Facebook is being used more and more for social communications. However, how would you know someone replied to something you have posted? Or maybe you want to be directly notified if someone makes a post.

In this article I will walk you to the process of enabling your Facebook notifications by E-mail and/or SMS text messaging. And the best thing of all is that you can respond back to these notifications by just replying in those e-mails and SMS Text messages. The experience with your mobile phone will be enriched by having these Facebook capabilities.

The KIN ONE, TWO and all other Mobile Phones

To enable push notification on all other phones you actually need to go to your Facebook on the computer to set this up.  Data and/or SMS Text messaging will be used on your phone and will charged according to your plan you have with your provider.

1. Login to your facebook page: http://www.facebook.com

2. On the right top of your screen you click on Account -> Account Settings

3. On the “My Account” Page click on “Notifications” in the top bar.

4. Now on this page you can already see that your email is listed and you can check on the list below of all the different notifications you would like to receive by email. If you get your email on your device they will show up accordingly to your email sync schedule of your device. The e-mails coming in will let you know that you can comment back to those notifications by just replying to those e-mails.
(Tip; remove your automatic signature in your email before sending back your reply)

Add these steps below to enable push notification via SMS Text Messages

5. In this next step we will activate your mobile number to receive instant push notification by SMS Text messages. On the in step 3 reached Notification Page you can now click on “Send notifications to my phone via SMS”

6.  A pop up will appear for step 1 out of three steps.

A warning will appear first

“Note:Before you can receive notifications via SMS, you must activate your phone for Facebook Mobile”

Open a new browser and go to http://www.facebook.com/mobile/ ->scroll down and select Mobile “Settings” and choose “Enabled” and save your settings. Some of you probably have it enabled already.

In the pop up screen select “your country” and then your “mobile carrier” and select “Next”

7. Using your mobile phone, send a SMS Text message containing only the letter “f” (without quotes) to 32665 (FBOOK).

8. At this point you will receive a SMS Text message back with a confirmation code. Select Next in the “Step 2″ pop up box from Facebook and enter your code there and check if you want this number listed under your profile for others to see. Now Select “Confirm“.

9. Your Facebook account settings page will now default to the My Account – Mobile page. Here you are able to select which notifications you would like to receive. This page also allows you to enter specific Facebook friends which status updates you would like to receive as well by SMS Text messages. Check out the other settings on this page to suite to your needs. Make sure to select “Save Preferences” on the bottom of this page.

10. When you receive a SMS Text message from your Facebook account you can respond back easily to those status updates by replying that SMS Text message.

iPod Touch and iPhone

If you have the iPod Touch and and the iPone you can actually easy activate your push notification within the Facebook application.

Go to Settings -> Facebook -> Push Notifications and turn all the notification you would like and go back to your home screen.

You might want to use the option above for other phones as well, since you will be able to reply back directly to your notification using the email and/or SMS Text Message.

Final Note

It is a little bit of work, but once you have it set up you will have instant Facebook push notifications by SMS Text message and email on your mobile device.

It has happened to many iPhone users. Suddenly your iPhone is draining very quickly, even without using the iPhone at all.

This has happened to my iPhone now for two times. On many blogs and forums people are complaining about it and many tips are given but not a real good answer to the sudden quick drain of your battery.  Below are these tips to save on battery power but won’t fix the sudden extreme drainage of your battery.

We have changed the title to include Android and Windows Phone devices now as well. We experienced the same battery drain on other mobile platforms. It seems that the exchange sync funtion (possibly calendar) hangs on the devices. In which it means it constantly is asking for data transfer in which your battery drains very fast. The device will feel hot as well. The solution is simple but takes some time.

• You need to delete to exchange account on your device
• After is is finished deleting your synced information you turn off your device and restart it.
• Set up your exchange account as before, the device will sync all your information back to your device.

The tips below will preserve more battery power:

• Turn off 3G (saves battery and is almost a must in area’s where you have Edge coverage)
• Turn off Notifications
• Turn off Push for e-mail
• Turn off  WiFi
• Turn off Bluetooth
• Set your Fetch schedule on all your other emails to manually
• Turn your Brightness down

Again these tips above will not fix your sudden battery drain on your iPhone. And really turning off all these options, kinda makes your iPhone a phone like any other. You really don’t have to do this.

