Messaging About Messaging

Can you send text messages internationally on your mobile phone, and if you can, are they cheap or expensive?

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My cell is not a full featured service. I have a 'pay as you go' and only use it for emergency (to have in truck in winter) and for student contact. I don't really know.

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No matter.

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Many of my students have photo phones that play mp3 files and can practically mow the lawn. It all seems silly to me.

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Yeh, my students and friends have mobiles that do everything except make toast. I'd like to have a photo phone and one so that I could text message.

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Too cumbersome for me.

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I used to ba able to text message from my computer and it was free but now they charge. I would pay but it's only available to ------- Mobile Plus service and most of my friends don't have Mobile Plus.

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You need something like a Blackberry.

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I've heard about the Blackberry, but too expensive and technology more than I need or could handle. Text messaging is possible from even the cheapest phones.

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Okay, but keying in is way too slow.

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The Philipinos here are real adept at it. Most of the world except North America do lots of it. In Thailand even, everybody is always text messaging.

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Why not just talk?

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The Philipinos I used to work with text messaged all the time to the Philipines, back and forth all day long. Each texted message only costs 50 fils - 12 cents from here. My friend is in Dubai. If I call his mobile, it is a long distance call for him to receive it.

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Still seems like a stop gap measure, til we use messenger on wireless net devices.

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Or if some one is away from the mobile or can't answer it, instead of just seeing a number of someone who called they can read a message when they get a chance. It's actually real handy.

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Yeah, all right. I will take your word for it.

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i thnk U wll B 2 bsy 2 gt bck 2 me so i snd u a txt mssg. This is the way my students are starting to write.

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I think how most people use cell phones is also stupid and they are always chatting and never saying anything. Too bad more people don't know where the off switch is.

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But like when I'm at work or out in the cinema, somebody can send me a txt mssg and I can read it in the cinema without the phone ringing or when I get back to my office. It would be great if they put answering machines in mobiles, but it seems txt mssging has precluded that.

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Voice messaging is available on my cell. If I switch it .. it informs me .. but I turn that off too. If I can't answer then, I don't want to have to 'catch up' later.

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I agree. Most mobile calls are useless, but then on the other hand, i was a the gym yesrterday and then went to the car wash and supernarket. By the time I got home and checked my message machine, it was too late to go to the cinemas with my friend Richard. If I had had a mobile with me, I would have not gone to the car wash and supermarket and met him at the cinema.

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Very few businesses require such immediate, in-one's-face connections ... almost no ordinary people should.

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Most don't but the example I just gave was one of those times when a mobile would have been handy.

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No wonder half the world is on medication. People complain about stress .. then think of all sorts of ways to invite it into their lives! Good conversation ... dinner is ready now though.

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Bye.

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