How to Leave Your Smart Phone (Part 3) – Google Calendar updating
Did you know you can easily update your Google Calendar via SMS and get calendar reminders? It’s super easy and the third part in my multiphase posts about losing your smartphone to simplify your life.
Last I wrote how to update and recieve updates from Facebook & Twitter. I also wrote in Part Two how to forward your emails to your cell phone using carrier SMS gateways. All of this is in an effort to help others know that a smart phone (and their associated higher costs & distractions) just aren’t necessary.
You can easily update your Google Calendar via SMS. Back in 2007 Google announced, in an effort to bring more mobility access, the ability to easily update Google Calendar using SMS.
Here’s how it works:
First you will need to setup your phone. Go to your Google Calendar Settings and click on the “Mobile Setup” tab at the top. Start by selecting your country, and then enter your phone number and carrier. Finally enter the verification code sent to your phone.
In the end it hsould look something like this:
Next you will need to create events using your phone’s SMS text messaging.
How to create an Event (from Google):
To create an event on your primary calendar via SMS, simply send a text message containing your event’s details to the shortcode “GVENT (48368).”
For example, if you send a message with something like “Shopping with Sarah at Monterey Market 5pm Saturday,” Google Calendar can figure out what you mean and pop the new event into your calendar.
As you can see, Goolge makes it easy to update your calendar using SMS text messaging. This goes to show that even with a “non-smartphone” you can update your online calendar. Pretty cool right?
PS…
Google also gives instructions to:
How to Leave Your Smart Phone (Part 2) – Get emails through SMS
One of the best features of a smart phone is the ability to read and respond to emails on-the-go. A few days ago I listed methods to update Facebook and Twitter using SMS. The good news is through SMS you can not only update social networks, but also get the first 140 characters of emails to your cell phone.
You will not have all of the smart phone functionality, but you can very easily receive important emails to your cell phone using SMS text messaging and Gmail filtering.
First you have figure our your Carrier Specific SMS Gateway. This is basically an email that sends a SMS Text message to your phone.
Go here or do a search for “SMS Gateway List” to find your carrier and the gateway email. Mine is on the Verizon network, so my code is mynumber@vtext.com.
Here are the top SMS Carrier Gateway Codes (United States Only):
- n@message.alltel.com Alltel
- n@txt.att.net ATT Wireless
- n@myboostmobile.com Boost
- n@mobile.celloneusa.com CellularOne
- n@mms.uscc.net CellularOne MMS
- 1n@mobile.mycingular.com Cingular
- n@messaging.sprintpcs.com Sprint PCS
- n@tmomail.net T-Mobile
- n@mymetropcs.com Metro PCS
- n@email.uscc.net US Cellular
- n@vtext.com Verizon
- n@vmobl.com Virgin Mobile
Once you have figured out your code you first must set that SMS gateway as a verified forwarding email address in your Gmail. Go here for directions on setting that up.
Then create a filter to only forward important items to your cell phone. For my filter I chose for any email containing the words “unsubscribe” or “click here.” Click here for directions to set-up a Gmail filter.
After I set-up this filter I quickly discovered several emails I did not want to receive were coming to my phone. My filter ultimately looks like this now:
Here is the filter I used in my Gmail email to forward emails via SMS to my Verizon cell phone. Note: I had to add some additional parameters when I got unnecessary emails.
Once that is set-up you should start getting emails that are “important.”
As an afterthought you may want to also create a filter from important people (my wife, family members, boss, etc) where the email is always sent.
Also, please, please, please confirm that you have a text messaging plan to cover the text. Your incoming texts will drastically go up.
Here are some additional guides on getting your emails sent to you via SMS text messaging:
How to Leave Your Smart Phone (Part 1 – Facebook & Twitter SMS tools)
That’s right. I dropped my smart phone.
Why? Well, Laura and I were looking at the monthly expenses of each of our smartphones and we decided that we really only need one. Since she has an Motorola Droid and I had the horrible Blackberry Tour, we decided to keep the more versatile Droid smart phone.
Each month we are saving approximately $47.98 by dropping the line to a basic phone.*
I’ve found that I can still do many of the same phone functions for updating and getting social media notifications, receiving email notifications, updating my google calendar, getting calendar notifications, etc that I could do with a smart phone using SMS Text Messaging.
I’m going to post my progress and how you could lose your smartphone.
It’s very easy to stay updated with Twitter and Facebook. Below are some simple instructions I followed to get my phone set up using SMS notifications.
Set-Up Twitter for your Cell Phone using SMS
You can add your phone numbers by clicking Settings –> Mobile –> Complete the on-screen directions to verify your cellular number and start using your twitter short code.
Twitter has some alternate directions at http://support.twitter.com/articles/14589-how-to-add-your-phone-via-sms.
Set-Up Facebook for your Cell Phone using SMS
Within facebook click Account –> Account Settings –> Mobile –> from here simply turn texts on and decide what notifications you would like and when.
Facebook has some additional ways to use SMS text messaging here – http://www.facebook.com/mobile/?texts.
It’s as simple as that. After setting these up all you have to do is send a short text message to a number and easily update your profile/stay updated with your friends.
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*price includes smartphone insurance $7.99, unlimited data package $29.99, unlimited messaging $10, for a total cost of $47.98
