A Sort and Battery

One of the most common questions we ask regarding mobile phones is "Why doesn't my battery last very long any more?"

This is particularly the case with smart phones, and when you look at the industry at the moment, we would guess that over 95% of phones sold on the market now fit this category.

So why does the battery seem to fail so quickly? Are you finding that you're having to charge the phone every night, or even partway through the day ?

While there are items on the market to help with this issue (We have stock ourselves of emergency phone batteries that you can carry in your bag to charge your phone up while you're out and about) it doesn't answer the question "WHY?" 

One of the things to remember with smart phones is that they're no longer just a phone.  They contain GPS systems to work as SatNav, they collect emails, connect to your social networks, take pictures, videos, messaging systems, train timetables, internet viewing, music processing systems and that's just the START of some of the apps that people most commonly have on their phone.

People say that they close the apps down after use, but what is commonly forgotten is that a lot of the apps run in the background, as system services.  Some of these services include "location services" a way that the phone can tell the app exactly where it is. This might be to stamp on a photo the location where the picture was taken, or might be so that it can post your location when you update your Facebook status.

Some of these might be important, especially if it's the core reason you have the app installed - like a SatNav. But we certainly need to ask if it's vital for this service to be constantly running if we don't particularly NEED that feature on that app. Do we really need people to know exactly WHERE we were when we posted a comment? Could that be a security risk for example (i.e. comment posted when we are not at home, means our home is empty?)

By going through the settings of the phone and switching off some of these location services, this will greatly increase the life of the battery.

Other tips include switching off PUSH notifications, on emails (particularly if we prefer to check for messages, instead of the phone pinging at us every time we receive an email).

Screen brightness is another feature we can reduce. You might not notice a small drop in screen brightness for most of the time you use the phone, but this will greatly increase the battery life.

The way we charge the phone is equally important. Regular charging a battery when it's not necessary can actually reduce the life of the battery. Installing a battery charging app can be a valuable way to ensure that the battery gets the charge at the correct rate and receives a proper schedule of charging.

Why not go through the apps that you currently have in your phone and ask yourself how many times you've used that app in the past month or so.  By good housekeeping, we can all improve the service life of the device that could be a life saver - if treated with care.

I'm Over Here (Which Means I'm Not Over There)

Today, more than ever, people interact with social networking by means of their mobile devices, bringing images and unique interactive data to the masses.

We've often seen images of our friends on Facebook, or Twitter, or Instagram etc, with a location tag linked to the image.  Gradually our photo's on our devices get organised to location, so we can quickly find images we took when were were on our holiday in some sunny or fun location.

However, with this exciting and interesting addition, comes a word of caution - particularly if our privacy settings are not closed down enough.

With today's technology and search engine power, it is not too difficult for a criminal to build up a picture of your movements if your location services are switched on to public access.  They'll be able to see and work out where you are by following your twitter account, your Facebook account or your Instagram account and know when you are at various locations.  And of course, while you are in a new location... you are NOT at home.

It might be easy to conclude that nobody knows where you live, but with a few deductions, a few checks on the names of the friends you have, or the school you attended or place you work, your address details could easily be discovered.  We'll let your over imaginative thoughts conclude what could happen if a criminal knew where you lived and when you were not at home.

So what can we do about it?  

Let's not be party poopers and suggest that we don't take photo's of our holidays (although the thought of going through hundreds of "and this is another picture of that sandwich we ate in France" photo's does make us consider this). No realistically it would be a far better idea to ensure that our location services are restricted to friends and family and make sure that those we have listed amongst friends and family are just that. Friends and family.

Technology will always have it's place in society, it's made enough of an impact to never go out of fashion in today's life, but its also open to abuse. And abused it is. It's used to advance everything, including crime.  So by doing our part, we can reduce the risk of it happening to us.