If you’re trying to decide on a cellphone then it might be worth considering the benefits (and drawbacks) of each of these models because some people are quite surprised by how much they grow to favor one particular style over the other.

Flip Phones

Flip phones, also known as clam sheel phones, are those that “flip” open and closed. They are essentially a phone that folds in half around a hinge.

There are two big benefits to flip-style cell phones. Firstly when they are closed both the screen and the buttons are safely protected inside so not only will you avoid scratching the screen but you also won’t accidentally call anyone!

The second benefit is that flip phones are typically very small when they are closed up so fit neatly into a pocket or bag but when opened up they can offer a very decent-sized screen and butons to allow for ease of use.

On the downside, it generally requires two hands to open or close the case (and hence answer the phone) which some people find inconvenient.

Slide Phones

If you like the idea of a small phone with the buttons ptotected so you don’t accidentally ring anyone but you don’t want to use both hands to answer a call then a slide phone may be the answer.

Here, the handset is still in two pieces but rather than them opening on a hige, they slide apart. Typically the top part houses the screen and the bottom houses the keys and so what this means is that when the phone is lid closed the keys are protected but the screen may still get scratched.

For me, the slide phone is my favorite model because I like the combination of small size and ease of use.

Standard Cell Phones

The old classic “brick” or “chocolate bar” style of mobile phone protects neither the screen nor the buttons. You can of course still manually “lock” the keypad so you don’t accidentally make a phone call but a surprising number of people either forget to use it or find it very annoying.

These phones are also often the most bulky phones but some people prefer the larger footprint as they can be easier to find in handbag for example.

Touchscreen Phones

Lastly we have the touchscreen phones like the Palm Treo and the Apple iPhone. These tends to be the largest phones of all - bigger even than the standard cell phone design because of the touch screen that needs to be a decent size to be of use and because of all the technology typically built into these handsets.

They are, in short, usually the most technically advanced phones going but also tend to suffer from a poor battery life for that very reason.

If you want the latest features but don’t mind the drawbacks of a chunky phone with less than great battery life, the touch screen phones may be perfect for you.

Now you can win one by taking part in a new competition that is running for the next few days over at the Extra Income Blog - it’s super-simple to enter and you can get multiple entries by doing a few basic things. Click the link above to find out more…

Avon Blake is giving one away at this blog this month and to enter all you have to do is to link to this blog from your to stand a chance of winning.

Even if you don’t have a blog, Avon’s articles are well worth a look. He writes some juicy stuff that is causing quite a bit of controversy…

Before we go any further therefore it’s important to take a look at whether Rishabh actually has any idea what he’s doing when it comes to traffic generation using the very techniques he teaches at his blog. And luckily he provides the perfect tool to do this. One feature Rishabh provides is a Pagerank Checker which will bring back a variety of details about any site inclduing the pagerank, incoming links and Alexa ranking.

Typing his own blog in, here is what we come across:

150+ links and an Alexa ranking of 154,000? Not bad at all for a blog just a few months old run by a 15 year old!

Infact, I was so impressed I decided to dig a little deeper so I ventured over to Alexa to get a more detailed view of Rishabh’s traffic to date.

What I found was that not only is his Alexa ranking so impressive, but at present it is even better. Alexa report that his ranking for the week of this review is an astonishing 60,000 which surely nobody can deny helps to prove Rishabh does indeed know exactly what he is talking about. Interestingly the Alexa graph itself shows this has even been as low as 50,000 in recent weeks. Impressive.

OK, so Rishabh knows what he is talking about, but what about his blog? Does it actually offer any value?

Well the first thing one notices is the theme used which, whilst I have to admit isn’t to my own taste, is certainly unique and helps to “brand” the blog well with it’s eye-catching choice of colors. The addition of the free tools at the top of the page also make them clear and easily accessed.

We mentioned the Pagerank Checker tool earlier but there is also another free tool worth mentioning here - a do-follow blog tool. This tool lists an impressive number of blogs that use do-follow links in their comments field meaning that each one is a potential source of Google juice and therefore higher pagerank and Google rankings.

Rishabh’s blog is worth a visit for that tool alone but he has also managed to put out some useful content too. Articles which particularly caught my eye were:

10 Ways To Build Backlinks For Your Website
5 SEO Mistakes Which Should Be Avoided
How To Check For No-Follow And Do-Follow Blogs

Whilst RishabhSood.net is still in it’s infancy the evidence suggests that not only does it’s author know what he is talking about but that this will grow into a popular blog well worth an RSS subscription. Why not take a look today.

But there are things you can do to speed up your computer.

There are a number of reasons why computers start to run slowly. Some of the most common are viruses and spyware working in the background of your computer, files scattered around your computer hard drive so your machine has to work harder to link them all together, and errors which gently build up on your hard drive.

There is a huge market of companies who make considerable profits sorting these issues out each year but instead I want to tell you about 3 free options that will help you do all of the above. I have been personally testing them for some time now and am really liking what I see so now I want to take a moment to show what I hope will be a few really helpful tips.

Antivirus

Personally I use Norton antivirus and swear by it but Norton *will* cost you some money. I pay for a multi-user license so I can have it installed on my 3 computers and have protection no matter which one I’m on.

However many people swear by AVG which is free. Personally I would only trust a tiny handful of brands as being truly useful. Plenty of people have old versions of antivirus or some other free application but its vital your antivirus is updated constantly. With new viruses being created daily, an antivirus program that doesn’t update online each time you log onto the Internet is probably failing to recognise some viruses and this can be dangerous.

Defragmenting

We download programs, delete files, uninstall software and so on. Over time this turns into a jumble of files and empty spaces on our hard drive and defragmenting hopes ot get rid of this fragmentation. This should therefore seepd up your computer.

