Tools for Thought

Cell phones can make more elegant information appliances than laptops. Their diminutive interfaces force them, and their owners, to filter out noncritical data. Here are six degrees of information to make your cell phone’s information bottleneck work in your favor.

Your email client

Escape the inbox without worrying about missing that critical email from the boss. Batch your daily email checking into the most infrequent intervals you can get away with, and set up an SMS notifier (SMS, or Short Messaging Service, is what normal people call text messaging).

Create a filter on your email client that forwards any message from a particular email address to your cell phone via text message. For instance, if I set up a filter that forwards any message from joe.schmoe@tools-for-thought.com to mynumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com, I’m immediately notified that Joe has just sent me an email. Better still: I get the first 160 characters of the email, which is invariably enough to know whether or not accessing the full email right now is necessary.

To make this work, you’ll need to know what email domain to append to your 10-digit cell number. Here are the main carriers in the US:

• Verizon: number@vtext.com
• Sprint/Nextel: number@messaging.sprintpcs.com | number@messaging.nextel.com
• AT&T (formerly Cingular): number@sms.att.net or number@cingularme.com | MMS: number@mms.att.net
• T-Mobile: number@tmomail.net | Sidekick: number@tmail.com
• MetroPCS: number@mymetropcs.com
• Virgin Mobile: number@vmobl.com

If you use your carrier’s web-based email service, they often have a notification option in their settings, so that you don’t have to enter your mobile email address. You’re better off spending a few extra seconds to set up the forwarding configuration previously described instead. Carriers’ text notifications are usually less informative “You have mail” dispatches that don’t include the original email’s subject line or whatever part of the body fits in 160 characters. That’s as annoying as getting a voicemail where the entire message is “Call me” with no information about what it’s regarding.

Wapedia

Yes, Wapedia is Wikipedia on your cell phone. After using this to settle an argument in a coffee shop about the true origin of Frappucinos, you’ll wonder how people ever used a printed set of volumes on their bookshelves.

Google Mobile

The resource that needs no introduction is still just penetrating into public consciousness in its mobile incarnation. If you haven’t already done so, bookmark Google Mobile on your mobile browser.

Google SMS

These days, despite using a web-friendly smartphone, I do most of my searches with Google SMS. You text your query to 466456 (GOOGL), and Google texts you back one or more search results, typically in about a minute. Getting search results can take just as long as using Google Mobile, but the lack of network latency and page rendering keeps me from staring at the screen; I just wait for the phone to vibrate an alert. Many results arrive as flat text messages; others include links to the mobile web.

The query syntax is usually pretty intuitive. To find a nearby pizza restaurant, you would enter “pizza” plus your zip code or city, e.g. “pizza 90042.” For flight status on American Airlines Flight 721, you would enter “flight aa 721″. Some other examples:

• area code 310
• translate table in spanish
• map 90028
• define sententious
• regency academy pasadena ca [for address and phone number]
• 342 * 13 + 667
• 429 usd in euros

Sometimes the syntax isn’t so intuitive. It’s not a bad idea to practice sending queries on your desktop to the Google SMS home page, which has a demo version that doesn’t have the one-minute delay of queries through the real SMS network.

If you have a phone with threaded SMS, like the Treo, you can forward a result to someone else’s phone — for instance, a map link or an address and phone number.

GOOG-411

I had a friend who literally racked up a four-figure cell phone bill. Some of this resulted from the false economy of getting a cheap plan that included fewer minutes than he realistically used during the month, incurring massive overage charges. But the real culprit was his impulsive use of 411 for directory assistance whenever he needed a number. He seriously needed to preset GOOG-411 (800.466.4411), a free directory assistant for finding businesses that uses voice activation to bypass the need for a human operator. You’re asked for the city and state, then for the business name or category. When the listing is retrieved, you’re given the option of receiving it verbally or via text message, or having it dialled for you toll-free.

New York Times Mobile

It’s no surprise that the Times has a mobile version, but the SMS query capability bumps its usefulness up a notch. Texting a particular keyword to 698698 (NYTNYT) returns a specific section of the paper without the need to wade through irrelevant content. The keyword latest returns the three latest articles on the front page; political does so for the Politics section. Keywords for columnist like Paul Krugman or Bill Kristol, krugman and kristol, return the current article for each. My personal favorite is emailed, which returns the three most emailed articles, making it something like Digg for grown-ups. This press release lists all of the Times’ keywords.

Warning

In case it’s not obvious, do not use these resources without an unlimited text messaging plan.