A common problem for many Blackberry and other mobile phone users have as well is what to do with all of those "omg these could be important" SMS messages. What to delete, what not to delete?

That's no longer the question in Dexrex's mind.

Dexrex has put out an SMS archiving software and service for Blackberry people like yourself.

Once you get an SMS message it immediately gets archived by Dexrex for later checking out, re-reading, pining over, crying about, and forwarding to your buddy whilst drinking at the bar online (by just you hopefully). Dangerous stuff indeed.

We're calling this one Gmail for SMS.

The obvious issue here is privacy, as it is with all web services. SMS messages can be uber private, for example:

"d00d, thiz girl eez hawt". Do you want everyone in the world to see that? We don't. Dexrex has to prove themselves trustworthy.

Having said that, if you get a lot of SMS', give it a shot, tell us if its helpful, and share your experiences.

There is a bit of a missing link between having someone's phone number and having their URLs. Not everyone has an iPhone, so it's not always easy to send a hyperlink that won't have to be retyped into a browser later. RmbrMe is a clever concept, but it makes us wish for something even easier. Instead of going to a browser and typing in a five-digit code to get to a profile that aggregates all of your other profiles, it would be nice to see a service that generated friend requests straight from the text message.

For now, rmbrMe is a fairly elegant solution to the problem of helping people, well, remember you. The catch, and the reason we probably won't become frequent users of the service, is that it charges 49 cents a message, on top of whatever your carrier charges. Asking for an e-mail address might be a little bit dorkier, but it's also cheaper.

VoIP company Jaxtr has added a new module that lets uses send free text messages to any cellphone from their Jaxtr homepage. There's no fee for sending the message, but if the recipient has to pay per message, you might want to think twice before sending dozens of messages a day. Unless you hate the person you're texting, of course.

We first covered Jaxtr way back in 2006 when the company released a tool for blogger and web publishers to embed a widget on their web sites that let visitors place calls to the web site author. You can also add a Jaxtr widget to social networking pages like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Orkut.

Honestly, we don't know too many people who want to take phone calls all day from visitors to their web sites or social networking profiles. But now that we've discovered the free SMS service, we can actually see ourselves using Jaxtr on a regular basis.

[via Digital Inspiration]

If you shed a tear every time you have to delete a text message at the bottom of your inbox, or if you can't bring yourself to part with the latest ROTFLOL SMS sent by your best friend, then TreasureMyText is for you.

TreasureMyText is an online service that will store all of your text messages online: the good, the bad, the mundane, the unintelligible. Simply create an account and forward any text message to their standard rate numbers (available worldwide), and your message is forever immortalized.

True to web 2.0 standards, TreasureMyText also has a sharing feature called TextStream (which definitely reminds us of Twitter). You can choose to share your text messages with absolutely everyone (and you wonder why the internet is sagging under the weight of needless information?), or you can pick and choose friends and other members to share your messages with.

TreasureMyText also offers simple folders for organization, and an easy-to-use contacts list.

If you're wondering where the iPhone fits into all of this (since you can't forward text messages with the iPhone), the programmers at TreasureMyText have created a mobile client for your jailbroken iPhone that will allow you to archive your SMS over EDGE and WiFi. They have also stated their intention to create a more robust iPhone application with the release of the official iPhone SDK.

[via Technobuzz]

While the ability to send SMS is built directly into Microsoft Office 2007, users are always on the lookout for an affordable way to use the service.

SMSOfficer is one of the SMS services that has answered the call. SMSOfficer allows you to easily send SMS to any mobile phone using Microsoft Outlook 2007. No installation is required, which is an instant plus in these dark times of worm-infested installers.

First, you need to register for your free SMSOfficer account. They'll send you a text message (natch) with a password, and a link to introduce the service to Microsoft Outlook. That's all for the setup.

Sending messages is a no-brainer. In Outlook, go to File-New-Text Message, type in your contact, type in your message, and hit send. Easy like Sunday morning.

