SMS on the PC

I find myself getting more and more jobs where the only contact I get is a cell phone number, and while I will call the number if necessary, a 10 second call to tell someone their PC is ready costs at least a minute’s worth of call time, and usually extends to a few minutes when customers like to chat. So I use TXT messages quite a lot. Trouble is I find TXTing a bit of a nuisance.

Yesterday I spent some time looking for a way of sending TXTs from the PC. First of all Spark, my telecom provider provides a service, with a 3 figure set up cost, a monthly charge and a per txt charge. There are local providers who provide a similar service for $5 per month plus a per txt charge.

Then I came across the phone apps that allow you to use your phone’s SMS capability from you PC. An app is loaded onto the phone, and set up to login to the app’s background system, using a google sign in. Then you log onto a web site on your PC with the same google sign in, and lo and behold, SMS on your PC, using the internet to access the SMS capability of your phone. As I have data permanently turned off on my phone, it only works when my phone is within one of my two wireless zones (home and work). Great if I leave my phone at home – I can still txt from the shop, and receive txt messages. I can also check for missed calls if I want to.

The one I finally chose to use is MySMS which you can download from the Google App store on your android device. It’s free for everything I need, but there is a premium version available with some super-duper extra goodies if you want them. I have only bee using it a day and it is saving me so much time.