Reader Jim explains how and why he uses silent ringtones for his low priority contacts:
My cell phone (like most) lets me select a custom ringtone for each contact in my phonebook, however there's no option to set an individual entry to "not ring". So I just created a 1 second long recording of "nothing" using my computer, transferred it to my phone, and I can now select it as a custom ringtone for numbers that, while I don't want to block, I just don't want to hear.
The reason for the silent ringtone? Surely we've all got contacts in our phone that will never require our immediate attention. Jim, for example, frequently receives calls with automated messages that he doesn't want to block altogether, but that he doesn't need instant notification of, either. Makes sense.
</img>


More...