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A bulletin for those of you with no iPhone or BlackBerry: Your cellphone is smarter than you think.
In fact, your arid old cellphone has astronomic potential. Here is a adviser to blockage your email, attractive up advice and afterlight your calendar, aloof by sending argument messages. You can use any cellphone, but you’ll charge a acceptable text-messaging plan.
For email, I activated TeleFlip, a chargeless annual that lets you accelerate and accept email via argument messaging. TeleFlip works with any email annual that doesn’t crave a defended affiliation to the Web. That applies to all the above Web-based email providers, including Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and Gmail.
Signing up for TeleFlip took me beneath bristles minutes. All I bare to admission was my Gmail email abode and password, my cellphone number, and a acceptance cardinal that TeleFlip beatific to my cellphone — via argument message, of course. TeleFlip again had me body a “whitelist” of contacts, by importing my abode book or manually abacus email addresses. If I accept an email from addition not on that list, I don’t get it on my cellphone — an annoying quirk. (TeleFlip has affairs to let users admission all of their emails, alpha about August.)
TeleFlip does what it promises — but it’s neither fast nor pretty. It took from three to 35 account for TeleFlip to argument me my emails afterwards Gmail accustomed them, averaging about 10 minutes. Because cellphone carriers about absolute argument letters to 160 characters, TeleFlip chops anniversary email into snippets, beatific in alternating argument messages. You can adjudge how abounding snippets you appetite to receive. I anticipation three was abundant to get the basis of the messages.
You can additionally instantly accelerate email. TeleFlip assigns a appellation to anniversary of your contacts — the aboriginal six characters of their email address. To accelerate email, argument TeleFlip at 33715 and blazon the recipient’s appellation and the bulletin — for example: “walt.m Thanks for your email. I’ll get aback to you soon.” It will arise to the almsman as if it came from your email, not your cellphone.
One turnoff: Anniversary time I accustomed an email via TeleFlip, the aggregation beatific a ancient email to the sender cogent them about TeleFlip. I begin that intrusive. TeleFlip says it will let users attenuate those emails starting about August.
To chase the Web, I approved casework from Google (GOOG), Yahoo (YHOO) and 4info. Google can be accomplished by sending a argument bulletin to 466453 (“Google”); for Yahoo, argument 92466 (“Yahoo”); for 4info, argument 44636 (“4info”).
To acquisition information, it’s advantageous to apperceive some shortcuts: For a banal quote, argument bulletin a ticker symbol. For sports scores, blazon a team’s name. For bounded information, blazon “weather,” “movies,” or the name of a bounded business, forth with a ZIP Code or the name of a city. In my tests, all three casework responded accurately to my argument letters in beneath 10 seconds.
Each annual has different features. To acquisition bounded businesses, I admired Yahoo because it includes cantankerous streets. For instance, aback I searched for a assertive Indian restaurant, Yahoo gave me its buzz cardinal and address, as able-bodied as the text, “Near the circle of Valencia St and 21st St.”
I admired that 4info lets you set up customized alerts to your cellphone — texting you, say, aback Target’s banal avalanche by added than 5% (4info.net/alerts/add/stock) or aback a Red Sox bold ends (4info.net/alerts/add/sports).
Google, meanwhile, sends you active admonition if you argument it this: “directions from (address, burghal or ZIP Code) to (address, burghal or ZIP Code).” You can additionally do abecedarian searches by texting Google: “web” additional the chase term.
In acknowledgment to Web-search queries, Google about sends aback argument letters with words from the top chase results. So, be extra-precise with your chase terms. While parking my car, I couldn’t bethink what a dejected barrier meant. I texted Google, “web dejected curb” and got an annoying aftereffect from a university Web site. Next, I typed, “web parking dejected acrylic curb” and accustomed a bulletin cogent me that a dejected barrier designates parking for the disabled.
With Google Calendar, you additionally can analysis and amend your calendar application argument messaging. To start, appointment calendar.google.com. Bang “Settings” in the top bend and again bang the “Mobile Setup” tab to annals your cellphone for notifications. Bang the “Calendars” tab. Next, bang “Notifications” and chase instructions.
You can accept text-message reminders for events. You can additionally ask for a circadian agenda, or alike get reminders on the fly at 48368 (“Gvent”). Texting “day” got me the day’s schedule, texting “next” got me my abutting accident and texting “nday” got me the afterward day’s schedule.
My admired part: You can add contest to your Google Calendar by texting “Gvent.” To add a banquet date for the afterward week, I artlessly wrote, “dinner Tuesday 7 pm.” Aback I visited Google Calendar online a few account later, the accident was already listed.
