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" Remember when you just used your camera phone to take pics of a wild night out with friends? Well, these days, the flashy feature has gone from novelty to necessity.  &amp;quot;Women are realizing how useful this technology can be,&amp;quot; says Paul Levinson, PhD, author of Cellphone: The Story of the World&amp;#039;s Most Mobile Medium and How It Has Transformed Everything! You&amp;#039;re about to discover how capturing an image can make your life easier and more fun and, in some cases, help protect you. To make the most of your mobile cam, store these ideas in your memory. 1. Send a virtual postcard. When you mail postcards to friends from an exotic locale, they usually receive them about a week after you&amp;#039;ve already returned home, which is kind of a buzz kill.  Better idea: Skip the stamps altogether and instead send a &amp;quot;wish you were here&amp;quot; shot of the scenery right from your cell phone, with a subject line like &amp;quot;Greetings from Palm Beach&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;Wish You Were Here&amp;quot; from Paris. In an instant, they&amp;#039;ll get your miles-away message. 2. Play interior designer. Say you find a fab new couch for your apartment but need your roommate&amp;#039;s approval first. Just snap and send. Or if you&amp;#039;re trying to find a paint color that will match perfectly with your duvet cover, take a picture of your bedding and bring it with you to the store.  Another hint: Rather than guessing how to set up your furniture and configure the space, take pictures of various displays in the store, and use that as a blueprint for your own pad.  3. Capture wedding ideas. While you might use a regular digi-cam to take shots of potential dresses or other big benchmarks, a camera phone becomes a great tool for those unexpected moments of inspiration. &amp;quot;I know someone who was walking her dog and saw a flower that she wanted in her bouquet...but she had no idea what type it was,&amp;quot; recounts Gail Oliver, coauthor of Weddings with Style. &amp;quot;So she took a picture on her phone and showed it to her florist later.&amp;quot; You also can use your phone to remember the name of a particularly good bottle of wine you&amp;#039;d like to serve at the reception if you take a photo of its label. 4. Use it as a mirror. Put down that butter knife on your next date! The new (and much more discreet) way to check if you have food in your teeth is to whip out your camera phone and take a shot of your choppers. To be more clandestine, bend your head down and smile into the camera or screen&amp;#039;s reflection. Should your date catch you baring your teeth, claim that you just got a funny text from a pal.  5. Help your doc help you. Hop on the &amp;quot;telemedicine&amp;quot; trend and get medical advice on the go.  &amp;quot;Many of my patients requiring skin surgery are young and travel a lot for business,&amp;quot; says dermatologist Ralph Braun. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s difficult for them to come in for their post-op checkups, so I ask them to take a picture of their wound and send it to me.&amp;quot; So if you have a bump, weird mole, or rash, use your camera phone to track any changes until you can get in to see the doc.  6. Give him a sexy surprise. Whether he&amp;#039;s your long-term boyfriend or the delicious guy you recently started dating, he&amp;#039;ll love this superseductive surprise: Send him a photo of your bed with the following text message: &amp;quot;Meet me here in an hour....&amp;quot;  7. Make meeting up easier. Can&amp;#039;t find your bud in a crowded place, whether it&amp;#039;s the mall or a downtown area of your city?  Save yourselves the headache by sending your pal a snap of a nearby intersection or landmark. Says Mandy, 23, &amp;quot;My friends and I used this trick in college when we&amp;#039;d go to parties. Now that we live in a big city, it&amp;#039;s been really helpful a number of times.&amp;quot; 8. Document a new do. It seems that no matter how hard you try, you can never get your hair to look quite as fabulous as it does after a trip to the salon. Well, try this idea: Take a pic while you&amp;#039;re still with your stylist so you&amp;#039;ll remember exactly how it&amp;#039;s supposed to look.  9. Break the news. Broadcast journalists use their camera phones to e-mail on-the-scene photos to the station when cameramen aren&amp;#039;t around.  Now news outlets around the world, like CNN, are asking their viewing audiences at home to send in their newsworthy camera phone pictures, encouraging a type of reporting known as &amp;quot;citizen journalism.&amp;quot; 10. Get an instant memory.  Forget scrounging for a pad and pen when you want to remember something small, such as the style number of a shoe you think you can find online or even the hours of your dry cleaner. Just take a pic of it to refer to later.  11. Create a diet diary. Check out myfoodphone.com ($9.99/month). This service allows you to upload photos of your meals to an account, which is analyzed by a nutritional adviser.  Or here&amp;#039;s a DIY idea: Make a visual dieting diary by snapping pics throughout the day of everything you eat. Before bed, look over the photos to evaluate how healthy your choices were.  12. Upgrade your wardrobe. Shopping solo can be liberating. The only problem is that if you&amp;#039;re unsure about an outfit, you can&amp;#039;t just turn to your friend for an opinion. That&amp;#039;s why your camera phone comes in handy: 18 percent of adult cell-phone subscribers use their camera phones while shopping, according to Sprint.  Here are ways to put your phone to use when you&amp;#039;re in a boutique, from Henrietta Thompson, author of Phone Book: The Ultimate Guide to the Cell Phone Phenomenon. Take photos of yourself in the outfit at the store, then reevaluate the look a few days later with a fresh eye (it&amp;#039;ll prevent buyer&amp;#039;s remorse). Or if you&amp;#039;re trying to find a shirt to wear with a skirt you love, take pics of the top (in good lighting) before leaving. At home, refer to your phone to see if it&amp;#039;s a match.  Cell Safety Tips: Snapping a quick pic can be a lifesaver. 13. If you&amp;#039;re lost... Sending a photo can give your rescuers clearer info on your whereabouts than a call can. The light or flash from your phone can help people track you in the darkness too.  14. If you&amp;#039;re in a hit-and-run... Document the car or license-plate number. This helps police track down the person who hit you. Plus, courts, police officers, and investigators may need pics to press charges.  Source: Scott Willis, President of Security-Services Firm AIS Corporation "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/advice/a1841/camera-phone-tricks/>