YouTube, Clusty and Yahoo! Go Added to Mobile Friendly Directory

Be sure to bookmark http://mobile.chaos365.com in your cell phone or wireless PDA. It’s a convenient, well categorized list of high quality, mobile friendly Web sites for people on the go.

Clusty has been added to the Search section. Clusty is a nice alternative to the major search engines. It sports a clean interface and decent results.

Yahoo! Go has been added to the Portal section. This is a downloadable application for mobile phones. “Innovative design brings you personalized widgets on a sleek new carousel that makes getting around a breeze. All your Yahoo! emails, news, photos, and more on your phone, always up-to-date and ready for you.”

YouTube has been added to the Email/IM/Social section. The most popular social Web site for sharing videos now has a mobile friendly interface. Be warned that it’s best to have an unlimited usage data plan when trying to download/stream video and audio content.

I hope you find Mobile Chaos useful. Please recommend URLs to add to the directory.

Thank you.
-Roland

Mac Users: Tips to Free Up Drive Space

Here’s a great tip for users of Mac OSX, especially MacBook and iBook users who always struggle with available drive space.

A year ago I heard a great tip on Mac Tips Daily about how to free up drive space by deleting alternate language versions of your software applications. It’s extremely helpful and you should check out the step-by-step instructions.

Today, I heard a great companion tip on The Mac Attack podcast to delete all the printer driver files for brands you never intend to use. Navigate to Library \ Printers folder and you’ll see a list very much like this screenshot:

For years, I’ve been very HP centric, so it’s not a problem for me to delete all the other brands. Just look at the potential drive space you can recover:

Epson = 1.3 GB
Xerox = 503 MB
Canon = 479 MB
HP = 425 MB
Lexmark = 352 MB
Brother = 19 MB
Toshiba = 7 MB
Richoh = 6 MB
Sharp = 6 MB
FujiXerox = 4 MB

It feels soooo good to clear all that wasted space. But please be cautious if you use either of these tips!

I hope you find this useful.
-Roland

Streaming Internet Radio for Windows Mobile Phone Users

Reader suggestions for listening to streaming Internet Radio on your Windows Mobile Phone.

• http://www.pdatuner.com/free
  - Designed and tested for the Windows Mobile market and recent xhtml smartphones.
  Also works on desktop - wma and mp3 streams.
• http://techavid.com/internetradiomobile.php — Tune into hundreds of Internet Radio stations through Internet Explorer on your mobile phone.
• http://feetup.org/wiki/MobileRadio

CAUTION: The capability to stream audio and video content depends on your wireless service provider. Carrier charges/fees may apply.

Yamgo.mobi - Streaming Videos on Your Mobile Phone

A reader submitted this suggestion:
http://yamgo.mobi

You can watch and upload videos in your mobile phone. Works on all 2.5G and 3G mobile networks (GPRS, EDGE, CDMA, UMTS) and 3GP streaming enabled mobile phones.

Learn more at Yamgo.tv.

CAUTION: The capability to stream audio and video content depends on your wireless service provider. Carrier charges/fees may apply.

Please Take This Poll About Your Favorite Types of Mobile Web Sites

I started publishing the Mobile Chaos directory over seven months ago. Like many sites, it was born out of personal frustration and necessity for links to high quality content that is designed for small device screens (aka “mobile friendly”).

During this time, I’ve had thousands of page views and over 500 unique users, primarily from North America, then Europe.

According to my statistics, links to news, travel and weather tend to be the most popular. I’d appreciate if you take this quick poll to tell me what type of content is most important to you.

If you haven’t already, please bookmark “http://Mobile.Chaos365.com” in your mobile phone / wireless PDA.

Thank you!
-Roland

Help Locate a Missing Child - Register For Free Wireless Amber Alerts

May I suggest that you sign up for Wireless AMBER Alerts. In the United States, the major wireless carriers have made this service available FREE to consumers.

AMBER stands for “America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response.” Essentially, a state-wide alert is issued when an abducted child, age 17 years or younger, is reported to a local law enforcement agency. By quickly distributing information to the public, citizens may be able to report critical information to local law enforcement.

Simply visit WirelessAmberAlerts.org and you’ll be directed to the appropriate registration form for your mobile phone provider.

The information you provide during registration is supposed to be used solely for the Wireless AMBER Alerts initiative and should not be shared with additional parties.

While registering, you define areas you are near. Alerts are typically issued as state-wide alerts. The wireless carriers do not charge you for AMBER Alert text messages that they deliver.

I found it much easier to sign-up using my cell phone instead of my carrier’s Web site. Assuming you can send and receive text/SMS messages, simply do the following:

To sign-up, send a TXT message to short code 26237 (”AMBER”)
In the message area, type a single U.S. ZIP Code (e.g., 94568).

You’ll then receive a confirmation message. You can repeat this process and enter up to five unique ZIP Codes. But since alerts are usually issued state-wide, it might make sense to only enter one ZIP Code for the state you are in and perhaps the ZIP Code of a neighboring state you are often near.

To cancel, send a TXT message to short code 26237
In the message area, type a single U.S. ZIP Code and the word quit (e.g., 94568 quit).

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says over 260 children have been recovered. Hopefully you’ll never receive an alert, but if you do, maybe you’ll be in the right place at the right time to help save a life.

Thank you.

P.S. If anyone has any suggestions about similar missing persons alert systems in other countries, please share and I’ll be sure to post the information here. Thanks.