E-mail notification alert with SMS provides convenience

E-mail notification alert with SMS provides convenience

By Lim Tri Santosa

BANDUNG (JP): Wow, I have received a lot of e-mails from JP
readers, either giving compliments or asking for more tips or for
a detailed procedure in Indonesian. Of course, I am happy, but
please understand that not all your e-mails can be replied to
because I do not have enough time to write replies to each
person. I would need a dedicated secretary to do all that.

Folks, I want to thank you for your interest in my SMS
article. This is the sequel to my previous article; I would like
to share my experience dealing with email alerts through SMS GSM
cell phones.

That means you will be notified through SMS every time there
is a new message in your original email account. This time, both
Satelindo and Telkomsel subscribers, either prepaid or to be
billed later, can take advantage of this free service. Sorry, I
did not have a chance to practice with Excelcomindo GSM cards.

There is no doubting the success of the market of SMS. In
Europe alone, the market has reached over three billion SMS per
month (source: www.gsmworld.com/gsmdata) despite little proactive
marketing by network operators and phone manufacturers.

Because SMS is proactively delivered to mobile phones that are
typically kept in the user's pocket and can be stored for later
reference, SMS is considered more convenient than e-mail or data
to distribute among mobile people.

The most common SMS is for notifying mobile phone users that
they have new voice or fax mail messages waiting. Therefore, this
is the starting point for most mobile network operators and the
first, but hopefully not the last, time that mobile phone users
use SMS.

Upon receiving a new e-mail in their mailbox, most Internet e-
mail users do not get notified of this fact. They have to dial in
speculatively and periodically to check their mailbox contents.
However, by linking your Internet e-mail with SMS, users can be
notified whenever a new e-mail is received. The Internet e-mail
alert is provided in the form of a SMS that typically details the
sender and subject field. Because of the high increasing usage of
Internet e-mail to communicate globally, and the benefit from
using SMS to notify mobile users about important new e-mail
messages, this is likely to be a fast growing and popular
application for SMS.

Quios

Internet and GSM are two magic words for our time, and also
two different worlds. The newly started company called Quios
(www.quios.com) now wants to link these two worlds through SMS.
Quios wants to create the largest mobile community in the world
by making SMS available to everyone at no extra charge by way of
its website. The mission of the company: to create the largest
mobile community in the world by means of wireless and Internet
technologies toward connecting people anytime and anywhere (hmm,
sounds like Coca-Cola).

What does Quios (pronounced Kee-os) actually stand for? The
name is derived from the American word "quiosque", a meeting
place for people who want to find or exchange information. In the
meantime, Quios provides its SMS services to over 150 carriers,
mostly GSM, in 75 countries, and thank God, Indonesia is
included.

The website offers various services. We can send free SMS and
compose a message in advance for an important birthday, setting
the appropriate day, including the hour and minute that it will
be sent to a specific GSM cell phone number. It is like an SMS-
alarm reminder! You do not need an expensive cell phone that has
the capability to record your appointment or important event.

When you first sign up with Quios, you create your own unique
ID (user name) and password, which you use to log onto the Quios
site. Record your information exactly as you entered it during
registration as it is case sensitive. On the sign-up page, select
your country: Indonesia +62 from the drop-down list.

Then select your appropriate mobile carrier (Satelindo or
Telkomsel), and enter your area code or prefix carrier (816 or
811, 812), followed by your cell phone number. Be careful not to
enter the phone number incorrectly.

After that, the security code is generated from the
information that you entered when you first signed up. It is sent
to your mobile phone display by way of SMS. You use this code to
enable your account with Quios. If for some reason you did not
receive a security code, you can have it resent to your mobile
phone again.

Email Alerts

OK folks, I do not want to discuss about the SMS-alarm
reminder that can be preset as you can try that yourselves. A
free QUIOS service called Quios Mobile E-mail (Q-Mail) is a real
surprise. Unbelievable! A person can find out when there is an
urgent or important e-mail in their original e-mail account right
on the cell phone display (sender name and the subject field). I
think businesspeople will find Q-Mail handy as it informs the
user of new e-mail messages.

Q-Mail is a service that allows you to receive an alert on
your mobile phone when an e-mail is sent to you. It accomplishes
this with the help of an email forwarding service on the
Quios.com website. When you register, you automatically receive
an e-mail forwarding account with your Quios ID. So for example,
if your Quios ID is John, your email forwarding address is
john@quios.com.

On the Quios website where you set up your alerts, there is a
section for Q-Mail. Enter your home or office e-mail account to
have e-mail forwarded from your Quios account. Do not forget to
click on the "on" position of the check box for Q-Mail
Notification. When someone sends an e-mail to your Quios account
(e.g., john@quios.com), an alert will be sent to your
mobile phone to let you know that an e-mail has arrived.

The alert only displays the sender and subject. If the subject
is too long for one SMS message, then you will receive more SMS.
The body of the text is too large to send to your mobile display.
However, you can read the full text by checking your home or
office e-mail since it was forwarded to the e-mail address you
specified during the Q-Mail set-up.

Within a few years, there will be a billion GSM users
worldwide. It is clear that Quios offers many services, which
normally would only be possible with WAP, but you can take
advantage of it without any cost.

There is one thing that you should know. Anybody can use the
service, so unfortunately when it goes into full swing (busy
traffic), only those with mobile phones will be granted the
service first. But it is worth trying. You are sure to enjoy it.

The writer's new email address is abbaml@rad.net.id.