If you need to do Math in your job, try doing it on your mobile phone.

To me the calculator is one of the greatest inventions of the century; I can barely live a day without it. This is because my job requires me to take in figures and chunk out results almost immediately and I suck in mental calculation. My good old Casio fx-570MS is always firmly placed in the office bag and follows me almost everywhere. On the few occasions that it’s not near me, my smartphone will have to kick in as a substitute.

The proprietary built in calculator function however provides me with limited mathematics operations which require a great deal of key strokes. How frustrating! But all of that has become history. With the installation of advanced software, my smartphone is truly smart. Behold!

 

 

MTVOID

Calcium by mtvoid.com is a fast, easy to use calculator for Symbian series 60 phone. If you are like me and is bored or fed up with the proprietary calculators on mobile phones, do visit http://mtvoid.com/calcium. mtvoid removed the need to select on-screen buttons and moved all operations to the joystick. Doing basic calculations on phone is now only a couple of clicks away. For example, on my Nokia phone running the standard calculator, Operation 2/3 x 7 required 12 clicks but takes only 6 clicks using Calcium, saving 50% of my time and effort. This software enables one to do calculation on handphone like how one uses a calculator. The basic add, subtract, multiply and divide operations are each represented by up, down, left and right directional key. Equal is aliased to the confirmation button.

 

 

For normal daily grocery budget calculation, Calcium proves to be more than adequate. But when sophisticated scientific operations come into the equation, it will not be able to handle them. The second disadvantage is the missing undo key; a single typo means resetting the calculator. Anyway, the main selling point of Calcium isn’t functionality but ease of use. Since mtvoid is generous enough to offer it as freeware, there is nothing to lose for trying it out.


cCalc
On the other hand, cCalc developed by Chua Welic is totally the opposite of Calcium; it is heavily stuffed with scientific functions. First of all, it has the standard numerical keys and basic math functions. That’s followed by the general operation functions of Clear Entry, All Clear and Sign Change. Memory functions like Memory In/Memory Recall/Memory Plus/Memory Minus/Memory Clear is also pretty standard. Then there is programmable formula built in for user to define frequently used functions (such as tax and currency conversion calculation).

To qualify itself as a scientific calculator, Trigonometric functions appears in cCalc too. Sine, Cosine, Tangent, Arc Sine, Arc Cosine, Arc Tangent are available. Inverse trigonometric is an added bonus. There are also Hyperbolic Functions and it’s inverse together with Degree/Radian/Grad mode for angle unit selection. Other common mathematical functions such as Logarithm, Power, Exponential, Reciprocal, Square Root, Pi Constant and Factorial Function can be found in cCalc too; not to mention Base-N mode and Logical Operations of Binary/Octal/Decimal/Hex base coupled with OR/XOR/AND/NOT and MOD Functions for the likes of engineers and programmers. Parentheses and precedence functions top it off as icing for cCalc.

There are nice features like Pencil key/Shift key to switch function, copy or paste function from clipboard, user theme background selection, instant screen size change and multilingual operation. So there you have it, a plethora of functions that are on par with the most advance scientific calculators sold in the market. The price? Only RM0.00 from http://home.pacific.net.sg/~welic/cCalc.html. Yup, it is a freeware; rejoice!


GRAPH
Last on my calculator tool list is an application called Graph by Alexander Taboriskiy. This program which operates on S60 platforms plots graph of functions for variable set as y=f(x). Part of its functions include arithmetic equation of +, -, *, /. For example, Y=X; Y=2*X; Y=5*X-1 and so on so forth. Brackets and modulus is pretty standard for this graphical calculator. There are also trigonometrical functions. Logarithms is a must-have too in modern calculation. Lastly, allocation of an integer or fractional part is a nice additional ornaments to further spice up the functionality libraries.

You can get the free version of Graph on. But if the functions mentioned above do not meet your expectations, visit http://www.math-solution.com/ for a beefed up version which is renamed as Solutions and sells for USD $19.95. The functions are certainly more extravagant but after the conversion rate, I guess I will stick with the original Graph software for the meantime.

So, there you have it! Three mathematical tools to turn your mobile phone into a smart mathematical and engineering tool. You have Calcium as a quick and simple calculator, cCal for chunking out complex mathematical expression and lastly Graph to visualize your equation. The best part of this month’s review is that all of these applications are free. Well, now you know why I am not good in mental calculation; I rely too much on my smart phone!