Top 3 Cool Secret Mobile Phone Tricks

As I said in my previous article about Using Your Cell Phone to Survive in the Wilderness, the reason why cell phones make for such good universal tools is because they are always with us. Rarely do I leave the house without mine, and when I do, I feel naked. They've become part of us.
So knowing some secret mobile phone tricks to do some cool things with your phone is a big help.
In this article, we're going to take a look at three cool things you can do with your average cell phone.

The 'James Bond' Trick

The most basic secret mobile phone trick to listen in on a conversation with a mobile phone is to leave it in a room recording. Trouble is, you never know when people will be in there talking. Also, most phones will only allow a certain amount of record time.
All you have to do is plug the earphones in and leave it in a hidden spot within the room (but in a good position where the sound will be easily picked up). By having the earphones in the phone, it will automatically answer and won't ring or vibrate alerting others to its presence. Then, when someone is in the room you can just ring the cell phone and listen in.

Free Mobile Internet Hack

This secret mobile phone trick comes from a pair of video bloggers at TheFixed.org. In their premier episode, they showed viewers how to convert their free mobile minutes which most network plans will offer, into web data allowances. Basically, it involves setting up your own proxy using a website they specify in the guide and then changing some WAP settings on your phone.
The amount of free internet you will be able to get depends on how much free minutes you have and how well those minutes convert into data KB allowances (this will depend on what your network charges per kbKB.

Shut Down Your PC by SMS

This is my favourite secret mobile phone tricks out of the list. When you have everything set up, you'll be able to send a text message with a chosen keyword such as 'shutdown' to your PC. This then activates the shutdown procedure. Here's how it works.
First, you create an easy text file with a one line command (this is specified in the video) and save it to your hard drive. Then, you set up a Kwiry account and sync it with your Email account which you have set up in Outlook Express.

A rule must then be created in Outlook Express which will detect any incoming emails with that keyword and then execute the shutdown command in the text file when it does.
By sending a text with the keyword to your Kwiry account, an identical email is sent to your own email account, thus you can shut down your PC via SMS when you're out and about.
It's best to choose an obscure word so a normal email doesn't accidentally shut down your PC.
You could also use this for cueing up a video game or a program which takes a long time to load before you actually get home to your PC by choosing another application besides from the shutdown file when creating a rule.
Just a quick word of warning before I sign off: many of the claimed cell phone hacks on the internet are completely fake. When researching this article (and through some SPAM a few years back) I came across lots of bogus guides which either waste your time or potentially mess up your phone. So watch out!