Add a website to your home screen
If you regularly visit your company website
or have any other sites that you visit often, BlackBerry's OS gives you the
option of adding an icon to your Home screen for quicker access. In your
smartphone's browser, type a website URL into the address bar and wait until
the site loads. Press the BlackBerry Menu key until a list of suggestions pops
up and then select Add To Home Screen. Here you'll have the opportunity to
change the name of the shortcut and decide where you want the icon to appear.
Give the shortcut a brief and easily recognizable name for quicker reference.
Click Add and the website shortcut should show up on your home screen.
BlackBerry's
OS gives you the option of adding an icon to your Home screen for quicker
access
Adjust your backlight settings
It's tempting to turn your BlackBerry
backlight up as high as it will go and leave it there, but doing so can drain
the battery life of your mobile device and limit the amount of time you'll
actually be able to use it. Some smartphones have a dimming function that
automatically senses the amount of light in a given environment and then
adjusts brightness accordingly. But if you prefer to change the settings
manually, the BlackBerry OS includes an easy-to-use tool for that purpose.
Find your Options icon, usually on the home
screen unless you placed it in a folder, and select it. Click Display and then
Screen Display. This menu has a variety of options related to your smartphone's
display, including a few backlight options. To dim or brighten your backlight,
adjust the Backlight Brightness level. To adjust the amount of time your
backlight stays on, change the Backlight Timeout field. Make sure that after
you make the appropriate adjustments, you click the BlackBerry Menu key and
save your changes. You can go back to this menu at any time to adjust backlight
settings to fit your specific situation and help boost your battery life in the
process.
Android
Set up face unlock
People often store sensitive information
on their smartphones and these devices are also gateways to email messages,
internal company data, and more. It's important to put as many security
measures in place as possible to prevent unwanted access to your smartphone and
protect that sensitive data. Android offers a variety of security options,
including simple passcodes, but the recent Android 4.1 (aka Jelly Bean) update
provides a new security feature called Face Unlock that uses facial
recognition software to allow or deny access to your Android device.
Go to the Settings menu on your smartphone
and then select Personal, Security, and Screen Lock. From this menu, you can
choose which type of lock you'd prefer, including the aforementioned password
option or a swipe to unlock option. Choose Face Unlock and follow the steps to
add your facial information into the lock's system. You can also adjust the
face matching capabilities from the Security menu to make Face Unlock as
accurate as possible. Note that even with such a security measure in place,
it's important to remember you shouldn't store sensitive data on your phone if
at all possible.
Face
Unlock is a new screen-lock option that lets you unlock your device with your
face
Turn location tracking on/off
By default, there are a few applications
that track and record your location data. And while many of them request
permission from the outset, you may decide at a later date that you want to
turn this feature off. On your Android device, go to Menu, Settings, Privacy
And Accounts, and Manage Location Settings. From this menu, you can turn off
the location settings of Google Maps and also turn off location reporting to
prevent your data from being sent to (and stored by) the company. But if had
location services turned on, that means there is still some data stored on
Google's servers. You can go to the Google Latitude history page
(www.google.com/latitude/b/0/history/dashboard) on your computer to delete your
location history and also disable the further collection of location data.
Check battery level & optimize
battery life
For most smartphones, the default battery
indicator doesn't provide much more information than a general idea of how much
power remains. But for those who would like to see a little more data or even
analyze just how much battery life individual applications are eating up,
Android provides a way. Go to Settings, Device, and then Battery. This menu
will not only show you how much battery you currently have left, but also the
amount of battery life each app is taking. This information should give you a
solid foundation for where to cut down on power hogging apps.
For instance, if you leave your Bluetooth
or GPS features turned on 100% of the time, it's going to drain your battery
much faster than if you only turn them on when you need them. You should also
consider connecting to a Wi-Fi network when possible, but not leaving the
feature turned on when you're out of Wi-Fi range. Make sure you don't leave
apps running unnecessarily in the background and try dimming the brightness of
your display. All of these small changes can often lead up to big improvements
in overall battery life.
Manage VPN network access
VPN networks are great for allowing mobile
users to access internal company resources safely and securely and Android
makes it easy to set up and manage VPN access. Go to Settings, Wireless &
Networks, More, and VPN. This will be the main menu for managing your VPN
network access. You can add a VPN network from here; connect to or disconnect
from a VPN network, as well as check the status of the connection; edit the
VPN if your IT department updates or changes the network information; and
delete a VPN if you no longer need access to it. Keep in mind that it's a good
idea to have an IT administrator help you set up the VPN initially to make sure
it is secure and working correctly.
iOS
Turn off access to private information
You can turn off location services for
specific apps on your iPhone by going to Settings, Privacy, and Location
Services. With iOS you can also turn off application access to personal
information. Press the Settings icon and go to Privacy. You'll see a list of
applications that have access to your personal data. You can choose to turn off
each app's access to your information. Depending on the amount of information
an app is accessing, you may want to consider deleting it entirely.
