Five Uses for Text Messaging If You're Over 15 [part 2]

Five Uses For Text Messaging
If You're Over 15
(Or Even If You're Not)

(2) Make it easy for friends to send email from their computers to your phone.

Gmail, <http://gmail.com> is Google's free, web-based, email system. The features mean you never have to delete, clean up, or file your email, and there's nothing to install: you can use it from any computer with a browser.

Gmail lets you forward some, or all, of your Gmail to another email address -- why not your phone?

For example, if your Gmail address is <gillian.haemer@gmail.com>, you can have Gmail forward a copy of any email addressed to <gillian.haemer+cell@gmail.com> to your phone as a text message.

Step-by-step:

• Go to <http://gmail.com> and sign up for a free account
• Click on "Create a filter" (up next to the "Search the Web" button)
• In the "To" box, type in "gillian.haemer+cell"
• Click on "Next Step >>>"
• Click the checkbox "Forward it to:"
• In the box next to it, which says "email address", type in your cell phone's email address, 7205551212@tmomail.com.
• Click on "Create Filter"

You're done!

Try it out.

Have someone send you email, to <gillian.haemer+cell@gmail.com>. Your phone will ring. The mail will be on your phone's display.

This "plus address" is easier for your friends to remember than yet-another-email-address, like 7205551212@tmomail.com. Plus, when you change phone numbers, there's no one to notify -- you just go back into gmail and fix the filter.

(If your friends can send email from their cell phones, then they can store that address and use it from their cells, too.)

As icing on the cake, Gmail puts a copy of each text message into your Gmail archives. They won't go away if you lose your phone or your computer dies.