Channel 9 - Entries tagged with SMS

SMS for Windows Live

Sarah Perez — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:04:00 GMT

The Windows Live team has just announced a new feature that will definitely appeal to heavy users of SMS as well as those of you whose phones don’t feature a good web browser for using online services: it’s SMS for Windows Live! Now, those of you in the U.S. and U.K. (sorry, others) have access to many Windows Live features all via text message.

For example, you can now check your Windows Live Calendar, invite people to join your network, and get contact info for people in your Windows Live contact list. You can also update your Windows Live status by starting your text with the word “update.” To invite people, the command is simply “invite” and to view calendar info, just text “today” or “tomorrow” to get a message with that lists the date, time, and subject of each event. To get details on any particular event, just reply with the event number. To find contact info, text “srch” followed by the name of the person you’re trying to find.

To start using this feature, you’ll need to first register your mobile phone’s number on the Windows Live mobile website. To start texting, you’ll need to use the appropriate shortcode for your region:

If you’re in the U.S. and your mobile operator is AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint, or Nextel, your shortcode is MyLive or 695483.
If you’re in the U.K. and your mobile operator is Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, O2, or Virgin, your shortcode is 88804.

AIM App For Windows Mobile

Sarah Perez — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:55:00 GMT

Earlier this month, AOL released their first custom-made IM application for Windows Mobile phones (versions 5 and 6). The application, AIM for Windows Mobile, lets you IM your friends, update your AIM status, manage your buddy list, insert emoticons into your updates, and more. In a variation on tabbed conversations, this AIM client shows the buddy icons for the people you're in conversation with on the left hand side of the screen instead. Those icons are overlaid with the user's status (busy, mobile, away, etc.) as well the number of unread messages from them. Another interesting, but yet to launch, feature is the ability to send out updates via SMS instead of IM - great for those with unlimited text messages but tight data plans as well as for communicating with friends who aren't signed in.

This app does not currently have an auto-updating feature, so you'll need to keep checking beta.aol.com to find out when new versions become available.

SMSOfficer for Outlook

Sarah Perez — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:14:00 GMT

A new plug-in for Outlook has been the talk of the net recently: SMSOfficer for Outlook lets you send and receive text messages from your Outlook to any cell phone. The service, which takes advantage of the Outlook Mobile Service, works with nearly any carrier worldwide and your copy of Outlook 2007. After it's installed, you get your first 10 texts for free, but then it's $20 for your next 250. You can learn more about SMSOfficer on the Outlook Team Blog.

Vito SMS Chat for Windows Mobile

Sarah Perez — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 10:01:00 GMT

Vito SMS-Chat is a Windows Mobile SMS messenger application that organizes your SMS correspondence into threaded SMS conversations. With this app, you have a separate chat for each contact you've texted. All the messages are grouped by date and you can manage them with a flick of the finger. With SMS-Chat you also have the ability to send multiple SMS message, resends messages, forward & delete messages, and delete entire chats. You can download the software for only $14.95 at http://iwindowsmobile.com. (thanks again to Mr.Mobile!)

Mobilize Your Social Networks

Sarah Perez — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 06:03:00 GMT

A service called MoDazzle brings social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Salesforce.com to your mobile phone. In an attempt to make searching these networks faster for mobile users with bandwidth issues, MoDazzle offers a way to interact with these networks using unique email addresses and SMS short codes. With MoDazzle, you can email in or SMS your search requests for different actions on the supported social networks. For example, Facebook users can email/SMS MoDazzle for locating a contact, reading your Facebook messages, poking other users, checking a friend's status, reading your wall, posting to others' walls, and more. Each community and/or feature has its own SMS short code and email address. Although it's great to see this kind of mobile integration with social networks, the system is a bit too complex to use on-the-fly from memory, since each request has a unique address and syntax. However, I can see where it could be useful if you had a unique need, like uploading photos to Facebook on the go, and wanted a quicker way to do so than using a slow-loading app. I can't imagine trying to use all the features in this way, though, unless you didn't have access to mobile browsing on your phone and needed an alternative. You can also access news, weather, stocks, directions, and locate the nearest Starbucks with the MoDazzle service.