While I'm brand new to these forums and won't actually have this phone for another 5 days, I figured I'd go ahead and share a write-up I did on a community board for my phone I've used the last few years (BlackjackII). While I'll have a data plan for my new Impression, I didn't have one for the last 2 years and I know that there are those on this board who don't have them either and will find this very helpful. So here it is:
If you're like me and don't have an unlimited data plan but do have unlimited texting, then there are a number of ways to stay updated on all the goings on in your world or to view web info on your phone without actually connecting to the internet. I'm going to list a number of ways that you can do this for a number of different topics.
NOTE!!! If you don't have unlimited texting, then DO NOT follow any of these instructions, as messages really start to rack up and could lead to a very hefty phone bill, much like if you used the internet on your phone without having unlimited data.Social NetworkingFacebook, Twitter, and MySpace all have mobile texts that you can subscribe to and receive depending on what you want to have sent to your phone. Twitter was built to be used strictly from SMS which allows you to do just about anything on Twitter from your phone. Facebook has a pretty good system set up for receiving wall posts, messages, and status updates on your phone, as well as easy commands for posting on other people's walls, sending messages, and updating your own status. You can even upload photos and videos from your phone via MMS. I don't use MySpace, so I'm not as certain as to how their mobile messaging works, although it appears to be similar to Facebook's setup.
Facebook: 32665 (FBOOK)
Twitter: 40404
MySpace: 69772 (MYSPC)
WeatherThe Weather Channel has obviously become the number 1 source that most people turn to when they get their weather, and their website has certainly helped make it easier to get local updates, travel conditions, radar, and storm warnings. Weather.com has a text-message service that you can either subscribe to and receive a 36-hour forecast each day, or you can choose to store the number in your phone and just use it on-demand at your convenience. Not only do they offer daily forecasts, but they also offer a slew of other weather updates that include:
* severe weather alerts
* current conditions
* pollen alerts
* snow alerts
* rain alerts
* icy precipitation alerts
* extreme heat/cold alerts
* surf and sea conditions
All of these can be received on demand (with different commands) or via a subscription. As is the case with all of the services in this post, using weather.com SMS is free of extra charges besides what your service provider charges for sending/receiving texts.
Weather: 42278 (4CAST)
RSSFor those of you who want to stay up-to-date (or I should say up-to-the-minute) with the latest news stories or blog posts from your favorite website, then the best mobile option you have is Twitter. You can follow different news outlets that update their RSS feed on their Twitter and have them sent to your phone via SMS subscription.
SportsAny guess as to what website offers SMS updates on sports stories and scores? That's right, ESPN offers
ESPN Alerts which allows you to subscribe to news about almost any sport you want to hear about and get scoring updates about almost any team that you care about. If you are a casual fan and know that you won't see many games then subscribing for the season would be wise so that you can always know if your team won or lost. If you are an absolute fanatic who hardly ever misses a game yet have a conflict for one game where you won't be able to watch, then you can sign up to get the update for that one game. ESPN offers alerts for special events as well (like the NFL Draft) as well as general breaking news or breaking news for a sport, so there will never be a sports story that you won't hear about.
GoogleFor everything else, there's Google SMS. You can get just about any information from Google by entering a number of different commands. The following information can be received from Google:
* Local Stores/Restaurants
* Movie Times/Locations
* Weather
* Stocks
* Glossary
* Flight Updates
* Web Snippets
* Translations
* Currency Conversions
* Product Info/Price
* Sports
* Zip/Area Codes
Just look up the list on website for the different commands that you can use to look up the information you want. I would recommend maybe taking a screenshot of it on your computer and storing it on your phone, or instead make a note that has the commands listed as there are a pretty good number of commands that you'd have to remember to use each feature.
Google: 466453 (GOOGLE)
ChaChaI lied. For everything else, use ChaCha. Literally anything you want to know can be found using ChaCha (well, maybe not anything). ChaCha is a free service that allows you to text a question or call and record a question that you want to have answered. Once ChaCha receives your text or call, they send you a confirmation message to let you know they're working on your question (and usually throw an ad in that helps keep the service free for users). Within about 5 min you'll receive your answer from someone working for ChaCha who found the info you wanted to know. You may have seen commercials for KGB which basically does the same thing as ChaCha, but you have to pay $.99 for each question in addition to the regular charge you'll receive from your service provider, making ChaCha the more financial savvy option. You can only use ChaCha texts a few times each week but can use the recording method anytime.
ChaCha: 242242 (CHACHA) for text
ChaCha: 1-800-224-2242 (1-800-2-CHACHA) for recording a message
Well that's all I've got for now. Let me know what you think about some of these services and if you know of some other useful ones, post it and I'll add it to the original post.
