Helpful Gadgets

Submitted by hellenwyeth on 1/17/09 5:44am

Today you have to call it quits early because like most parents, you have kids that need to get to baseball practice, drama club, dance practice and whatever of the numerous activities that swamp your schedule. You may bring a book with you to get you through practices while your mind drifts to how much work you could be getting done and then left feeling like you just don't have the time. Well guess what, thanks to technology, you do. Over the last few years, technology has been producing tools for people who are on the go all the time, but still need to bring the necessities of work with them. From cell phones to PDAs, there is a solution out there waiting for you to pick up and utilize.

My personal favorite to use is my cell phone. I currently own the T-Mobile Shadow. Since the new Google phone has come out, the G1, my phone is a little in the past but it still does everything I need it to do and then some. The phone was developed by HTC Windows Mobile. It comes with all the Microsoft Office programs that I use everyday including, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, One-Note and Adobe for all my PDF files and games. Along with full internet web browsing the phone also has all my email servers located in one spot on my phone with each account individually labeled so I know what's what. It contains plenty of storage but I use an SD Mini Chip to accommodate my music, audio books and movie storage. You can get cards that will hold up to 16GB and I'm sure in the near future, they will be even bigger.

Other devices such as PDAs and Blackberry which you can get with most cell phone carriers now have a lot of the same functions but depending on how many bells and whistles you want will determine the price. Before you go out and spend a whole bunch of money on a device for things that you will never use, jot down a list of programs that you use the most. What software programs are the most useful to you? Narrowing down the devices to only what you need can save you quite a bit of money and confusion.

Let the internet be your guide. Online you can find all the different price variations on the gadgets that you have in mind as well as where to get the best deals on them. Keep in mind that looking in stores only you don't have the advantage of getting honest user reviews. One thing that led me to pick my Shadow was the wealth of information on it that I found including dedicated sites to show me how to fully utilize my smart phone so I can get the best out of it.

As far as PDAs go, they are very useful and have a lot of functions. Personally, the less I have to carry around and keep track of the better. Opting for a smart phone keeps everything that I need in one small device instead of two. Plus with the advantage of the SD Mini Chips, I never have to worry about having enough storage or losing my info if my phone breaks because it's all stored on the chip.