Web Worker Daily

Try Phones in Your Browser – That’s the idea behind the new TryPhone site, now in beta and aimed at the mobile phone buyer. Their pitch is simple: rather than put up with a high-pressure salesman, compare models in the privacy of your own home by playing with interactive simulations, and then go to the store knowing what you want. In addition to HTML-ized phones, they feature reviews, specifications, and recorded demos – plus, of course, links to buy the phones in question.

It’s a neat idea, but I’m not quite sure it works. The selection of phones is limited at the moment (this may just be a beta issue, though clearly converting the entire menu system of a modern mobile phone to a demo is a non-trivial undertaking), and the demos themselves feel somewhat clunky in my browser. And you can’t judge how the phone actually feels. So while this tool might help you find some models to consider, I expect any serious shopper will still need to go to a store and play with the real thing.

Stuff Your Phone – Assuming you do own a modern cell phone, you’ll probably want to load some files on to it. That’s where Beam It Up Scotty comes in. You can upload any file to this site, choose the amount of compression you want (they chop off audio and video files after five minutes), and enter your mobile phone number. You’ll get a text message with a link where you can download the compressed file.

Another Take on Health 2.0 – There are a bunch of folks competing to bring health care online these days. VitalChart recently added Personal Health Records to their system – a way to store your family’s medical history online for easy access from anywhere, and available without charge to anyone who wants to take the time to put the data in. They do want $9.95 to download the records to your own USB key, though.