Phone Phun

The ability to send an SMS text message to a mobile phone is a rather helpful thing. If your message is short and you don't need a quick response, you can get the word out in short order and go about your business. That's all well and good if you happen to have your cell phone handy. If not, then it becomes much more challenging. Did you know that most cell phones can receive email as well? All of a sudden, your options have increased.

The only challenge here is that while it's easy to send a text message–you just send it to your recipient's phone number–where do you address the email? That's not nearly so obvious.

A recent post on MakeUseOf.com can help you with that. If you know your recipient's carrier and their cell number, you can send 'em a message. The site lists gateways for domestic use (major US carriers), as well as many foreign carriers. Your mileage may vary, of course, and undoubtedly your normal text messaging rates will apply.

Need to make a phone call but not so interested in letting your recipient know who's on the other end of the line? Or maybe you're just a big fan of Mr Roboto. Either way, here's an interesting find for you. Point your web browser to TextDialer, enter the number you want to call, and type in your message. This service will then call your number (in the US or Canada) and read your message back to whoever picks up the phone. The sound quality is about what you would expect from a synthesized voice, and some of the pronunciations were a bit off, but it definitely gets your meaning across.

TextDialer is a free service.

Thanks to K3ntucky for pointing this one out to us.