What you may not realise is that your iPhone is also a powerful business tool, possibly the most useful and efficient device you could possess as a business professional. There are now just as many apps designed for business purposes as there are silly games and social tools. Of these, scanning apps are arguably the most useful.

A scanning app effectively changes the purpose of your phone – it can instantly become an efficient desktop scanner, except that it still fits in your pocket. You can use it to scan, store and organise documents, business cards and everything in between.

Here’s a quick rundown of the top five scanning apps available for iPhones at the moment:

1. Adobe Acrobat.com Mobile – a multi-functional document scanner (and it’s free if you have Adobe Acrobat on your desktop computer!)

2. Scanner Pro – a popular app, Scanner Pro offers a range of features including password protection.

3. Document Scanner – a well-designed scanning app with many convenient features to improve the organisation of your documents.

4. Business Card Reader – specifically designed for business cards, helping you to keep track of who’s who in your contact list.

5. Perfect OCR – uses Optical Character Recognition allows you to search documents directly on your iPhone

The Porting Authorisation Code allows you to keep your old mobile phone number when you shift network providers and it is free.

When you decide to put the instructions in motion, it does not take long before you have your existing number to pass on to your new mobile operators. Therefore, it won’t be long before you are away and able to enjoy using an updated mobile phone and you won’t have the hassle of having to send out a new number to all your friends!

The Geemarc Clearsound CL8200 as it is called has been made by a Hertfordshire-based company to fill the gap in the market for a mobile phone that is easier to use for those who are short-sighted and hard of hearing.

You can now buy this hearing aid compatible phone online and so far it has been well received by consumers.

A spokesman for Geemarc said:

“There is a real need for a phone that doesn’t look like a disability phone, but which is really simple to use. There are a lot of elderly people frustrated at iPhones, and smart phones which can practically boil a kettle but are very difficult to use if you are hard of hearing or short sighted.”

The device itself is a smartphone that runs on the Android OS software platform and the name itself it turns out was just a codename (no shock there), with the official name instead being ‘Beam’.

What makes the Samsung Beam so special is it is not just another smartphone, this little beautie has a trick up its sleeve – or in its casing we should say. The Samsung Beam has a built-in pico projector, which is capable of a meagre 6 lumens, but is an impressive feat nonetheless. The projector displays the image of the camera, which is a rather average 5 megapixel resolution.

For customers who get free calls on their Virgin Media phone tariff, these free calls will include calls made to Virgin Mobile customers from April 1st 2010.

The same free call ‘rules’ apply, where the first hour (60 minutes) of a phone call are free and any time after that will be charged. However, phone users are allowed to hang up and redial to restart their 60 minutes, as it is simply designed to prevent abuse of the phone system (e.g. leaving a phone call active for several hours without using it).

This is not so. Old phones were not catered for 3G because at the time of the production, there was no 3G!

If you are a 3G user yourself, be sure you get a compatible phone and not just any old one lying around in the garage. This is more important when you plan to use the second phone for emergencies only.

If you have the right contacts, you can get you hands on a device that can fit into your pocket and isn’t too expensive. People found these for a very check price (we’re talking about under £100) and started to offer a phone unlock service for £10 while you wait. Within hours, they made hundreds of pounds!

Please note, I’m just giving you information and not telling you to do this. It’s illegal so don’t.

Yes, if you still have a 10 year old phone about as a backup, then you probably will need to unlock it however it won’t be as cool as it once was. (It will be geeky though)

It was originally brought up in the 1990s, where it was thought radio frequencies output from mobile phones may have a link to causing brain cancer due to their close proximity to the user.

This ‘nay or yay’ argument abut mobile phones causing cancer has gone back and forth many times, with the last big study in 2006 suggesting mobile phones with high levels of ‘radiation’ can cause tumours. This has now been contradicted by a Scandinavian study which showed no noticeable changes impacted by mobile phone usage on the number of cancer sufferers.