If you travel around a lot and get up to lots of activities, then it can be hard to keep track of what the various laws are in different countries and states. For instance if you are driving between states then you may find that the traffic laws between them are somewhat different and that what was legal where you were is no longer legal in the new area. You may for instance find that while it was perfectly legal to talk on the phone when you were in home territory, that you can actually get pulled over for it in another state or country and find yourself in serious trouble.

In short then it is absolutely crucial to make sure that you are always familiar with the local laws whenever you head somewhere new in order to avoid this embarrassing and unfortunate situation. Of course you can’t always plan for this seeing as you might never have planned to go travelling as much as you did – but what you can do is to check the laws while you’re on the move if you happen to have a handy smart phone on you. Here we will look at how you can do this in several ways quickly so that you aren’t caught out again.

Apps

One way to check the law quickly is with a number of different apps that are on the Android store. You will find that there are many different apps that relate to penal law and to traffic law in particular countries that are basically searchable e-books designed largely for students. While these can be a little wordy they will be almost guaranteed to have the laws you need (and the official word rather than hearsay) as long as you can find them for your particular area and the law you’re looking for doesn’t pertain to marriage or custody rather than penal or traffic code. The best series of apps like this on the market are the Droid Law apps, but be warned you will have to pay for all of them.

Another app that promises great things is Law Buddy. The idea of Law Buddy is that you simply put in your area and you will then be directed to online information regarding the law in your current area. Unfortunately there are reports of it freezing on several phones, but it’s a nice idea in theory.

The Web

The other problem with Law Buddy is that all it really does is to send you to Wikipedia – something you can do without an app using your built in browser. And in fact this is pretty much the best way to search for a specific law in the majority of cases. While you might not want to head on over to Wikipedia which isn’t always up-to-date or accurate due to its collaborative nature, you can get good advice from many other sites such as justanswer.co.uk which has a separate section for the laws in pretty much every area. Chances are that you will be able to find a post related to your query, but if you can’t then you can always post a new one (and apparently a new question is answered every nine seconds according to the site).

Finally though if you are unsure then it is always safest to err on the side of caution. Have a little browse and if there’s a chance it’s illegal, you’re best off not doing it…

This guest post was written by Brian Taylor. Don’t expect to beat top criminal lawyers with these apps and your newfound knowledge, but you can always check basic facts with them.

SMS or short message service is a text messaging service used by billions of users the world over. In fact, two-thirds of all mobile phone users today use SMS to communicate with others.  It should come as no big surprise that texting is becoming obsolete as SMS messages have a character limit plus it’s rather difficult to hold an SMS conversation of any length.

Here are five apps which make SMS lame:

IMO

IMO is an app that’s available both on Android and iOS. This app is super easy to use, it looks great and best of all it’s free. IMO supports all the major players out there today including Facebook chat, Google Talk, AIM, MSN Messenger, Yahoo and more. IMO sends messages very quickly and gives you push notifications for free.

IMO also offers a group chat feature that allows you to set up and save groups of friends for group chat. The app sends the selected contacts invites and allows you to choose which service you want to use when contacting them. IMO allows you to save your chat history indefinitely plus it lets you record voice messages up to 30 seconds in length.

Google Voice

This app is easy to use and it’s probably already installed on your Android handset.  If it’s not, there is no need to worry because it’s free to download.

Google Voice lets you send cost-free messages. This app can be set up to take the place of your smartphone’s default SMS messaging app. A nice thing about Google Voice is that it syncs with Google Voice on the internet and on other devices, allowing you to access you messages on your PC, another Android device or on an Apple product.

eBuddy

The eBuddy web messenger app offers support for Facebook Chat, Gtalk, AIM, ICQ, MSN/Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Hyves and MySpace IM. This app works in iOS and on Android, it’s free, and it gathers all of your instant messaging accounts into one location so you can view who is online so you can message them.

eBuddy features a clean interface with an attractive chat window. The use of tabs helps to keep the screen free of clutter and makes everything easy to see. Unfortunately, the Android version of the app doesn’t give you a lot of chat options such as sending photos and files. And, eBuddy doesn’t support VoIP or Skype text chat. However, if you want an easy chat app that’s free and simple to use, eBuddy delivers.

Chomp SMS

This app is one of the fastest messaging apps out there. Chomp SMS is free and it’s available on iPhone, iPod, iPad, Android and Blackberry. Plus you pay nothing extra for all of it’s great features – making this a very popular replacement app for SMS. If you like personalization options as many of us do, you are going to love ChompSMS. There are all types of personalization features including signatures, templates, colors, fonts, wallpapers and more.

GoSMS Pro

Rounding out the list of top apps that make conventional SMS lame is GoSMS Pro. Although this is not the fastest messaging app on the market, it is highly customizable with many themes and settings.

GoSMS Pro uses pop-up windows which display messages as you receive them. You can respond to messages this way without having to switch to another app and disrupting what you were doing. GoSMS Pro also features a night mode which adjusts the hue, saturation and color of the app to optimize its use in the dark.

This article is written by Cynthia Rupp.twitterqa is to Ask or Answer on twitter.

