Have you ever received an SMS from your bank, service provider, or a company, that has been prefixed with codes? For example: An SMS from ICICI Bank that reads: IZ-ICICIBANK. Ever wondered what these codes really mean?
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) introduced these codes in order to curb bulk SMS providers from unsolicited commercial communication. Now that these codes are implemented, the sender can be traced, if necessary, as these codes reveal the location, the name of the company and the service provider.
This is how the code should look like:
XY-name of the company
X = Code of the service provider
Y = Location
Which means, IZ-ICICIBANK would be:
I = Idea Cellular (service provider)
Z = Maharashtra (location)
A list of Service Provider codes & Service Area codes:
So, I am sure next time you get an SMS with a code like this, you’ll know what it is.
If you are a geek user of Google SMS Channels, you might be very annoyed with its limit of allowing maximum Channels subscription of 20 and maximum Channels creation of 10 channels per user.
Here, I am going to demonstrate how you can, using RSS Mix or other Multiple-To-One Feed Combiners, you can bypass this limit and enjoy unlimited number of feeds getting delivered to your mobile inbox, importantly for free! 😉
All you need to do is, just visit RSSmix.com and enter the feed URLs of all your favorite sites in the space provided separated by newline (enter) character and click on create! A mixed RSS feed link will appear below. Now click on the orange XML button that appears after the RSS feed link. The mixed feed XML will appear. Now copy the address of that XML page and use this link as source by creating a new SMS Channel. That’s it! You are done. 🙂
To utilize this RSS feed combiners in the best possible manner, I have another interesting concept which I will discuss in the coming lines. As you know that both SMSGupShup and Tagg provides feeds for all their groups but they have restricted the maximum number of SMS that can be received per day, so you can now use the above method to receive all the messages of your favorite groups by getting the RSS feed URL of those Gupshup & Tagg SMS groups and combining them as discussed in the above few lines!
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NOTE: Instead of RSSmix, you can also use other similar tools such as PostRank or Yahoo! Pipes. RSSmix is mentioned here because of its simplicity to use and is preferred over other available options.
Using Google SMS Channels, Indians can convert RSS Feeds into SMS. But, this time we have something similar for our the US and Canadian readers. 🙂 In this post I am going to discuss on how to convert your favorite RSS Feeds into SMS so that you can read them on your mobile as and when they get updated.
For the subscribers of US and Canada, it is possible using Web-alerts.com, that converts your favorite RSS Feeds into text messages and delivers them on your mobile. To start using this service, all you need is your US or Canada based mobile number and the feed URL that you want to subscribe to. For a list of supported operators click here. And the best thing in this service is that, for using this RSS-to-SMS service, you need not register or login to Web-alerts and also you do not have to incur any charges for using it, as this service is available absolutely free. 🙂
For Indian subscribers, as said earlier, you can use Google SMS Channels to convert your favorite RSS feeds into SMS alerts. All you have to do is, create an account in Google SMS Channels, click on the ‘Create Channel’ tab and create a SMS alert with some keyword assigned to it. As shown in the image below, while filling up the form, on the ‘Data Source’ field enter the RSS Feed URL of the feed that you want to get SMS alerts for.
After filling out all the details, just create the channel and you’ll be updated about all your favorite RSS Feeds via SMS on the go! This way, you can even check our tutorial to convert Emails into Feeds and get unlimited Email alerts for free. 😉 For your convenience, I’ll try to write a dedicated post on ‘Getting Emails Via SMS for free’ sometime in the future. 🙂
After the launch of various group messaging services in India, what comes to your mind as soon as you hear the word ‘SMS’? The answer must be surely either Google SMS Channels, SMSGupShup, Mytoday or Vakow. If not that, atleast Ways2SMS must have hit your mind. Isn’t it? But today I am going to introduce you with a SMS service after using which, you will surely rethink while choosing to rate these free SMS services.
Foosms, a Bangalore based company claims to provide you the best service at the most affordable price. Though it does not support group messaging, 🙁 but still as compared to other free SMS services in India, it is better. It has a plan for users who do not want to pay anything and also for them who want to avail paid services. As customary, if you send free SMS, it will contain advertisement ranging from 40-50 characters and there is no option to choose the sender ID of the SMS, but one thing I like in their free service is that you need not create any user id or login to send free SMS. 🙂 Now comes the paid service, if you are planning to pay out for the SMSes you send, then choosing the sender ID of the SMS will be upon your discretion, provided you authenticate the mobile number. For paid users, there are also options to schedule outgoing messages, so you need not bother of greeting your well wishers while you are parting at mid night this new year. 😉
Here comes a quick highlight on the advantages of FooSMS paid services:
A simple and hassle free interface of their website.
