SMS, Baby! Also known as text messaging…
The Nokia 2260 arrived. It’s an ok phone, nowhere near as nice as the diminutive Nokia 6585 that the female has, but it will suit me fine. (Did I mention I’m cheap?) Actually, the arrival was quite amusing. Seems we missed the Fedex guy while we were checking the status of the delivery in the basement by not hearing the front door, but as luck would have it, we saw the Fedex truck 20 minutes later at the Piggly Wiggly. But! Wrong Fedex guy… :( But! He sent a message to the other guy to swing back around and drop it off, so all was well, and I don’t have to complain about Fedex. ( Not today anyway.)
I’ve made like two calls, seems to work fine. I dunno, I don’t talk much. Like I said… SMS!
Yes, this text messaging thing has opened up a whole new world. I’ve hacked up a bit of perl, added some cron jobs, and we’re on our way. I get updates on the weather. I get notified if the server stops responding. I set up a form for the kids to send me messages. It’s just plain neato. I know, this stuff is old hat to people who have been using smartphones for years, or any teens in the audience, but it’s new to me, and it’s fun.
Here’s the part I like. This SMS stuff is free for incoming messages. I got a prepaid plan from AT&T Wireless, which means if I don’t make many calls, I could enjoy this wireless notification appliance for less than $4 per month. Pretty much every plan you see advertised is for 1000000 minutes each day for $39.99 per month (roughly) and I didn’t want to pay $39.99 per month or need 1000000 minutes, or even 1000.
I can see why Russell gets so jazzed about the mobile thing, and why Scoble shows off his phone.
I saw a post on some forum where some guy said “It would be cool if you could get a text message when your Google PageRank changed.” And you know what? While it might or might not be cool, it’s entirely possible, and pretty darn easy too! ;)