37. Send an SMS Message  BEFORE YOU BEGIN 34 Compose an Email Message
 SEE ALSO 36 Send a PIN Message
SMS , which stands for Short Message Service, is a text-messaging protocol that is extremely popular in Europe and Asia and is rapidly gaining in popularity in the United States. SMS is extremely user -friendly because you send text messages to someone by simply specifying the phone number of his handheld device. In this way, it's apparent that SMS grew out of a need to allow text messaging on mobile phones. What makes it useful for BlackBerry devices is that it provides a way to communicate with people who use traditional mobile phones that don't have full-blown email access. Although SMS is somewhat new to American mobile phone users, its widespread success in other parts of the world gives it a stable and interesting base of applications that are available to all SMS users. 37. Send an SMS Message 
SMS is a standardized messaging protocol used all around the world. The protocol that allows business people to share ideas and make important business decisions is the same protocol kids use to pass notes between each other. The success of SMS has spawned some really neat applications and services that you might not have realized exist. For example, one of my favorite SMS applications is Google SMS, which allows you to carry out a Google search purely through SMS messages. This is a simple and elegant application of SMS and a great example of how to make a popular service available to mobile devices.  TIP Google SMS is a useful service that allows you to quickly perform Google searches using SMS messages. To initiate a Google SMS search, send an SMS message with the form g search terms to the Google SMS address, 46645 (GOOGL). For example, if you want to search for Florida swamp land, send a message containing g florida swamp land to the SMS address 46645 . Google SMS returns the search results to you as SMS messages. You can perform a few special searches using Google SMS: Send an area code as the search term to find the area it covers; send a phone number to get a phone book listing; and send a business type and ZIP Code to get a listing of businesses in that area. For more information, visit the Google SMS website at http://www.google.com/sms/.
SMS messages are somewhat similar to PIN messages in that they are sent directly to another device using a unique ID that is specific to that device. Whereas a PIN uniquely identifies a device for a PIN message, your mobile phone number serves as your unique ID for SMS messaging. If a mobile phone or handheld is capable of SMS messaging, you can send the owner a message by simply addressing the message to his mobile phone number. | 1. | Open the Messages Screen
Scroll to the Messages icon on the Home screen and click the trackwheel. The Messages screen appears, displaying a list of messages that have been sent and received on your device.
| | 2. | Start Composing a New Message Click the trackwheel to open the Messages menu and scroll to select Compose SMS . Click the trackwheel to select the menu item and begin composing a new SMS message. The Select Address screen appears. TIP An even quicker way to begin composing a new SMS message is to simply press the L key while viewing the Messages screen. Just be sure you then select SMS Recipient Name from the menu that appears. | | 3. | Specify the Message Recipient(s) The Select Address screen is where you enter the SMS address of the message recipient(s). By default, the first entry in your Address Book is selected. Scroll with the trackwheel to select the message recipient ( SMS Recipient Name ), or select [Use Once] to enter an SMS address directly. The idea behind the [Use Once] designation is that the address you want to use for this text message is an SMS address you don't want to add to your Address Book as a new contact. To use an SMS address once, scroll with the trackwheel to select [Use Once] and click. Click again to accept SMS on the menu that appears, and then enter the SMS address. When you're finished entering the SMS address, click the trackwheel, select Continue from the menu that appears, and click again. Or just press the Enter key to accept the SMS address as the message recipient. NOTES You must have an SMS address associated with a contact for the contact to be used as an SMS message recipient. With a few exceptions, such as SMS services that use short codes, SMS addresses are typically just mobile phone numbers . A short code is a special SMS address that is typically a four-, five-, or six-digit number. Short codes are usually assigned to special wireless services such as Google SMS. They are also sometimes used for special promotions. For example, the television show American Idol has used a short code to allow viewers to vote on show participants using SMS. You can add only a single message recipient on the Select Address screen when you first begin composing a new message. In fact, SMS messages allow only a single recipient. | | 4. | Complete and Send the Message After specifying the message's recipient, enter the message body, which is the actual message text. Unlike email and PIN messages, SMS messages don't have a message subject. You can enter any text you want as the body of the message. Just keep in mind that SMS messages are composed as raw text messages with no special formatting. TIP You can use several typing shortcuts while entering text on your BlackBerry device. For example, to make the most of the SureType feature, enter an entire word letter by letter before attempting to select from the list of corrections. If you must make a correction using the SureType pop-up window, press the Next key ( * ) or scroll the trackwheel to highlight the correction and then click. To capitalize a letter, hold the letter key until the capitalized letter appears. To scroll through all the available characters on a given key, hold the key and scroll the trackwheel. To insert a period at the end of a sentence , press the Space key twice. To turn on NUM LOCK, hold down the Shift key ( # ) and press the Alt key; to turn off NUM LOCK, press the Alt key by itself. And finally, to switch between SureType and traditional multitap modes, hold down the Next key ( * ). If you don't have time to finish entering the message body or otherwise want to finish it later, you can save the message instead of sending it. To save the message for later without sending it, click the trackwheel, select Save Draft from the menu that appears, and then click. The message will then appear in the message list with a special icon (a small yellow piece of paper) next to it to indicate that it is a draft message that has yet to be sent. When you're ready to send a message, open the draft message, click the trackwheel, and then select Send from the menu that appears. Click the trackwheel to flag the message for sending. I say that the message is flagged instead of being sent because the actual sending of the message depends on your device having access to the wireless network. If you have the radio turned off on your device or are out of the wireless coverage area, the message isn't sent immediately. When you turn the radio back on or regain wireless coverage, the message is automatically sent. |  |
