Sending mail from a cell phone

I think the interface that Qualcomm/Airtouch has created is something that could have come from The Spanish Inquisition. You use the dialpad's alphanumeric selectors to go through and write your to and such. What's even more irritating is that to do things like "@" and "." are not by default in the first symbol menu you come to, necessitating additional click-thrus. You, of course, are paying by the minute. Now, granted, they have created a My Airtouch where you can create address books and such, but still, the system is terrible.

Thus it took me six minutes to write:
To:thefez@slashdot.org
subject:CometoButchs
Body:Iamwritingfrommycelphone

Yes, ladies and gentlemen - technology!

Compose an SMS message offline, ensuring that the first word is the address of the person I want to mail. Once finished I simply fire off the SMS to phone number 212 and within seconds the recipient is opening mail from {my mobile phone number}@sms.genie.co.uk. No fuss, no bother, it just costs me the price of a standard SMS -- about 10 pence. The recipient can reply to that email address and it will be sent to my phone as an SMS.

OK, so I'm limited to 160 characters, less the length of the email address, but being able to send email from a mobile phone is an extravagance not a necessity so I'll put up with that.

Ensure the first word of the message is the email address. Then leave a space, and the rest of the message. And send it to +447973577510.

If your phone doesn't have the @ sign (or you can't find it), replace it with a #.

You can also use a fax number, in international format, and the message will be forwarded via the tpc.int email to fax gateway.

This free service is provided by Andrews and Arnold, more info at http://aa.nu/faxtext/