(Approx. 1,133 words)

THE EMERGENCY TOOL IN THE PALM OF YOUR HAND: Your Mobile Phone
 Written by Lorin Goldstein, a family member of The PC Users Group of Connecticut
www.tpcug.org
jerryg (at) attygoldstein.com

This article has been obtained from APCUG with the author’s permission for publication by APCUG member groups; all other uses require the permission of the author (see e-mail address above).
 
Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival.
Check out what you can do with it:
 
UNLOCK YOUR CAR FROM MILES AWAY
You’ve locked your keys in your car and you are at least an hour from your house. Does your car have remote keyless entry?  Your cell phone will open your car for you.
 
You will still need someone at home to find your spare keys. The deal is they don’t have to drive out to you if you have your cell phone handy. Call someone at home on their cell 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. 
 
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). 
 
EmergencY 112
The Emergency Number worldwide (outside the US) for Mobile is 112. It will work even when you find yourself out of your mobile network’s coverage area. Dial 112 in an emergency and the mobile will search any existing network in your area to establish the emergency number for you. This number, 112, can be dialed even if the keypad is locked!  I’d tell you to try it but give the emergency operator a break and wait until you really need it to try the number.
 
Hidden Battery Power 
Your cell phone holds a secret. You will only discover it when your cell battery is very low. Press the keys *3370# to activate your cell’s reserve battery power. Your cell phone will restart with the reserve and will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your cell phone next time.
 
disable a STOLEN mobile phone 
Once again you left your cell phone behind. This time you don’t have to worry that someone else is stealing all your data. That is if you move quick enough before they act. 
 
You will need your cell phone's serial number to do this. To get your cell 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.
 
Free Directory Service for Cells
Have you used your cell phone to call 411 information for a telephone number?  Like your local telephone company, cell phone companies charge us $1.00 to $1.75 or more for 411 information.
 
The trick is to not use your cell phone company’s 411 service. When you need to use the 411 information option, simply dial one of the free 411 services instead. Try any of these numbers and you won’t be charged any fee:
 	(800) FREE411 or (800) 373-3411    Sponsored by McDonald’s
	(800) GOOG411 or (800) 466-4411  Sponsored by Google
 
You will have to listen to a quick ad and be prompted to dial for some service but the call is FREE. That is as long as you don’t dial out to the advertised company after the short sales pitch. If you have free text messaging you can even get the number texted to you free. Otherwise text messaging fees from your provider will apply.
 
Don’t leave all these numbers to memory. Save them to your cell phone and you’ll have them handy when you need them. 
 
SO MANY TIPS SO LITTLE VALUE
If you have been trying these tips as you read them you would know that, for the most part, they are not true. That is because they are from an email I have repeatedly received from friends and family. The email is a bunch of junk (mostly) and possibly contained a virus or spyware at some time (my IT person/ geek -- otherwise known as my husband) has my computer with all sorts of virus protection and anti-spyware to protect my computer so the information may have been pulled and forwarded in a clean email but it is still mostly junk.
 
A good parameter to follow with deciding whether to forward email you receive is if it sounds too good to be true it probably is not true. In which case, the best way of stopping the email is not forwarding it on again. 
 
If you are not sure about something you received you can always check at www.snopes.com. You can also Google the topic and will probably come up with a bunch of sites that will help. This email I found at an urban legends website. I don’t normally read these web sites (who has the time) but I do check out the things I receive before I become part of the junk and spam mail problem.
 
For those who have not checked yet
1. Unlocking your car:  FALSE  Cell phones and car key remote locks work on different frequencies..
 
2.   Emergency 112: MOSTLY FALSE   It works pretty much only in Europe. Stay with 911 here.
 
3. Hidden Battery Power:  FALSE  For some Nokia phones this code this code will enhance voice quality but at the cost of battery power loss. 
 
4. Disable stolen cell: NOT ALWAYS & WHY BOTHER  On some phones this will cause your account information to be displayed but your provider already has this information. Just call them tell them the phone was stolen. 
 
5. FREE411 TRUE But  The only part that may not be true is that McDonald’s may not                                            be the sponsor when you call. The sponsor varies regularly and so far I do not recall
      having McDonald’s as a sponsor when I have used it. 
 
So the next time you feel the need to send on your words of wisdom, be sure they ring true.  

Happy emailing. 

  * If you have not figured it out yet, the real title for this article is: EMAIL AWARENESS