DOWNLOADING AND
TRADING ICONS Once you've changed the ringtone on your mobile to
something a bit more style, and got yourself a cool and trendy cover, you might
want to take a look at your phone's menu screen. When you buy your mobile, it'll
come with the phone's company logo on the screen (or the operator's logo after
you inserted your SIM card) - you need to get rid of this straight away, it's
boring and not exactly the last word in cool.
The latest trend is customising mobile screens by
downloading new icons to replace the dull phone company logos. You can download
pictures of an animal or cartoon character, your name or the name of your
favorite band or television show. You can even create your own logo if there's
nothing already out there on the net that takes your fancy.
Not all mobiles will allow you to change logos, check
in your handset's manual to find out if yours will. The website you use to
download your icons should also tell you if your phone is compatible. At the
moment, it's mostly Nokia mobiles that will support this, but this should change
soon.
Design Your Own
When you've chosen your favorite website, you'll be offered the choice of
designing your own logo, or picking one from the many pre-designed icons shown
on the website. Designing your own logo is easy - you'll be shown a grid made up
of hundreds of tiny squares. Click on the square you want to start from to color
it in. After that you can happily click away on each square of your choice until
you have come up with a design for your logo that even Van Gogh would've been
proud to have on his mobile.
Buy Online
If you aren't feeling particularly creative, or you like one of the logos you've
seen on the site, you'll just need to click on the Order Box underneath your
chosen icon. Most sites will charge you a small fee for sending you a logo and
some sites offers it for free but needs some cable attached into your computer
in able for you to receive one. Some sites will let you pay for the cost of a
phone call, so you won't need a credit card for these, but like the ringtone
calls, these can be quite costly so watch it!
Your new logo should be sent to your mobile fairly
quickly, normally within just a few minutes of ordering. Your phone will tell
you it has received an Operator's logo and you then need to press Show, followed
by Save. Be careful here, if you press discard by mistake, you'll erase the
message and have to order another one.
Picture Message
Some logos can also be sent as picture messages to your friends. These are twice
the size of normal logos, and are sent as attachments to the text message. They
can be downloaded in the same way as the normal logos. At the moment, your
friends will only be able to receive picture messages if they have compatible
handsets.
These downloadable logos are more complicated than
the kind of pictures you can create on your mobile. Some text can also be added
to the messages. If you have Nokia 3310, you can also use any of the funky logos
you downloaded from the net as a screen saver just like the picture message
that's already included in your mobile.
Caller Logos
The operator logo isn't the only icon you can change. If you have a Nokia 61
series handset, you can also change the caller group logos. These icons tell you
who the person calling is. But like the operator logos, they're pretty boring -
so dumped them for something funkier.
Once you received it, just press Show and then Save.
Now choose which caller group you want it to replace - e.g. family, friends,
VIP. Your new logos will now be stored in your phone.
