If you are looking for some quick and easy ways to customize your cellphone, there are a ton of different accessories and features you can get to add both personality and fun to your mobile handset. Today I’m just going to talk about three things that you can accessorize your phone with which will create a custom phone that says “you”.

First up, my favorite cellphone customization – ringtones. This is the easiest way to change the personality of your cellphone. It lets you recognize your phone, unlike when you and 5 people around you are still using the default ringtone built into your cellphone. With your own customized ringtones you won’t have to search for your phone again just to realize that it isn’t even you phone ringing. Custom ringtones are also great for letting you distinguish between your most frequent callers. You can assign a specific ringtone to different incoming numbers, so you know who is calling before you even check the number.

Idea number two is more about the personality that you project just to the people that call you, rather than coming right from your cellphone for you and people around you to hear. What I mean is the ringtone’s little brother, the ringback tone. This lets you set up music or sound clips to play for people calling you, as they wait for you to pickup. Instead of just hearing the standard ring beeps, they could be introduced to the latest club tune that you just have to share, or maybe you’d like to play some actual live elevator music just to amuse your friends.

Third on my list of personalizing your phone is to give it a facelift. The most popular models of phones are popular because they have great features and the best reviews. Adding your own faceplate or case lets you distinguish your phone from everyone else with the same model. For one thing, it lets you have some fun with your phone – it’s like buying new clothes, you can project an entirely different look just by changing you cellphone skin or faceplate. And even better, you won’t mistakenly go home with your friends phone that looks exactly the same as yours.

If you want more ideas and ways that you can personalize your cellphone, look no further than your nearest Future Shop or Circuit City. There is often even a bin of marked down cellphone cases which you can pick up for a few dollars each. At that price you could afford to pick up a bunch, so you can mix and match your cellphone and not only give it character, but make it part of your whole outfit, even when you outfit changes! Along with individual ringtones and ringbacks, there will be no mistaking your cellphone for anyone elses again.

To find out more information, click here or visit the website Ringback Tones.

The words in the Pepsi advertisement jingle compiled for the Indian audience, literally translating to “the heart wants more” and most everyone’s craze for new and varied ring tones are a perfect match. With the number of cell phone connections sky rocketing in India and the rest of the world, this is one craze that has very little chance of ebbing away. Not that I am one to complain, especially if the tune is one of Kishore Kumar’s evergreen melodies! But I’d draw the line at some of the more bizarre tunes or so called tunes, like a baby crying or the sound of a ‘fart’ that some individuals insist on assaulting our eardrums with.

Some basic points about the ring tone:

1. It is the name given to the sound made by any kind of telephone, not just mobile phones, to announce an incoming call or text message. Most of these sounds, especially those that do not have a tune or are not customised, are not tones at all and should actually be called ring sounds.

2. The first telephones had a bell which made a ‘ring’ing sound when struck by a hammer, operating electromagnetically, to announce a call. While this system is still common, most cell phones and modern land line phones have advanced from the ring to producing different kinds of sounds.

3. While receivers nowadays allow adjustments to the volume, there are many variations on offer regarding the type of ring tone – to allow differentiation between two or more instruments lying side by side. Specific customer requirements are also covered, such as for the hearing impaired.

4. Towards the late 1980s mechanical ring tones were slowly getting replaced by electronic ones progressing from single tones to those playing two, three or more tones and then on to melodies.

5. 1996 saw the advent of the customised ring tones on mobile phones, with some Japanese manufacturers offering a number of options, both customised and pre-recorded.

6. Downloadable ring tones were available from 1998 and this service has now become an enormously successful industry right across the globe.

7. Real tones, which are usually taken from popular songs, began to be distributed from late in 2002.

All the new music being generated by bands, composers, films, etc. number in the hundreds of thousands across the world. Marketing these as ring tones before or at the time of launch allows the tune to become popular and improve the prospects of it becoming a ‘hit’. Ring tones are now available online, can be sent via sms or copied from a DVD or CD. A number of sites specialise in bringing the latest offerings to the consumer, sometimes the second it’s out of the recording studio. There is a huge amount of financial turnover in this business, running into billions of dollars, because everyone would love to have only the latest and the best. Since I am no different from most others and want options for everything, my heart to get to have more . ring tones!

Ringback tones – this is the new cellphone customization craze of the 2000’s. If you’re a cellphone user, there is little chance that you haven’t already heard of them. What I’d like to do is give you a couple of ideas about how you can have fun with ringback tones on your cell.

One of the funkiest things that I’ve found for customizing my ringback tone collection is audio clips. These are not just a music clip of a pop hit currently making the rounds on the radio. Audio clips can add a lot of variety and imagination to the dead air time that your callers would hear if you didn’t take advantage of the ringback service.

Probably the best ones that I’ve heard recently are replays of the classic comedy monologues. I know these days that these clips are probably quite foreign to new generations, but adding a clip like “who’s on first” is just a really fun thing, when you know you can make your friends or relatives smile for a few minutes every time they call you.

More typically, music clips will be the sound of choice for the majority of customers using ringback tones. If you spend any time searching the web for cool stuff for your cell phone, you’ve no doubt seen the endless ads for current R&B and pop hits downloadable as ringtones. Although not as prevalent, ringback tone selections pretty much echo the commercially available ringtone collections. The great thing is that the cell phone carriers stay up to date with current music releases, since obviously these are hugely popular.

Outside of the current pop-charts, if you are still more a music person than comedy or audio, there is bound to be an extensive selection you can choose your ringback tones from. Even if your musical taste is eclectic or obscure, the music libraries of cellphone carriers is quite extensive, and is updated regularly to cater to all sorts of different musical tastes.

Setting up and configuring the ringback tones for your cellphone is not a difficult process. You have two options – either use the phone interface and use the number pad to make your selections. Or you can go to the web and browse, listen to, order and configure the schedules you want for your ringback tones to play. Notice that I did say ‘order’ your selections, since there currently isn’t any way to upload your own ringbacks, you are limited to the cell carrier’s selection and price list. Even with that, I am certainly going to continue to use ringback tones on my cell, because the cost is pretty minimal, and I really enjoy the added personality it gives my cellphone. At the very least, it’s a conversation starter!