10 free messages are yours when you sign up. After that, you have to pay to play. And while we like the service, we don't necessarily like the cost (if you've been reading Download Squad for a while, you'll know that we like free best of all).

So we'll ask you, constant reader: are there any similar services that offer this type of Outlook integration that are less expensive, or free?

[via Digital Inspiration]

If you've ever been caught in a speed trap and thought, "I wish someone had warned me!" then we have just the service for you. Trapster lets users report speed traps as they find them, using their mobile devices. There's even support for Jott, a voice-to-text service, so that you can make a report and still keep your hands on the wheel. The coolest part, though, is that Trapster will warn you through your mobile phone if you're approaching any of the speed traps it knows about.

The front page of the site features an informative Google Map, visualizing Trapster's whole database. This is cool, but it doesn't do a whole lot of good while you're actually on the road. That's why there's a Trapster app for Nokia Smartphones, BlackBerries, and phones with Windows Mobile 5 or 6. If you don't want to keep Trapster running all the time, you can just turn on SMS alerts to be informed when a new trap is reported in your area.

The Trapster team has taken into account that people might feel uncomfortable attaching a name to the info they send in, so anonymous reporting via email is also an option. Don't be too worried about Trapster getting shut down by the cops anyway. What's the harm in encouraging people to slow down?

Microsoft officially announced the availability of Windows Mobile 6.1 today. We've been hearing rumors about new features for a few months now, but it's nice to hear it straight from the source. Plus we can stop guessing about availability. Microsoft also announced the mobile carriers and hardware makers who will be offering upgrades.

So what's new in Windows Mobile 6.1? First up, you get a new home screen with some scrolling action that allows you to access more information on a single page. Second, the smartphone versions of Windows Mobile 6.1 included threaded SMS capabilities. And finally, the mobile version of Internet Explorer has been updated to allow desktop-style views of web pages. In other words, you can see a full web page with tiny text and tiny images, and then zoom in to the portion of the web page you want to read, much as you can do with Opera Mini or the iPhone's Safari browser.

Windows Mobile 6.1 packs a few other tweaks such as an easier setup process and security enhancements. But this is a point release, not a whole new version of Windows Mobile. So if you were hoping for something a bit more dramatic, you might have to wait a little longer.

The free service is set to launch today, January 3. Jump in by sending a text to "242242" which cleverly spells out ChaCha on your numeric keypad. To test it out, we tried to find the phone number to a great beer pub in Portland Oregon. The response was quick informative, as you can see above.

Additionally, we tried a few other tests asking for directions and local weather conditions. Again ChaCha nailed it every time.

We're excited to see such an informative service hit SMS. We're not sure how they'll monetize this service (probably with subscription fees), but so far it is very useful.

RSS is a fantastic technology, but what about 'on-the-go'? Sure, you could use Google Reader, or Newsgator Mobile, but what if you wanted to be SMS-messaged when a new post appears on a particular feed? That's where Pingie comes in.

By now, you're probably wondering what on earth the service could be used for. Let's share with you a few examples. Perhaps you're wanting to follow Download Squad's coverage of a particular operating system, category of software, or even a particular author's posts (all of which have feeds found by adding /rss.xml to the page's URL), you simply enter the Feed URL, your email address and your mobile phone number and Pingie does the rest. Easy!

Of course, when you're wanting up-to-the-minute event coverage say from sister sites' Engadget (at the Consumer Electronics Show) or TUAW (at Macworld Conference and Expo) this might just allow you to keep your finger on the pulse, no matter where you are.

[Via UNEASYsilence]

At first, it sounds like a texting nightmare from hell, but RSS via SMS has a place in our world through Web-Alerts, a small web experiment that may get lost in the vast internet desert that is web 2.0 failures. The service sends you a text message for every update to a chosen site's RSS feed.