I have discovered that the sudden extreme battery drain has to do with your Exchange Account that has been set up on your iPhone.  For some odd reason it keeps check and checking for new info and it won’t stop. Before trying to do a restore on your iPhone I would first recommend deleting your Exchange Push Account on your iPhone and set it up again as a new account. This will save some time in the fix for the extreme fast battery drainage.

Follow the steps below to fix the extreme battery drainage on your iPhone.

1. Go to your “Settings” on your iPhone.
2. Select “Mail,Contact,Calendars“.
3. Select your account that has been set up with an exchange server.
4. Select “Account Info“.
5. Copy down the information which you will need to set up this account again later on.
6. Select the “Arrow back ” on the top of your screen with the name of your account.
7. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and select “Delete Account“
8. Let the iPhone do its work. It will remove all e-mails, contacts and calendar items from your iPhone associated with your account.
9. When done Turn off your iPhone and Turn it back on.
10. Once your iPhone is turned back on you can go back to Step 1,2
11. Back in the “Mail,Contacts,Calendar” Settings you have to select  “Add Account“
12. Select the “Microsoft Exchange” and enter the credentials you copied down before.
13. The server information is not visible in this field yet, it will appear after you set up your E-mail, Domain, Username and Password are entered and “Next” has been selected.
14. Now your account has been set up again. It will take some time for the iPhone to synchronize everything back. Give it some 5-10 minutes.

Now your Exchange Push account has been set up again and your extreme battery drainage has been stopped. If you think that after these steps you still have this issue, I would recommend using the “Restore” function in iTunes while your iPhone is connected.

In the last couple of years many different frequencies have been added to the confusion of the worldwide GSM (2G/Edge) and High Speed Data Networks (3G,HSDPA,UMTS) on cellular phones. Since we all love  to have the newest gadgets we would like to be one of the first. In the Windows Phone forums, where I moderate, many questions arise why my phone bought overseas is not connecting to the high speed data service in a specific country. Hopefully I will be able to guide you below to the answer and give you the specifics before you purchase your next Unlocked Phone to use at home or world wide.

Well, many mobile devices are specially engineered for the different markets around the world. For example the HTC Touch Pro and the HTC Fuze are exactly the same device, however the build in radio’s for the 3G / HSDPA data network are different. When you travel overseas you can loose this high speed data signal and fall back on the Edge/GSM/GPRS/ 2G network.  Many people like to purchase an unlocked phone overseas and bring it back to their home country and then they realize that the 3G / HSDPA radio’s build into the device are not supported.

Why high speed data?  The mobile phones these day are more like small personal computers. They are more and more being used now for streaming media content (Internet radio and TV), Internet browsing, etc. over the high speed data networks. You even see that other non-phone mobile devices will have 3G build in to give the device the opportunity to download information at high speeds when needed. For example the Kindle 2 and DX from Amazon and many Netbooks are sold now through the mobile phone service providers with the High Speed 3G / HSDPA data connection.

Many phones these days are called “World Phones”. These phone most likely will support the High Speed Data Networks (3G,HSDPA,UMTS) world wide. However I would still look at the specifications of these phones before you purchase and balance them to the network frequencies in the area you live.

The GSM (2G/Edge) frequencies are often called Quad Band Phones. Most phones will work worldwide using these 4 frequencies for making calls and limited data connection. These frequencies are:

GSM, 2G, GPRS,Edge network frequencies (Quad Band)

• 850 MHz   (mostly North America)
• 900 MHz   (mostly Europe, Asia, Australia & Brazil)
• 1800MHz  (mostly Europe, Asia, Australia & Brazil)
• 1900 MHz  (mostly North America)

Below is a small table giving you the frequencies in High Speed Data Networks (3G,HSDPA,UMTS) with their known regions that these frequencies will work. Use this to make sure the phone you will purchase will work with the high speed data frequency connections you need. Please note that you need a data subscription with your mobile provider carrier before you can have data on your device.

3G,HSDPA,UMTS high speed network frequencies and their regions.