Option to schedule SMS to be sent at a future point of time.
Support for API using which you can create your own SMS applications.
Option to import delivery reports of the SMS sent.
Support for bulk contact imports and personalized messaging
Flexibility to choose the sender ID.
Except these advantages, there are certain disadvantages and drawbacks present in FooSMS too which I will discuss some other time. But I said it to be the best SMS service to be used this new year, because all operators blacklist holidays and you cannot use their promotional SMS schemes on these days and ultimately costing you around 2 rupees per STD SMS whereas if you purchase SMS credits from FooSMS it will cost you approx. 35-40 paise only per SMS. If you know any better service, do let me know.
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Well, there is a good news for you all. To test out this service, we are giving away 50 SMS credits per user to first 10 commentators. If you too want to try out this cool service, just create your own account on FooSMS and let us know your id on FooSMS so that we can credit your account within 24 hours. 🙂
Hope you will enjoy wishing your loved ones using this cool SMS service. 🙂
A serious bug is discovered in Google’s new SMS Channel service. Although the service is in beta (labs), it have huge userbase specially which makes a bug like this serious one.
First about the bug…
Bug is present in “manage channel” option beside each channel. When you click on it, editing page opens with URL structure like below:
In above link, xxxxxx is user-readable name of the channel.
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Ideally you should be allowed to edit your own channels only, but you can put any Google SMS channels name in place of xxxxxx and you will get editing screen for it!
You will see a page like below. Yes, below one is Google SMS channel management page for top Indian technology blog – Digital Inspiration.
Don’t Get Panic…
I know above is enough to scare anyone who have large number of subscribers on their Google SMS channels. But although this bug is present, it can not be used to do any harm to anyone (at least as of now).
You will get access to edit page and you can change values too, but when you will hit Update Channel button you will get message, You have no permission to do this.(see screenshot below)
Ideally above error should have been displayed whenever we enter forged URL into browser.
“editing page options” do not contain any important information which can be misused. Everything there is anyway publicly listed in channel directory except data source. Again data source information for most of the channel is obvious.
So overall this bug is not harmful, but it presence may lead to more harmful bug in near future. Best would be, if Google SMS Channels team fix this in time! Thanks Saeed. 🙂
Few days ago, we mentioned about how to get Orkut Scrap alerts as SMS and a lot of people were querying on how to get such notification for new E-mails that we get. Here is what you need to do for getting your emails delivered to your cell phone as SMS instantaneously.
All this is done by SMS-to-Email service providers, currently offered by Mobee and Mytoday.
Mobee.in has an awesome interface and delivers your mail of up to 400 characters but it is a premium service now, though for testing purpose you can avail a free account which will give you only 3 E-mail notification per day. But at any point of time, you may migrate to their premium plans which cost as little as Rs. 30 Per Month and gives some great features like, reply to a mail by SMS or forwarding any mail. And all this is operated using a non-premium ten digit mobile number which costs you as low as a normal SMS.
Mytoday, on the other hand, another big player in SMS world, has also started such Email-to-SMS service for ‘free’ under the name Email2Sms (M3M). Though the service is free, it has got certain limitations too. As a free user, you can only avail a limited alerts of 100 SMS notifications per year and if you wish to get unlimited SMS alerts, it will cost you a reasonable amount of 999 bucks per year. Any ways considering it to be free (upto 100 alerts/year), we can surely give it a try, also this is one time setup process.
Basically the whole system works by setting up an auto forwarding in your mail box to a specified mail id provided to you by the ‘Email-to-SMS’ service provider. As per the service provider, all your Emails are being stored in an encrypted form and cannot be viewed by them. I am still wondering on how secure your personal data would be, so please use this service at your own risk. 😉 Further detailed instructions on setting up auto forwarding can be availed once you sign-up for the respective services.
My Review: Personally, I have used both the services, Mobee was outstanding as I have used a premium version of it and have not got any complaints with it. M3M is equally good. You give it a try and let us know your comments on it.
Recently launched in labs, Google’s group messaging service – Google SMS Channels had many bugs and disadvantages as compared to other group SMS providers like SMSGupShup, Mytoday, Vakow, etc.. After getting a lot of comments and advice by its users, Google considered making some changes and improvements on their service, and I have listed some of ’em here:
The most disgusting & buggy thing in Google’s SMS channel was that, if you were new it, you had to send ‘ACCEPT’ message in addition to channel joining message. This problem is now being solved. Infact, its a good news for channel owners ‘cos your subscriber need not bother about sending 2 individual messages now. 🙂
When your friend accepts your invitation to join private channels, you will be notified about it via SMS.