The service is simple and easy to use. When you first visit the site, it'll ask your to enter a web address. If it finds an RSS feed for your chosen site, it'll ask you to enter your cell phone number. Should any updates happen to your chosen feed, a preview of the update will be forwarded to your phone. Removing a subscription is easy enough. "Just open the link in your text message and choose 'My Alerts' to remove any alert you are subscribed to." Furthermore, you can enter a keyword with your phone number so that you'll only be forwarded updates via SMS when they contain the keyword.

This could be extremely useful for someone closely watching a specific topic such as a stock broker. It could also become extremely annoying if you find yourself answering your phone every ten minutes to stop the latest SMS from incessantly vibrating in your pocket. Our advice: use wisely.

[via The Boy Genius]

It looks like Microsoft and cellphone makers are getting ready to ship an incremental upgrade to Windows Mobile 6. How do we know? Because the Boy Genius managed to get their hands on a Motorola Q9 that already has Windows Mobile 6.1 pre-loaded.

Of course, the first thing he did was grab a few dozen screenshots (87 to be exact), and post them in a gallery.

So what's new? Copy and paste support in the standard (non-touchscreen) version, threaded text messaging, added text input settings, and a redesigned home screen. There are also some much-needed Pocket Internet Explorer tweaks like the ability to set a homepage and zoom in and out of web pages.

It's not clear if and when you'll be able to get your hands on a Windows Mobile 6.1 device. And of course, if you have an existing Windows Mobile 6 device, it's completely up to your manufacturer/wireless carrier to decide whether to offer an upgrade option. So you'd better get your petition-writing pens ready now.

Text messages are normally easy to send, but what about when you're driving or occupied and want to get something complex across? Pinger is a service that lets users call into a service and leave a voicemail to a contact, that will in turn send a text message instead of a ring. Recipients then press a button and listen to your voice message and can reply or forward the message. It's a quick alternative service that makes voice messages easy without actually ringing up and interrupting a person. Recipients are presented with a message that shows who the message is from, how long it is, and when it was sent before they listen.

The Pinger service is free to use, but is only currently open to US residents. Instead of calling a number, Pinger has a special application for Blackberry and Treo that speeds up the process and allows for a visual preview of messages, list of last 10 Pinger messages and sharing between other Blackberry or Treo users.

Text messages are all well and good, but the kids these days, they like graphics. So when Zlango launched a service to offer enhanced emoticons and icons for mobile phone and web use, we were suitably impressed. The company came up with a hieroglyphic-like "language," complete with 200 different icons, some of which hold multiple meanings.

While it's not a complete language, you can convey a lot of meaning with those 200 icons. But that's a lot of images to remember. Fortunately, Zlango has gone and offered a couple of new services, including Zlango Composer, an English to Zlango translator. Because you know, there's a wide demand for that kind of thing.

The application is Flash-based, and translates text into images as you type. You can then send messages to your friends, who will likely have a pretty tough time reading them if you turn the captions off. We can't say Zlango Composer is particularly useful, unless say, you're a company focused on icons and you're trying to attract users to your service. But it's certainly fun to play with for a few minutes.

[via TechCrunch]

The time has come when traveling with a wallet is not a necessity, and the only item you need on your person is a simple mobile device. Well, almost.

Mobibucks has created a free and secure payment solution that lets users pay using a cell phone and a 4 digit PIN code. How does it work?

• Register online using your cell phone number
• Add money to your account and manage all account information online.
• Make your purchase at a participating Mobibucks store using your 4 digit PIN and get confirmation through an SMS message.

Sounds like a nice and secure solution for always having money on your person and without having to carry all that change around, but how many stores are participating in Mobibucks? There are currently 23 stores around the U.S. offering this unique payment system, ranging from cafes, restaurants and video rental stores. If this Mountain View California based service catches on and is offered in a lot more locations over the next little while, it's going to be huge.

[via ehub]