Cell Phone Reminders

Janet writes: We are not the highest tech people around. For example, we didn’t opt for the free phones with our cell phone plan, but we paid under $30 each. Needless to say, we don’t have lots of fancy “apps” we can use when we don’t feel like using a phone for talking. (Wait! Isn’t that what it’s for? Oh, never mind.) We have, however, figured out some simple ways to use our cell phones as memory aids, using the tools and functions that we pay for with our plan.


Of course, both of our phones have built in calendar functions, found within the Tool menus. Tim enters everything he has to do in his and sets the alarm with certain ring tones to remind him anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours before each item. He even has the alarm set to match the ring tone of the person that the appointment or event corresponds to. For example, if he has to pick me up from work, he will set the alarm to ring 15 minutes ahead of time and he’ll hear Kiss The Girl, which is my ring tone. If he has to take his daughter to a doctor’s appointment, he’ll hear We Are Family an hour before the appointment time.


We use text messages quite a bit to remind each other about things we need to do as well. We will text reminders to each other throughout the day. We both find these easier to retrieve than voice mail, and the written text is easy to refer back to. We also text reminders to our own or each other’s email accounts. We have our email accounts set up in our address books so we can send texts at any time. A text from a cell phone looks like this as an email message (phone number is blocked out):



[SMS Message from a Cellcom subscriber]


From: ********** [**********@cellcom.quiktxt.com]


To: pinnut@netnet.net


Cc:


Subject: [SMS Message from a Cellcom subscriber]




Meeting at school 7:40 Friday



We have camera phones, so we can add pictures to these text messages if we want to. In my phone, I take the picture, and then follow the proper function series to add text and send to the email address I want. It comes through looking like this:



New Multimedia Message


From: 9206806316 [9206806316@pics.cellcom.com]


To: pinnut@netnet.net


Cc:


Subject: New Multimedia Message

________________________________________

Message:


Feed the dog at noon



Tim has a video function on his camera, so he can film video clips and email those. Sorry, I am not high tech enough to figure out how to clip the link into this blog to show you the sample video! (I think we need an upgraded version of Quicktime.)


These little reminders do not require an iPhone or a Blackberry or another fancy gadget. If you have multimedia functions or even just text messaging on your phone, you can use these easy techniques. Of course, if you are still using the phone with the cord attached to the wall, then you might want to just write a note…