Windows itself comes with a defragmentation application so you actually probably already have one right now. The problem is how slow it is. I have over 200,000 files on my main PC and a full defrag takes pretty much a whole night on my PC. That’s too slow for my liking.

However I recently discovered a really nifty tool called Smart Defrag that works cleverly when you’re not using your computer. So if you nip off to the loo, or watch TV, or even to check something in a book, the defrag software realises and jumps into action. As soon as you start using your computer again it goes into sleep mode.

In this way every time your computer is idle it defragments itself a little more, and as soon as you start using it, it goes into sleep mode. So you get the benefits of constant defragmenting (which means you don’t have to remember to do it!) but your PC doesn’t slow down while it’s working. What a great idea!

Registry Problems

There are loads of paid applications when it comes to sorting out registry problems but I have found a free one that works great. Called Advanced WindowsCare V2 this application will look at everything that goes on “under the hood” with your computer and then bring up a list of suggestions about what needs speeding up, improving or fixing. You select what you’d like it to do and it goes for it. I noticed a significant increase in speed personally when I used it and would strongly recommend it to you.

In short, a smart phone can be seen as a tiny computer in your pocket.

That functionaility of most use to busy professionals and can help you manage and organize a hectic lifestyle.

We’ve mentioned the calendar function but did you also know that on many such smart phones you can actually receive reminders about upcoming events? Mine is programmed each day to flash up a list of not only what I have booked for the day but also what is planned for exactly a weeks time so that I have time to buy bithday cards, finish off projects and prepare for meetings with no nasty surprises.

My smart phone also allows me to access my emails and the Internet from literally anywhere I can get a signal so whilst whilst on such a small device I’d rather use a proper computer given the choice, I have still had all sorts of situations where having these features in my pocket has been beneficial and saved me considerable time and inconvenience.

If you are using certain smartphones, most notably those running Windows Mobile, you can view, create or edit Microsoft office files. In this way I can fill in a speadsheet, create a letter or practise my Powerpoint presentation while on the go, and a quick synchromization with my PC each evening ensures all new documents are copied to my office computer.

Lastly I find the simple functionality of the notebook feature incredibly handy to jot down ideas when I am out. Having a single place to store all of these helps to keep me organized, and I always have the information to hand if I come up with another idea.

In short, if you want the functionality of a small computer in your pocket then a smart phone might just be the device for you.

Even more astonishingly, the IRS allegedly owes $110 million in tax back to US citizens but of course the process is typically so complicated and the rules so difficult to interpret, that none of us actually get back what we deserve. Well not any more.

I’m pleased to say that I just discovered a potential solution to submitting your tax information thanks to e file tax. Whilst the website is painfully unattractive it *does* promise to speed up the filing process by helping you do it online, thus getting your refund earlier.

What’s more they make the process so simple. Simply sign up for free at their secure, hacker-tested site, then answer a series of simple questions and click submit. That’s it - you’re all done!

They also offer you the ability to access Federal Tax Forms and State Tax Forms live from their site making them a one stop shop for your taxation needs.

Check out John Chows blog to find out out to enter - I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how easy it is bearing mind how complicated some of the recent competitions have been

To this end I’m please to be able to tell you that not only can you win an Ipod, but to do so you just need to become active on another high quality technology blog - that’s hardly hard work, is it?!

Genuinely interesting articles and the chance to win free gadgets… what could be better?!

I’ll be updating you from time to time on articles that I particularly like over at the competition blog but for now find out more by visiting the New Gadgets Guru blog.

Since Blackberry launched it’s incredibly popular Blackberry Curve 8300 handset some time ago the mobile phone world has advanced considerably and Blackberry has had to put together something very special in it’s new handset to stay at the front of the pack.

Luckily it doesn’t disappoint and this handset definately deserves a close look.

What Blackberry has done with their latest release is to merge all the best features of Windows Mobile with the practicality and reliability of the Blackberry brand to create the new Blackberry Bold or 9000 to give it it’s numerical title.

For example, new software functionality means that one can now edit Microsoft Word and Powerpoint documents on the go - potentially a very practical aspect. Documents can then be easily synced with your main computer when you are back in the office. Presentations can be practised on the road to ensure it really hits the tone you’re looking for.

As well as all the standard Blackberry features - the email, the browser, the instant messenger , organizer functions and so on, Blackberry has obviously worked hard on making this the most media-friendly release yet.

As if all the thousands of existing downloadable applications weren’t available, Blackberry has made accessing and enjoying them even easier thanks to a raft of much-needed innovation.

Firstly it benefits from Wifi allowing you to access the Internet in any one of over 3,000 locations in the UK making browsing not only cheaper but also much faster than it has been in the past. Even outside of hotpsot areas, the Bold utilizes HSDPA technology to access nearly 3G download speeds.

Even more impressively, this fusion of software and hardware means that streaming video is now available which nicely complements the mp3 player functionality. Thanks to the new Media Sync application that comes bundled with the package you can seasmlessly transfer media files from Itunes to your handset for later enjoyment.

Of course, the Blackberry 9000 Bold comes with the standard 2MP camera today with video functionality, and like the Curve it offers a full querty keypad rather than the more complicated use of “dual” keys as in the Peal.

As a last final touch, Blackberry’s stylish new smartphone offers GPS and mapping capabilties much as the 8800 first did.

In all, this is a very impressive handset indeed and Blackberry see to have successfully moulded all the best features from the various smart phones available at present to make the ultimate hybrid design. As other Blackberry Bold review pages have noted, this is truly a handset that is well worth a look.