Ringtones for Cell Phones Can Be a Lot of Fun!

Something that I like to do in my free time is go my cell phone provider’s web site and look at the various ringtones that they offer. There are literally thousands to choose from, and they have some very unique ones that you can pick. I have found that choosing ringtones for cell phones can be a lot of fun.

The very first ringtone that I ever had was a movement from the Modest Mussorgsky work, Pictures at an Exhibition. I am a great lover of classical music and found this piece to be very grandiose. The main thing I was looking for when I decided to choose a ringtone was that I could hear it very clearly in a noisy environment, and with this piece, I was certainly able to do just that.

After a few months, I was in the mood for something different, and decided to see what else was available in the way of ringtones for cell phones. I found the song Jump Around by House of Pain. As an Irish-American, I have always thought this song was cool, so I went ahead and ordered it, but I quickly realized that it was not very professional-sounding.

I kept looking, and eventually found the Monday Night Football theme song, which was great for me as a freelance sports writer. The only problem there was that I would be in the press box at a football game and my cell phone would go off, and the sound technician would think he had accidentally set off something.

I found some other ringtones for cell phones that I thought were interesting, but that really upset some other people. For instance, I found the Aggie War Hymn, the Texas A&M fight song to put on my phone as a ringtone. One night when I went to a game, I just so happened to be with four writers that were all University of Texas fans! What are the odds? It was a very tense situation when my cell phone went off and everyone started staring at me.
I then found Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata,as a ringtone, but I could barely hear it, and missed more calls than I can even count. I started to think that I had been ripped off, until I realized that I just couldn’t hear it when it went off.
Ringtones for cell phones can be a lot of fun to pick out, but you really have to find one that is appropriate for you and your job. I went through several of them before I finally found one that worked for me that I could feel comfortable with in any situation. It was the ringtone that played when I first bought the cell phone, which basically sounds like a phone ringing.

Making Phone Calls over Internet Connections.

With the advent of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Providers), you can now make phone calls over internet connections that sound just as good as if you were using your regular house phone and often even better. Due to the proliferation of fiber optic cables, satellite service and digital broadband access to high-speed internet service around the world, it is now possible to make quality phone calls over internet services such as Skype, Vonage, or several others that are just now entering the marketplace.

Using Skype is simple and you need to first download the software from their web page at www.skype.com. Once you have downloaded the software on your computer you just need to purchase a USB headset. You can get one of these pretty cheap at Radio Shack or Best Buy. One of the most reliable brands is Plantronics, but just about any of the $20 to $40 models serve just as well. Most have two foam padded speakers for listening that cover the ears and a band that goes over your head, along with a microphone that sticks out and is adjustable for talking into.

Make sure that the wire that connects to your USB input on your computer has a mute switch on it. Once you have these items you are ready to make calls.

Calls from one Skype user to another Skype user are free of charge, no matter where the two users are in the world. You can be calling from Costa Rica to Sweden and as long as both users are using their Skype software, then the call is free and they can talk as long as they want with no charges. If you are using Skype to call a phone number that is not a Skype number, for example if you are using Skype to call a friend’s cell phone in another country, that is alright also, but will cost you a bit. In order to do this you will need to go to the Skype website and purchase what are called Skype Out Credits. You can buy these in increments of $10 or $25 and then you can call anyone in the world. Rates to each country are shown when you attempt to place a call. Calls to a Nicaragua cell phone, for instance, cost 22 cents per minute and less for a house phone. This is a really low rate compared to buying a prepaid calling card, which normally run for $5 and give you only 20 minutes of talking time and are very unreliable as far as getting connected.

Call quality on Skype is usually excellent and really makes it easy to make phone calls over internet connections that are high speed. Skype does not really work on low speed connections such as dial-up. You really need to have some bandwidth and high speed cable, DSL, or satellite service in order to have a reasonable sounding call. After every call you make, Skype will ask you to rate the service by filling out a small survey which appears as an annoying pop-up window.

Skype and Vonage both work the same basic way and you can easily make phone calls over internet services with both of these great systems.