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SMS and me
1 min read

SMS and me

The Short Message Service has become an indispensable part of my life these last few years. A brief sample of how I currently use SMS:

  • Tell someone I’ve just left/arrived
  • Remind myself of something from my Trumba calendar (it will send you SMS alerts for your calendar events; I hope the Google calendar speculation turns out to be true sometime soon)
  • Get phone numbers and addresses from Google SMS (this is especially useful when your phone automagically makes phone numbers clickable so that you can simply click on them within the SMS to make the call); Google SMS is capable of a lot of neat things
  • E-mail iCal reminders to number@cingularme.com, which arrive on my mobile phone as SMSs
  • Driving directions from either Yahoo! Maps or MapQuest (Google Maps will certainly allow this in the future; you can actually ask for directions through Google SMS, but it’s a little cumbersome)
  • If I’ve just sold something on eBay, I’ll use an IM client (or Internet-to-SMS gateway) to send myself the buyer’s address so that I’ll have it at the post office
  • Have SMSs treated like IMs through my phone which is connected to my notebook over Bluetooth (when SMSs come in they’re shown on my computer screen and I can reply to them on the computer just like a regular IM; the computer sends my replies to the phone over Bluetooth and from there they’re sent over-the-air to the recipient’s mobile phone)
  • Have airlines let me know if my (or a friend’s) flight is on time/delayed or if there has been a gate change
  • Have mobile phone manufacturers send me settings for a particular phone/service combination (this is usually faster than finding the needed settings on the net and entering them manually)
  • Have my online brokerage service send me alerts when my stocks have gone below or [hopefully] above thresholds I’ve set
  • Have the mechanic notify me as soon as my car is ready
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