Joe –

A little research on the "composable" tunes that Lin used indicates that her phone allows you to compose tunes, but can't download any additional tones. There are a few preloaded ones, and you can compose ONE of your own. Mine can download additional tones, but doesn't have the "Composer" function.

Apparently it depends on the phone, and my bit of poking around indicates that none of the makers do a very good job of telling you what you're gonna get – or what you're stuck with once they get your money.

Compare Phones at Motorola indicates some phones as having preset MP3 and/or MIDI ring tones, some as having downloadable MP3 and/or MIDI and some as having "composable" ring tones. Any and all combinations seem to be available, but if you've got the wrong phone you're stuck.

Motorola has links that should take you to where you can look at operating manuals, somewhere in the "Support" sections, so if you can find your phone, or one that has the feature you want, you may be able to study up on the feature – although I'd guess that the information they'll provide will be on the skimpy side.

Note that at this point I only know what the phone makers tell me on the web, so I can't claim much. I have seen web offers of ring tones that imply that "there are ways" to put ringtones of your own making on phones, although it might be assumed that you have to have a phone that accepts downloaded ones and possibly one with a computer interface. The wrong phone could beat you on either count.

As to your earlier questions:

Most fo the web sites spell it "cell phone" but there's a lot of variation. Motorola likes "wireless communication device."

PIM has several "translations" but "Programmable Interface Memory" is one that's sort of common. Basically it's a bit of memory that contains the operating instructions for the "Interface" required by a service provider and for personalizing your phone and storing messages and such. It sort of works like the BIOS in your PC, and some of them are "programmable" so that if you want to switch to another provider they can "flash" the memory. Cheaper phones are often locked to a specific provider and the "PIM" isn't removable or reprogrammable. (The "fixed" ones are often called "SIM" devices - no translation known.) Again, you get what you got, and they're not too helpful about what you can do with it.

John