4 Things You Didn't Know Your Cell Phone Could Do

Cell Phones are great tools, not just for keeping in touch with friends and family — but also for your everyday use: your Cellular Phones can be used as your appointment calendar, reminding you about the meetings you have to attend today, or whose birthday it is. Use your phone to track your expenses or track a package or even as a flashlight during a blackout! Here are four things you didn't know your phone can do:

1. Connect your mobile phone to your personal Google account. On your Google account page, go to settings on the desired page and click notifications to pick which updates you'd like to receive via text messaging to your cellular phone. After entering your location and phone number, you would have to verify your cell number by entering the code you've received on the page - and you're ready to go. Choose to receive calendar alerts, your events for the day, daily agenda, birthdays reminders, stock quotes from your portfolio and more.

2. You're in a restaurant, asking the waiter to give you your check. The bill is $79.64, but you always tip 15% percent extra. You could use the old "double the tax" way, but if numbers puzzle you or you're too lazy to do the math, you can use your phone to calculate tip. Most mobile phones have a tip-calculator built-in. It might be buried deep somewhere in the phone's menu, but will usually be found under settings or tools. Don't have a tip calculator in your phone? Still not a problem. Use the calculator (every phone has it): to know how much is 15% of your bill simply divide it by 7 and round up to the nearest dollar: 79.64 / 7 = 11.37: 15% tip would be $12. To tip 20%, do same thing, dividing by 5 this time.

3. Just lost power? Can't find your keys in the dark? Use your cell phone as a flash light! If your phone has a flash camera, open the video recorder and turn flash on. It only lasts as long as you are "recording" (and limited to a couple minutes in some devices) but that's good enough. If you don't have a camera phone, go to BlankWebPage.com to have a white blank page - that will maximize your phone's backlight. Not as good as a flashlight, but still works!

4. If you have an emergency, and happen to be out of your Cellular Service Provider's coverage areas, there's a way to still call an emergency number. 112 is a worldwide emergency number for cellular phones. In case of emergency, even if you're in an area not covered by your carrier, when dialing this number your phone will find another cellular network around you and will establish connection to make the emergency call. Check your phone: on some cellular phones, the only number you can dial with a locked Dial Pad is 112.