UncleJoe
Well-known member
I was organizing my work tools and looking at the tasks for each tool when I began to look at my smart phone. I am a consulting network engineer and I work on everything from small 10 employee networks to large government networks with large IT staffs where I just do the work their current staff is not qualified to do.
I figured that a lot of folks use their smart phones as tools and I am always looking for ideas to improve productivity. The speech to text feature on my Samsung Galaxy s4 allow me to speak details into notes or appointments which later are copied to invoices or network documentation. Some tools are obvious some are not. Here are some ways I use mine:
Share how you use this tool and maybe I can find more ways to use mine.
I figured that a lot of folks use their smart phones as tools and I am always looking for ideas to improve productivity. The speech to text feature on my Samsung Galaxy s4 allow me to speak details into notes or appointments which later are copied to invoices or network documentation. Some tools are obvious some are not. Here are some ways I use mine:
- Phone
- Voice Mail
- Calculator
- Camera, Take pictures of everything so when a client calls months later I have a visual reference. I can tell the client "it is the third cable from the left"
- Wifi Analyzer with several apps like InSIDDER and others
- OneNote to pull up notes from the cloud on client details
- Appointment calendar synced with Laptop, desktop and tablet
- Mail Synced
- Notes Simple note taking app that can use voice to text. Excellent for making quick notes about a project
- CCTV camera viewer
- Amazon app allows me to instantly purchase supplies if I find I am runninng low on a project. No more waiting until I get back to the office to order cat 6 patch cables or velcro straps or anything I am running low on. More than once I have been in the middle of a task and thought if I had this tool the task would go better the next time and I order the tool right there from my phone.
- CamScanner Allows me to scan in receipts so I don't loose them. Very valuable to me. I can sort them by project or time period
- Out of Milk. For me this is the best shopping list app. My wife and I have it on both phones and they are synced. If I add something to the grocery list and my wife goes shopping she sees it and buys it. Very handy
- Ping Tools- Allows me to ping the local network and do a lot of simple diagnostics without pulling out other tools.
- Wifi Analyzer
- IP Packet capture
- Subnet calculator. I do not have one installed because after 30 years I can do this in my head
- Speed test. At a client that thinks their wifi is slow I can run speedtest to see if they are correct
- HE NET A collection of network tools including a MAC finder. Enter the mac and it will tell you the MFG. ARP, DNS, portscan, traceroute, ping and other tools
- Detailed local weather app with realtime radar. I use this more than I would have thought.
- Media Monkey to play the 1000's of songs I have stored on the SD card.
- Bluetooth Headset for hands free calls, very important in support issues and to listen to music while working
- Alarm clock/timer- Obvious use for the alarm and the timer has proved useful a few times
- RDP Remote access to server. Can be difficult to use with the small screen but if a reboot is required I can do that. Anything more and I break out the tablet or Laptop
Share how you use this tool and maybe I can find more ways to use mine.