Bug of unable to search for the channels created & subscribed by you has been fixed too.
Bug of unable to view too old posts has also been sorted out.
Channel owners can now customize whether their viewers will receive only headlines or full body contents. (Refer screenshot below).
More good channels added into "Editors pick" section.
Though these improvements are appreciated and are too good, still there are more options needed in Google’s SMS channels. Some of my personal advice to them are listed here:
As Mytoday provides for its mob users, an option to schedule messages and grant publishing rights to different people to publish new posts would really be great.
In addition to 10 digit mobile number, there’s a need for a short code like 567678, 575757, etc. By this, the channel owner can create a good impression about his/her channel.
Better user interface to send customized SMS to a channel. Integrating Google SMS channels with Gtalk would be a great option.
As advised by many other users, a private channel owner atleast should have the option to view his group subscribers.
These are the only points I pointed out. If you readers too have any suggestion for them then comment form is here for you. 🙂 May be some one from Google will drop in here and read out our suggestions. 😉
Consider this: You meet a new person or you give a V.Card to someone which reads…
“To know more about me/To know more about the product, SMS <Name/Product Name/etc> to 5xxxx”
Doesn’t leave a good impression on the minds of others, that this person is really kewl and a hi-tech kinda guy/gal and spending a lot on advertising too?
But guess what! What if you get these Keywords for free, so that every time you can say “To know more about me SMS “Name” to 5xxxx, quiet impressive isn’t it?
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Yes you heard it right, its free and SMSMEON has started a new Venture where you can get your keyword for free and manage your account to send what SMS to send to anyone who access the keyword..
Example: My keyword is iAbhishek. So you send a SMS “iAbhishek” to 56070 and you will get my details.
Whats more, you can have sub-keywords, i.e one can send “iAbhishek Location” to find my current location (It reminds me of twitter in a ‘pull way!’)
So get yourself your desired keyword (Your Name) before anyone takes, I was a bit late so have to settle with iAbhishek, you don’t wait get one for yourself!
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Advantage: Can be given instead of email ID or Domain Name. Or you can give it alongwith other ids.
Disadvantage: Mobile operators charge premium SMS rate to anyone who sends SMS to your shortcode. This limits many from using it.
Anyways there is no harm in getting one for yourself as its free, go to www.smsmeon.com for more info.
SMS team at Google has come up with Google SMS Search. Now you can send all your queries to 9-77-33-00000 without paying any premium charges! SMS Search offers an easy-to-use way to type in free-form searches. No longer will your questions require complicated prefixes or a tight syntax. You can learn about the interesting features and try our interactive demo at http://www.google.co.in/sms.
The Google blog says that you only need to pay the standard SMS text charges for sending the SMS query to Google – there’s no fee for the incoming messages from Google. The service is available for all popular cellular networks including Airtel, BSNL, Idea, Reliance, Spice, Tata Indicom and Vodafone.
This service is available across all operators on both GSM and CDMA mobile phones. Give it a try by SMSing “help” to 9-77-33-00000 and don’t forget to save the number of your newly found friend (Google SMS) in your phone book!
Google SMS can be used for Live Cricket Scores, Railways PNR Status, Train schedule, Stock Quotes, Horoscopes, News, Movies, Flight status, Translation, Currency Conversion, etc.
This post must surely remind you about our previous post wherein we were able to get our Orkut scraps delivered as SMS using Mytoday ‘feed by SMS’ and Orkutfeeds service. But unfortunately, Mytoday server was overloaded and they stopped providing the service leaving all Orkut users sad 🙁
But its the time for all India Orkut users to rejoice, 🙂 as I have come up with another working trick to get all your Orkut scraps delivered on your mobile using Google SMS channels. Though getting Orkut scraps as SMS is officially available in Orkut, unlike them, this trick is absolutely free. 🙂 Keeping in mind Devilsworkshop terms of not duplicating contents over the internet, I’ve not mentioned the detailed procedure on this blog, rather you can find the step-by-step guide on Rtcamp’s other blog related to mobiles – MobileGyaan.
Key Highlights of this trick:
Get Orkut Scrap alerts as SMS
This works using Google SMS channels and Orkutfeeds
Scrap alerts notification takes around 3-4 hours to reach mobile inbox
Unlike the previous case, only the sender name of scraps will be notified 🙁
So guys, its the time for you to enjoy scrap alerts and for us to discover new things for you 😉 Give this new trick a try, and let us know your views about it 🙂