• 850 MHz      (United States AT&T)
• 900 MHz
• 1700 MHz    (United States T-Mobile)
• 1900 MHz    (United States AT&T)
• 2100 MHz    (Europe)

There are many other resources online to see which frequencies you have in your area. These tools will allow you to make an educated decision which unlocked phone and where you would like to purchase it from and if it will provide the services you want to have in your part of the world.

• GSM Arena – Listings of frequencies per country
• Wikipedia – Listings of frequencies per world region
• AT&T – 3G coverage map
• T-Mobile  USA - 3G coverage map
• GSM World- Different world and world region frequency coverage maps

Do you still remember one of the highlights @ CES 2009 earlier this year? It was Palm’s first official announcement of the Palm Pre running on the Palm WebOS.  Almost two weeks ago Palm together with mobile operator Sprint announced the availability of the Palm Pre on the Sprint Now Network.

In these two weeks several great reviews of the Palm Pre have hit the web. Craig Froehle from Gearbits, a Palm expert from the first hour, has created a Palm Pre review round-up on the Gearbits website. It’s an overview of 21 (!!) complete hands-on reviews, each complemented with a short conclusion. If you are still indecisive about purchasing a Palm Pre you should definitely take your time to read the reviews via Gearbits.

Next to the early reviews, also some first “issues” with the Palm Pre hit the web. A good friend Joel Evans from Geek.com also purchased a Palm Pre right away, but -although it seems to be an isolated incident- his Palm Pre got some ”deep” scratches on its screen.  Another interesting feature is the remote erase function on the Palm Pre. Precentral has written an article about a user who ran into trouble by using the remote erase function, which almost resulted in a bricked device.

What are your thoughts and first experiences about the Palm Pre device ?

About Craig Froehle & Memoware

“Memoware is a term originally coined in 1996 for data formatted for the Memopad application that was shipped with the original U.S. Robotics Pilot (now Palm) Personal Digital Assistant. The MemoWare website was started shortly afterward by Craig Froehle as a central repository for memoware, and now hosts thousands of documents (in various formats) for Palm OS devices and other handhelds.” [ref02]

Reference List

1. GEARBITS:  Palm Pre Review Round-Up
2. WIKIPEDIA:  Memoware

Many of you travel a lot and most of the time you should be able to connect through a Hotspot or Wifi network to read your email, surf the web or catch up with Twitter. Recently, when traveling to Sweden, I already found out that there was no Hotspot or Wifi service at the park we were staying. As I have a Dutch carrier, roaming costs were quite high if I used it in Sweden. The average price is around 10 Euros per Megabyte. With these prices you have to be very careful what you do, otherwise you are not happy when you receive your monthly bill…

So I had to find an alternative and after some research I found out that Telia has a very good mobile data service for a very fair price.
For my situation it should be ideal: I can use the simcard in my phone(s) or in my notebook and I can use it anywhere in Sweden !

It is called Telia Mobilt bredband Veckosurf and it allows you to surf the web for one week for 10 Euros. There is a datalimit of 2 GB per week, so it is perfect for checking mail, surfing the web and even download a small movie or upload your holiday pictures to the cloud.

If you happen to go to Sweden and need mobile data, you need to do this:

1. Buy a Telia Refill Prepaid card for 100 KR (10 euros)
2. Register it here: LINK (you need someone from Sweden with a Swedish social security number for this). Also enter the phone number of the prepaid card and the ICC number. Sometimes this website is down. Just call 90200 to have the card activated by a representative.
3. Buy the desired prepaid amount you would like to load to the card. 10 euro is enough for one week.
4. When you have the code press *125*prepaidcode# on your handset.
5. You receive a textmessage from 3182 which welcomes you to the Telia network and if you need more info on the prices you can dial 454.
6. Now send a text message to 4466 with the word ON in it.
7. After a short while you receive a text message from 4466 that the internet service Telia Online is now activated and can be used. I received another text message from 4466 right after the first one that my phone was not supported, but I had no problems at all connecting to the internet with my G1.
8. Configure your phone or laptop with the APN: online.telia.se without a username or password.
9. You can surf the web now !

Coverage of the Telia network is very good. On my way to the airport I did a mobile speedtest and the downloadspeed was 1.1 Mbit.
You can find a coveragemap here: LINK