Most of us have become hooked on one search engine. Our PCs and smartphones are set to use that search engine and we never deviate from it when we want information. However, different search engines really do turn up different results. Learning to explore the different search engines can really enhance our experience of browsing the web.

The iPhone is designed to easily allow you to use different search providers. Why not take advantage of this opportunity to start exploring different options when you’re looking for information? Here’s how:

• Go to Settings.
• Go to Safari.
• Go to “search engine”.
• Select the search engine that you want to use. You’re probably using Google now but you can switch to either Yahoo! or Bing.

See what new results you come up with!

You already know how to bookmark your favorite pages on websites that you access from a computer, but do you know how to do the same convenient thing from your HTC HD7 handset?

Here’s how:

• Go to START.
• Enter “Internet Explorer”.
• Go to the website that you want to bookmark.
• Turn the website into portrait orientation.
• Select the “favorite” icon.
• Enter the name of the bookmark. There may already be a name there but you should edit it to something that will allow you to quickly and easily remember what you’ve bookmarked.
• Select “ok”.

Your web page is now bookmarked so that you can easily access it whenever you want to return to that site.

ePub is a free, open format recommended for ebook reading. It has re-flowable and re-sizeable text among other features that make it easy to read. If you use iBooks on your iPhone then you may want to consider converting your PDF files to ePub format.

To convert from PDF to ePub you need to use an online ePub converter tool. A popular choice is 2epub.com. Select the file that you want to upload, choose ePub as the output format and then convert it. You can then download the newly converted file.

Once the file has been converted and downloaded, you simply need to add it back to your books section in your iTunes account. Simply sync your iPhone with your computer if you’ve been doing this process on it so far. Now you’re ready to read the file in ePub format on your iPhone.

Another tip: Turn iPhone iBooks into Audio Books

If you own a BlackBerry, chances are you’re a big fan of communicating by email, therefore the standard feature of the phone connecting to a Wi-Fi network whenever it’s in range, is not only great for saving some money on your bill, but equally great for making sure you never miss a message.

However, it’s annoying when the phone endlessly asks to connect to a network when you don’t want it to. Here is the solution to this little problem:

• Starting on your Home screen, go to Manage Connections.
• Then select Wi-Fi Options.
• With this menu open, look for Enable Single Profile Scanning.
• There needs to be a tick in the check box next to it for your new settings, so go ahead and tick the box.
• When you do, you’ll be given a choice of Wi-Fi networks. Click the profile of your preferred network.
• Click Menu.
• Finally, Save your new settings.

That’s it! From now on, your phone will only try to connect to that network. If you want to go back to scanning all of them, simply uncheck the Enable Single Profile Scanning box.

Do you have a question about how to use a feature of your Sony Ericsson Elm? The answer is probably in your user guide. Now where did you put that thing? You don’t have to worry because the Elm User Guide is located right on the phone.

To get to the Elm User Guide, do the following:

• Press MENU.
• Select “settings”.
• Choose “user help”.
• Select “user guide”.

From there you can probably find the information that you are seeking about your Sony Ericsson Elm.

There is a bigger purpose behind including this information directly on your phone. Sure, it’s helpful to you, but it’s also good for the earth. The Elm is a green phone so it makes sense to replace its paper-based manual with an on-device user guide.

One of the best ways to prolong your battery on any mobile phone is to make sure that the only apps that are running on the phone are the ones that you actually need. This requires that you learn how to locate the active apps and shut down the ones that you don’t want to run.

Here’s how to do that on your Nokia X6:

• Hold down the MENU key.
• Select “options”.
• Go to “show open apps”. This will give you a list of all of the apps that are currently running.
• Use the menu key to navigate down the list until you come to an app that you want to turn off. Hold the menu key down.
• Press #Exit.
• Repeat this process for all active apps that you don’t want running.

Check your Nokia X6 periodically to make sure that it’s not running apps unnecessarily and draining your battery power in the process.

Plug your iPhone into your Mac and you’ll get a digital camera notification that is rather annoying if you know exactly what you want to do with your photos. Luckily, it’s possible to turn this camera notification off. Here’s how to do it if you’re using Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard:

• Plug your iPhone in to your Mac using the Apple-provided USB cable that you have.
• Go to your applications folder.
• Choose “image capture”.
• Look for the list of devices which should be on the left side of your screen.
• Choose the iPhone from this list of devices.
• Go to the option that says “show device settings”. You will see a pop-up menu.
• Choose “no application” in the pop up menu.

Annoying problem solved!