Google SMS is a service from Google you can access by sending a text message from your cellphone to GOOGL (46645). This service, currently available in Canada and the United States, allows you to retrieve information such as driving directions and movie showtimes from Google. You can use Google SMS to:

1. Get driving directions.
To get driving directions, simply text “start to destination”, for example “Washington to New York”. You can use a combination of addresses, cities, postal/zip codes and even airport codes in your query.

2. Search the web.
Text “G query” to have the first two search results of your query sent to you in a SMS.

3. Get business listing at your location.
Craving for some sushi but can’t find a place? Text “sushi” along with your location (city, zip code) for a listing of sushi restaurants in your area.

4. Ask simple questions.
You can send simple queries such as “toronto population” to Google SMS and it will answer you. Note that Google SMS is still in Beta and many of my queries were not answered correctly. For example, “earth population” and “world population” didn’t work for me.

5. Find word definitions.
Simply text “define word” to obtain a definition of ‘word’.

6. Perform calculations.
Text the calculation you’d like done such as “6+4*3″. Most cellphones come with a calculator nowadays but it’s still handy for more complex calculations.

7. Get movie showtimes.
You can receive various information such as movie showtimes, critics and theater listing by texting Google SMS. To get details on a movie, simply text “movie name”. To get showtimes and a listing of theater playing it near you, add the location to your query, for example “movie name New York”. To get a listing of the top movies, text “movie: location”, where ‘location’ is a city or a zip/postal code.

8. Perform translations.
Text “translate word to language” to have ‘word’ translated into ‘language’.

9. Convert currency.
Text the conversion such as “currency of Canada in US money”.

10. Lookup area codes.
To see which region an area code covers, send a SMS with the area code such as “604″.

11. Retrieve flights info.
Text your flight number to receive information such as arrival/departure time and flight status.

12. Retrieve stock quotes.
Send a SMS with “GOOG” to get Google’s latest stock quotes.

13. Get help.
You can always get help information on Google SMS from Google if you simply text “help”.

Google SMS is still in beta and far from perfect, but it has already proven very useful and it can only get better.

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The various acronyms used to describe the different kind of text messaging services are not always intuitive and can be confusing to new users. Hopefully the following breakdown of the three most popular messaging services will help clear things up.

1. SMS

SMS stands for Short Message Service and is the most widely used type of text messaging. With a SMS, you can send a message of up to 160 characters to another device. Longer messages can be split up into several parts. Most cell phones support this type of text messaging, and sending a SMS is usually very cheap. SMSs can also be used to access various services from a portable device, such as Google and MSN. Spam sent as SMS is also becoming more common.

2. EMS

EMS means Enhanced Messaging Service and is an extension of the SMS. It provides SMS with functionalities such as text formatting (bold or italic fonts) and limited picture and animation support. If an EMS is sent to a phone that doesn’t support it, it will display as a standard SMS. EMS will probably be rendered obsolete by MMS.

3. MMS

MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service and this type of text messaging is an evolution of the SMS. With a MMS, you can send a message including pictures, video or audio content to another device. It is very useful to send a photo taken with a camera phone to another phone. Most new cell phones with multimedia capabilities support MMS. Because the size of the message is defined in kilobytes, a MMS can contain a lot more information than a SMS. Be careful, carriers can sometimes charge high fees for data transfer over their network if it’s not included in your plan.

Now get to your keypads and start typing!

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Have you ever wanted to send your friend a text message on his cell phone when you didn’t have access to one yourself? Do you want to customize your cell phone without additional cables and softwares? I’ve found myself in this situation once. Had I known that the following two services existed, it would have made my life easier.

Teleflip
Teleflip is a free service that allows you to send a text message to a cell phone via an email address. Simply send your text message to <cell phone number>@teleflip.com and the service will send an SMS to the specified number. This service only works in North America. There is no registration needed for using Teleflip and it is free.

My Mobile Toy
You want to personalize your cell phone but don’t have access to cable and software to transfer the data from your computer? My Mobile Toy is for you. It is a free service that allows you to transfer multimedia elements such as wallpapers and ringtones to your cell phone. The service will automatically resize your image and it supports a good range of cell phones.

These two tools sure help shorten the bridge between computing and cellular technology.

Source: simondecarufel.com » MyMobileToy

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