I had an emergency job last night in which I followed my GPS rather than a previously planned route thinking I was safer with the GPS.  Instead of the straight path…I went on a very winding one which took me to the Addison Tunnel (A toll road).  I got to the toll booth which was green for the one that was full service / makes change at around 8:30pm and I had to decide what to do because I was facing the big stop light and no one was at the booth.  The change machine there happened to be out of order with a big sign taped to it.  With no cash, what was I going to do?  After waiting for about 5-8 mins. trying to decide what to do, I finally ran the toll booth in which case bells went off and everything.  So much for that.  After a bit of research this morning, I found out how to avoid such predicaments.  Read on to find out how!

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It might just be me, but I have so many gadgets, purchased over time, that as I move on to other devices and scenarios in my life, I sometimes forget I have some really useful tools still available.

Case in point. With the improvement in battery life of the current crop of phones, not getting thru a day on one charge has been minimized. My HTC Tilt 2 so rarely threatens needing to be plugged in before bed time, I have stopped thinking about when it might. I keep a great external battery in my car for emergencies, the really sweet Tekkeon Power-All, but it is just big enough that I don’t relish carrying it unnecessarily. Yesterday, after a rare day of much Wi-fi, Bluetooth and extended call usage, and my car was elsewhere, I was on an important call and got the dreaded “low battery” warning. I really needed to be able to finish this call. It dawned on me, like one of those “well duh!”, I also have the Proporta USB Turbo Charger 3400 in my bag. I plugged it in an had enough juice to save my bacon and get me home. This little gem is so convenient to carry, I forgot why I do AND how valuable it is.

So if you are looking for convenience and inter-device support in the charging arena, I’d recommend checking out the Proporta 3400. Here’s some specs and features:

This ridiculously handy product allows you to recharge your mobile devices on the move again and again. Simply plug any USB/micro USB powered gadget (including your Apple iPhone 3G/3G S, Apple iPod, BlackBerry, most digital cameras, GPS units and mobile phones) into the USB TurboCharger’s standard USB port and it’ll keep even the most power hungry device juiced up and ready to go. An LED display shows the level of charge, and this lightweight and stylish battery is so small that you’ll hardly even notice you’ve got it with you.

• Charge anywhere, recharge anything – over and over

• Comes with retractable cable and range of interchangeable connector heads including 1 x DS Lite, 1 x iPod, 1 x Nokia, 1 x Sony Ericsson, 1 x Micro USB and 1 x Mini USB.

• LED display shows level of charge.

• Capacity : 3400 mAh, Input: 5V DC500 mA, Output: 5.5V 700mA

• Impressive 3400 mAh storage – enough to recharge your devices several times.

• Dimensions (in cm) : 9.8 x 6 x 1.6

Available for $46.95, for another $10 a “world pack” is available that comes with connections for more devices and travel convertors.

Visit the Porporta Site for this and other mobile friendly accessories.

For the longest time, I’ve wanted to be able to log into multiple GMail accounts using the same web browser.  Since GMail is my primary email, and I use it for one of my consulting jobs, it was always a pain to have to log out of one account to get into another.

Sure, I could have used two browsers, bobbing back and forth between the two, but that would have been a huge resource waste.  Plus, when a person makes up their mind that something should work a certain way, they kind of want it that way!  That was the case with me anyways.

Long story short, Google has finally implemented support for multiple account logins, and a small dream of mine has come true.  Setting this up is relatively easy.

After logging into your primary account, click on Settings in upper right corner.  Then click on the Accounts and Import label in the Settings tab.

Next scroll down the list of options until the Change Account Settings label appears.  You will need to choose the Google Account Settings option.

You’ll then want to enable the option to use multiple accounts.  Google will cautiously warn you that there are limitations.  They even go to the extent of making you check the boxes beside several of the disclaimers they provide.  Read them and click if you agree to live with the functionality sacrificed by using multiple accounts.

At this point, if you click on the arrow beside your email address in the upper right corner, you will be provided with an option to sign into a second account.  Clicking it opens in a new tab of Firefox for me.  This may vary depending upon your current browser’s configuration options.

And there you have it – multiple GMail logins while using the same browser.  Just one more way you can make that thing called the internet work for you.

Looks like Apple Central has tweaked the new iOS once again. They have released update 4.0.2 which applies to all iToys: iPod, iTouch, iPhone, iPad, including 2G, 3G, 3GS, and 4.

HOWEVER, it appears there is now a block to the jailbreakme.com pdf workaround. So, for you current Desperados, and those thinking you might want to become one, you may want to sit this dance out. Apparently if you partake, there will be no way of returning to your wicked ways.

The hits just keep on coming from Evernote. Now they have hooked up with Awesome Note to further enrich an already awesome application in its own right. Does that make Evernote even awesomer? Me thinks it might. Here’s what Evernote has to say about the hookup:

Awesome Note is an innovative note taking application and to-do manager that allows you to combine notes with to-do lists. Notes and folders created in Awesome Note can be synchronized with your Evernote account, and if you edit those notes in Evernote, your changes are synchronized back into Awesome Note so that your notes stay up-to-date no matter where you’re reading them. Awesome Note also allows you to export individual notes into your Evernote account and import individual notes from Evernote into Awesome Note.

Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later. Also syncs with Google Docs.

Get it in Evernote TRUNK or learn more from the Awesome Note Site