Really good cell phone tips

[meowbunny]

I have not tried these tips. However, the person who sent it to me says he has and he is a person I trust implicitly.

4 THINGS YOU PROBABLY NEVER KNEW YOUR MOBILE PHONE
COULD DO

There are a few things
that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your
mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an
emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that
you can do with it:

FIRST
Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the 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.

SECOND

Have you locked your keys in the car? Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday.

Good reason to own a cell phone: 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 cell 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 (or
the trunk).
Editor's Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a mobile phone!'

THIRD
Hidden Battery Power

Imagine your mobile battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your mobile will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery.
This reserve will get charged when you charge your mobile next time.

FOURTH
How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: *#06#

A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe.

If your phone gets stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back, but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no
point in people stealing mobile phones.

 

[Marguerite]

Sorry to disabuse you, but this is an email doing the rounds which is a bit confusing and a lot misleading. Some of it is partly true; a lot of it is not. But the original intention of the person who compiled it was genuine, they were trying to help.

Here is the Snopes link:
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/household/cellphones.asp.

The Snopes info on the fourth option says it's not really so. However, in Australia we do have the option of having our mobile phones network-locked. This means the SIM cannot be swapped to a SIM from a different network. We found this out the hard way in New Zealand last year, when I tried to put a New Zealand SIM in my phone, only to find it wouldn't work. Luckily we'd taken an old, spare handset with us and we were able to use the New Zealand SIM in that. And then when we mislaid my Aussie phone in New Zealand, because it was network-locked it was as useless as a paperweight, so there was no profit to anyone in stealing it. I got it back.

And the first one - the international emergency code 112 - I could have used my phone in New Zealand (with the Aussie SIM) for that. This only works while you are in range anyway, though. It won't work in the middle of the Simpson Desert, for example, or in the various dead spots on the road from the highway to our village (a big bone of contention for us; we USED to have coverage).

Unlocking the car - according to Snopes, this does not work. Or if it does, it's a fluke. I'd love to find out who the "editor" was who claims it works - funny how they never leave their names in the emails...

Marg

 

[meowbunny]

Well, the car one did work for my friend. We tried it just for the heck of it and it did unlock her door. I guess if the car lock is based on a sound wave of some type it will; if a magnetic wave, it won't. Who knows?

The one that really interests me is the battery power one. I wonder if that does work. Anyone know?

 

[Marguerite]

If you check the Snopes website, you will find where that one came from. One kind of phone, this DID work (although with a different code). What happened was you had the option of trading off poorer call quality with longer battery time, so it wasn't really a hidden extra bit of power, it just seemed like it.

As far as we've been able to determine, cars we've had access to which had remote key locking didn't work on sound, they worked on some other form of radio/infra-red type of signal, which wouldn't work over the phone. Maybe there are some out there which do work on sound, but memories of the days when hackers would crack payphones for free calls using a whistle from a Captain Crunch cereal box led to concerns that sound-activated locks were maybe not as secure as the inventors originally thought.

It's rather fun with the cars - we have kids who like to experiment, and we've been on holidays and had to hire cars from time to time, often getting cars much more upmarket than what we can afford to drive at home. The kids immediately try to work out things like range; whether it can work around a visual barrier; what increases/decreases the range; and of course exactly how it works. I think difficult child 1's new car has remote locking, I'm going to suggest he tries this out on his car sometime. Or, since husband & I can ring each other's mobile phones for free, maybe we can try it out ourselves and turn the tables on the kids (for once, parents getting the fun of experimenting!).

I'll let you know if it works.

Marg