There was a time, not too many miles down the memory lane, when BlackBerry was the granddaddy of all the cell phone companies. Businesses and employers in particular always earmarked BlackBerry as their go-to phone for their employees. This was before the rise of Apple and Android coupled with RIM’s own train of ‘shoot yourself on the foot’ acts dragged BlackBerry out of the limelight. Even so, despite some abysmal numbers posted this quarter, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has been busy of late touting BlackBerry 10 as the company’s lifeline, as the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend climbs up the popularity scale. Some businesses may employ Blackberry monitoring apps, or Blackberry spyware but the platform allows for a more sophisticated means of surveillance.

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion         

With companies now asking their employees to bring their own devices to work, there is always the apprehension over information leakage. With no common networking to monitor employees, there is the fear of the company’s secrets and policies being divulged to its rivals or anyone who’s willing to pay the big bucks. And this is where BlackBerry 10 – more specifically BlackBerry Mobile Fusion – takes centre stage.

BlackBerry Mobile Fusion allows network administrators to manage all the devices in the company, regardless of their platform – something that Apple and Android devices have not conjured up. The fact that BlackBerry Mobile Fusion has enhanced the capabilities of BES (BlackBerry Enterprise Server) – RIM’s device management platform – by incorporating iOS and Android devices, should be a massive selling point with regards to businesses. In the past Blackberry monitoring apps have been the sole tools available for employee monitoring but the platform has taken things up a notch by going beyond the Blackberry side of things.

One Network

By having all the employees on a common network, the employers can then monitor employees via their devices and nip the evil in the bud – so to speak – if they do detect any unwarranted activity. This would mean that the employees’ concern of having to carry umpteen systems all day and not being allowed to work on their preferred devices and platforms; and the employers’ concern of… well of, their businesses going kaput, would both be addressed via a single move. One stone, two birds and all that…

The move could make RIM the king of the MDM domain and signal the return to power of RIM. And with its rivals not mulling over anything similar, RIM’s rule could be here to stay.

Corporate Market has always been BlackBerry’s forte

Of the reasons behind RIM taking the nosedive of late – and there have been a bucketful of them – letting go of its firm grip on the corporate market was the most crucial. RIM has virtually built an empire centered round the revenue from the corporate sector, and this is precisely where the rebuilding process should begin. The corporate world no longer needs Blackberry spyware that can land it into a heap of mess, and legal issues.

However, this does not mean that RIM should ignore the enterprise. BlackBerry 10 is going to be pivotal if RIM is to link the seemingly impending growth in the consumer market, to the “prosumer” market – where Apple and Android have for long cemented their authority. And of course with BlackBerry 10 being a scrumptious prospect for the mobile enterprise, RIM’s chances of regaining the U.S. market share would also increase manifold.

Author Bio

Jane Andrew is the author of blackberry spy software and employee monitoring software. She provides tips, tricks to monitor employees via employee. You can also follow her on Twitter @janeandrew01 to get the latest tips about computer and phone security.

There is today an increasing number of people who use their phones to do little chores such as manage their online bank account or even make transaction with services such as the Google Wallet.

According to research conducted by the Imagining the Internet Center at the Elon university together with other foundations it has been found that by 2020 cell phones and smart phones will have become the primary agent for conducting monetary transactions. According to current trends they are likely to gain a lot more momentum and will soon have beaten plastic money and cash as the preferred medium of exchange.

Google Wallet is an example of a service which can operate from your cell phone and allow you to make payments through it. As of now the service hasn’t gained too much popularity just yet since it is still in its initial phases, though developments will be made with much speed in this area. A thing to consider is the level of safety associated with using your own smartphone to make payments, is it really worth putting more sensitive information on a device which can easily be stolen or possibly hacked? In this day and age you could have your phone with you, with all the security measures in place on it and someone from half way around the world could be going through your details while your phone sits snuggly in your pocket. If we are going to be putting on information such as our bank details onto our phones as they are now becoming the new source of transactions it would be helpful to see that security measures to work with this change are developing at the same pace.

What sort of security do we need then?

Now comes in the matter of rooted and non-rooted devices. If the person trying to get your information can infiltrate to the root of your phone he can pretty much consider his task accomplished. This is the area of the phone where nearly anything can be altered, system permissions can be modified and apps can be made to do what the infiltrator wants of them. Another problem with phones that have been rooted is the fact that getting cell phone monitoring software on to these hand sets is rather easy.

A regular app which is in fact injected with cell phone spy software could be downloaded and installed from any source once the app is on board the device it could delete itself or hide itself from the application menu. To the user the app has become invisible but that doesn’t mean it’s gone, in the background it will continue to function and without you knowing your information is being leaked out.

Security breached through the keys

On screen keyboard apps are gaining popularity with the majorities and for good reason, they do make handling the device that much easier. But just as is the case with regular computers and laptops they keyboard can also be compromised as a keylogger silently lurks under the keys. These keyboard apps can also be functioning as keylogger and while you enter your credentials to access your email account or visit your accounts online, the information you just entered using the app is being forwarded onto someone else, granting them access as well.

Having a 90 character long password with a blend of alphabets numeric’s and strange symbols is only great if you’re the only one who knows it. All of your data can be lost, manipulated or made use of without your knowledge if you just download one bad application. Even if it’s not a bad application you don’t know what the intention of the creators is.

Author Bio

This article was written by Jane Andrew on behalf of mobistealth. She provides tips and tricks about iPhone spy and cell phone spy software. To find out more about cell phone spy please visit our website or follow her @janeandrew01.