my PCs. Using the one that’s front-and-center as the main screen and placing one to the right of it is the setup I like. The one on the right is the great addition. I use it as a control panel mainly and as a secondary work pane. What does that mean? I have some Google tools (scratch pad, to do list, small calendar) and my instant messaging window always open on the right screen. I also use it for my Palm calendar. It’s exceptionally useful for when I need to reference the content of two different windows frequently. For instance, while learning Swish (a Flash programming application), I had the tutorial on the right monitor and Swish on the main monitor. Two monitors made it so much easier and faster to learn that I was hooked. That’s when I decided to set up my other main system with them.

Now that I’ve been using them for awhile, I am passionate about telling of my experiences with them to people who use their PC a lot. I just set up a new PC for a client and she loves the productivity boost from using dual monitors. Adding a second monitor to a system is super simple and not cost-prohibitive. LCD monitors can be acquired for as little as $150. An extra video card is as little as $50. That’s all you need for a dual-monitor setup on a Windows XP PC.

One tool I like in use with dual monitors is UltraMon. It makes managing the display settings of a dual-monitor system very easy and adds useful functions. The one I use the most is a button added to the minimize/maximize/close buttons in the top right of most windows. It’s a “move window” button that just pops the window over to the other monitor. Super simple, but very convenient. Realtime Soft offers UltraMon as a fully functional trial application and sells it for $40. The price is a little high, but I think you may find you like it enough to buy it.

When you’re ready to graduate from dual monitors to something just a little bigger and better, why not go for this puppy?!