Cell phones have become a part of our lives, a critical part of our communication, an extenstion of our arms but so many of us don’t use all of the features that our cell phones offer us. It’s alright, Jason’s here to help.

I’m going to blow your mind grapes with 3 things you didn’t know your cell phone could do and how to take advantage of all the sometimes hidden features and tricks that will make your mobile THAT much more useful.

1. Ringtones and the magic of bluetooth

This may come back to shoot me in the foot, but I’m going to teach you to ignore the annoying “text *8743 to get T-Pain on your cell phone” commericals (you know you’ve seen them in between installments of I Love Money) and get all the freaking ringtones you want for free, well as free as a song is anyways.

As long as your phone has bluetooth (and what respectable phone doesn’t) you can have any sound file on your phone serve as a ringtone. Best things is, it’s real easy.

If you don’t have bluetooth built into your computer, go buy what they call a bluetooth dongle. You can find some pretty sweet deals online *ahem* or if you can’t wait for the mailman to get it to you, you’l have to spend about $20 at your local best buy equivalent.

Now connect that badboy to your computer and install all of the drivers. Once installed, “pair” it to your cell phone by going into discover mode in your phone’s bluetooth menu and following the helpful wizard on your computer.

Now go to http://www.bitpim.org/ and download bitpim, the handy program that’s going to do all the messy work for you. Open bitpim and use their wizard (why the frack are they called wizards?) to setup your phone’s connection. (You’ll find the wizard by clicking on the screwdriver and wrench at the top of you screen and then the “phone wizard button” on the right side of the window that pops up)

After you’ve got that setup, go to media (on the left side of your screen) and then ringers.

Whoo, still with me?

Now right click on the big blank area on the right side of your screen and then hit “add…”. Select the song you want to use, or the clip of your mom yelling at you to pick up, and hit open. The window that opens up here is a little weird to use but thats why I’m here. Apparently, the songs that you downloaded (legally right?) are a different file type than the ones your phone can use as a ringtone so you need to convert it first. Just hit the convert button. After a few seconds of flashing black windows, you’ll be good to move on.

Now you have to prepare the song or sound clip to be a ringtone. Most songs have an intro that wouldn’t be very much fun as a ringtone, so when you’re uploading that epic Journey song, you need to cut out the intro. To do this, you can either drag the pink ball you see towards the bottom of the window, or you can manually enter your desired start point (in seconds) into the “Clip Start (sec)” text box.

Then, to keep the file size small and not overload your phone, drage the red ball to the left or enter a number into the “Clip Duration (sec)” box. A good rule of thumb is to make the ringtone about 30 seconds long but you can make that longer or shorter if you so please.

Now that we’ve gotten through all of that, hit the set button, and the experimenting begins. before we get to that though, upload the ringer to your phone by hitting OK and then hitting the button at the top left of your screen that has an arrow going into your phone. Get it? You’re putting stuff into your phone. I knew you were smart. Make sure you check ringers in the window that pops up so that you transfer the right things to your phone.

The reason I said you have to experiment is because some songs won’t be loud enough to serve as an effective ringtone. If your ringer sounds ok, you’re fine, but if it’s too loud or soft, you’ll have to go back, convert the file again and then adjust the “Volume Adjustment (dB)” field. Bigger number for louder, negative numbers for softer.

You now have your very own custom ringtone and you didn’t have to contact that annoying astronaut monkey to get it.

This method is entirely legal as long as you actually bought the song you’re putting onto your phone. I’m not here to judge so if you limewired the song, you’re actually getting the ringtone for free.

Bitpim isn’t limited to ringtones. You can use it to back up your contacts, calendar and even your text messages. If you’re particulalry tech or google savvy, you can even “hack” your phone to get free internet, games and all kinds of other stuff, but that’s a topic for a different article.

2. Track yourself (or someone else) via GPS

I hope that none of our readers have felt the sting of a less-than-faithful significant other, but that’s just unrealistic. Now, this isn’t entirely legal, but if you suspect that your boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband/dog/anyone may be cheating on you, there is a way to track them.

This is for informational purposes only and we at The Collegiate Style in no way condone this sort of behavior. haha

Instamapper.com is a service that offers a program that you install on your compatible phone and shows you where that phone is on a google map. They have all kinds of instructions on the site so I’m not going to bother typing it all up here. That epic ringtone tutorial is all you get for today.

If you’re pathetically alone, you may find use for this program anyways. I can’t imagine what, but it might be neat to see where you’ve been on a google map.

The site shows you where the person is and can actually tell you how quickly they’re moving. It’s pretty cool. Maybe you can find out where that man-stealing-tramp lives and pay her and your boyfriend a little unexpected visit. Or you and a few of your buddies can make sure your little sister’s new boyfriend isn’t getting fresh. I don’t know, because you shouldn’t be spying on people. But you shouldn’t be doing a lot of the things you’re doing.

3. Get google to text you directions

Next time you’re at a party, lost and can’t find you’re way home, text google. That’s right, google will text directions to your cellphone. The service has been available for a while but a whole lot of people seem to be in the dark.

Just text “your current location’s address to where you want to be” to google (466453). They’ll text you back with step by step driving directions. Pretty sweet for those of us who don’t have gps navigators on our phones.

You can actually text any google search to the same number and get all kinds of info (www.google.com/mobile for more).

But you don’t need this, you went out and bought the LG Dare like I told you to.

There’s a whole lot of stuff that your cell phone can do to make your life a little easier and a little more fun. Google “cell phone hacks” or vist Howard Forums to learn more.

If you’re having any problems using any of this stuff, drop a comment or e-mail me at JasonLee@thecollegiatestyle.com.

Thanks to Tim, our resident tech guru