So about that edit key (the one with the pencil that you're not really sure what it does... which meant in all my dim-wittery I always called it the "pencil key"), it has a few more tricks up its sleeve. I used to think it was for switching between writing languages and turning predicting text on and off, and indeed you can access that context menu by pressing the pencil—I mean edit key—when you're writing a message.

But it's also a really, really much faster way to mark or unmark images or messages or what have you. Try this when faced with a stack of images you want to transfer to your computer (or send to the Kingdom of Deletia forever): hold down the edit (I almost wrote pencil) key and then click the center of the navigation key. You should see that little checkmark appear next to your item. Now try holding the edit key and pressing in a direction with the navi key: you should be marking multiple items that way. It's a simple trick, and I guess the edit key earns its name with that function. Again, this is pretty simple stuff, but while I knew about Mark/Unmark for ages, I just found out about how the edit key can be used with it about three weeks ago, and my thumbs are still angry with me for all the manual deleting of hundreds of needlessly saved text messages at one time. You learn something new every day, no?

I am the sort of person who has a nostalgic connection for text messages, and you never know which ones are going to make you feel nostalgic in, say, three years or thirty years, when we've all got gigapixel cameras imbedded in our foreheads and don't need computers anymore except to feed and sleep (but that's another blog post, I feel). So every once in a while I realize I've got 870 text messages in my inbox and maybe it would be nice for my phone if I cleared out at least the monosyllabic ones, and deleting about 200 messages one at a time is a serious pain in the neck.

So there's a nice little function, which is pretty familiar to many phone users, called Mark/Unmark. Essentially anything you choose to mark will show a little checkmark beside it, and if you mark a bunch of things at once, it's much easier to delete them or transfer them or whatever it is you're going to do with them. Marking and unmarking works with text messages and anything that's in your gallery (pics, ringing tones, tracks, video, presentations, etc). It also works on browser bookmarks and contacts. Contacts can be selected into groups, tracks sorted into playlists, and pics can be sent, transferred, printed, organized into albums, uploaded online, used in a muvee, deleted, or made into a slide show as a single batch.

What you can do with a bunch of marked items depends on what the thing is. So play around with it—you might find a trick or two that saves you time or even inspires you to do something with a set of images.