I love receiving text messages.  They are certainly more efficient than voicemail for receiving small amounts of data.  I have several clients who prefer to communicate by text messaging. I am not efficient at texting.  The fact that I do not own a smart phone is one reason for the lack of efficiency but another reason is I have poor hand -eye coordination.  When I am away from my computer then I must send text messages from my phone, but when I am in my office I can send a text message as an email from my computer.

In order to email a text message you must know the ten-digit cell phone number and the wireless carrier your recipient is using.  The main wireless carriers in our area are, US Cellular, Verizon, AT&T, and Nextel.  Texting by email is great for those of you who do not have a texting package as part of your mobile phone service. Texting by email is free.  Any computer user can send a text via email.  You do not even need to own a cell phone to send a text via email. Another great advantage is that you will have a copy of your message in your sent messages folder.

Chart of Carriers

 
This carrier information is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. A more complete list can be found by following this link
http://www.livejournal.com/tools/textmessage.bml?mode=details
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Once you know your recipients email to text address, update your contact information in your email database.  Simply add an additional email address.  This screen shot shows the edit contact box in Gmail.

 

When sending an email to text message select that saved email address. (Caution: You need to send the messages in plain text format, not HTML).

When your recipient replies to your text, the reply is sent to your email in-box.

 Try this cool productivity tool. It will make your life easier. I love comments. Click the comment button and let me know what you think.