The
iPhone has many security and privacy settings to be aware of and this Privacy
menu, specifically, lets you see what types of information apps have access to
and then gives you the option to limit or completely deny access.
Use your iPhone as a mobile hotspot
If the office-wide Internet goes down
suddenly and you need a quick connection, or you simply want to connect
multiple devices to the Internet when you're away from a Wi-Fi network, it may
be beneficial to know that you can turn your iPhone into a mobile hotspot. For
most carriers, you'll need to invest in an additional data plan that allows mobile
hotspots, but if you have that plan in place, then providing Internet access to
multiple devices is relatively simple.
Tap the Settings icon and then select
General, Cellular, and Personal Hotspot. From here, you'll need to set up the
service and turn the feature on. After the hotspot is initiated, other devices
can find your iPhone as a Wi-Fi network and connect to it; you can attach your
iPhone to your computer via USB for access, or you can pair phones using
Bluetooth and gain Internet access that way. It's also a good idea to set up a
password for the hotspot, so go to Settings, Personal Hotspot, and Wi-Fi
Password to do so.
Customize the do not disturb feature
The newest iOS update added quite a few new
features to the iPhone, but one feature that wasn't widely spotlighted is Do
Not Disturb. This feature not only prevents calls from coming through, it also
stops all notifications except for alarms. Tap the Settings icon and look for
the Do Not Disturb setting. You can switch the setting on or off from here, but
there are additional features housed deeper in the menus that let you customize
your Do Not Disturb options.
Go to Settings, Notifications, and Do Not
Disturb. From here you can change the default settings to meet your specific
needs. You can set Do Not Disturb to automatically turn on during a certain
time period. So, for instance, if you eat dinner with your family from 6 p.m.
to 7 p.m. every evening, you can make sure your meal won't be interrupted. You
can also set it so that certain numbers ring through. Just add a few numbers to
your Favorites list, go the Do Not Disturb settings menu, and select Allow
Calls From. And if you're worried about emergency situations, you can choose to
Turn On Repeated Calls to make sure determined callers get through.
Set up your Microsoft exchange account
If you just bought a new iPhone or want to
use your personal smartphone for business, one of the first things you'll want
to do is add access to your Microsoft Exchange account, which is very simple to
do. Press the Settings icon on your home screen and then select Mail, Contacts,
Calendars. From here you can choose to set up your Microsoft Exchange account
as well as accounts associated with a variety of other email services,
including Gmail and Hotmail. There's a good chance you'll need to speak to your
IT department or network administrator to get all of the information you need,
but once everything is set up, you'll be able to use your Microsoft Exchange
account to check, send, and receive messages.
Windows Phone
Windows
Phone 8 features customizable tiles, so you can change the size and
configuration of Live Tiles based on your personal preference. Most tiles have
three different size options ranging from small to large.
Set up find my phone
Whether your Windows Phone 8 smartphone
falls between the seat cushions at home or gets lost or stolen while you're in
an airport, the newest version of the OS includes a Find My Phone feature that
has you covered. Rather than set this service up on your phone, you must visit
www.windowsphone.com, create an account (if you don't already have one), and
then follow the steps to activate the service.
When you visit the website, click the phone
icon in the upper right corner, and select Find My Phone. After you activate
the service, this is the same place you can go to make remote changes to your
device. You can map your phone's location, lock the phone and show a message
on the lock screen, or completely erase the data from your phone if you believe
the phone has become permanently lost or stolen. Regardless of how careful you
are with your Windows Phone 8 device, it's a good idea to set up Find My Phone
just in case.
Resize live tiles
With Windows Phone 8, as with the previous
Windows Phone 7 Mango update, you get Microsoft's Live Tiles, which are
customizable. Windows Phone 8 now gives you three sizing options for each tile.
All you have to do is press a tile and hold it for a moment. From here, you
will have two options; you can either resize the tile or unpin it from the
home screen. Also, similar as in iOS and Android, you can reposition tiles in
whatever configuration you prefer. And perhaps the most interesting feature of
resizable tiles is that the rest of the tiles on the Home screen will
automatically expand or contract based on the changes you make to fill the
screen properly.