Skip to main content

Google has escaped!

Amongst all the blogs that I follow is the official Google Blog. Well, not much more than a week ago they unveiled a new (free, of course) service, and I have been surprised to compare it's usefulness with the actual lack of word-of-mouth about it. So, though I usually don't take it upon myself to use this blog to merely pass along news, I feel that many of you will love me more for this. :)

Google SMS! Here's the wrap: Google has escaped the confines of a web browser and an internet connection. You now have the power of Google available from the keypad of your cellphone. What you do...

1. Send a text message to GOOGL (46645)
2. Put something in the message and send it, and you get useful information back:
Send: 47978Receive: Collegeville IN (city of any zip code you specify)
Send: 60611 pastaReceive: pasta restaurant listings in that zip code, with name, address, and phone #
Send: define existentialismReceive: need I elaborate...? :)
Send: 1280 seconds in minutesReceive: Calculator by Google: 1280 seconds = 21.3333333 minutes
Send: 26.2 miles in kilometersReceive: Calculator by Google: 26.2 miles = 42.1648128 kilometers
Send: g population muncieReceive: - the corresponding "snippet" that you see for each search result, usually includes useful information
Send: 7652841250Receive: Residential Whitepages: Peter J Walters 1904 Brentwood Ln Muncie, IN 47304 765-284-1250

Holy cow! You now have Google at your side wherever you are. It already came in handy for me last weekend in the middle of downtown Chicago looking for a restaurant with pasta for before our marathon...

Popular posts from this blog

You wouldn't happen to have a few dollars so I can pay my electric bill, would you?

Friday during the day I had very little planned for the evening. I expected to go to the Havard's to jog with Robert-Michael and make some final arrangements for dog-sitting for them. I also made some last-minute plans to briefly join a group of friend's celebrating Allison's birthday, who I've gotten to know recently through a Lenten faith-sharing group. They intended to continue the celebrations later into the evening watching basketball, but I had a number of missed calls from Charles, so I ducked out halfway through. I'm also not much of a March Madness fan, which I know is blasphemy. :) Charles is a neighbor of mine with no steady employment who bikes around the neighborhood and near Notre Dame asking people for money and collecting cans and any scrap items he can recycle or pawn. When I first met him, he readily accepted prayers from me and a few friends, and told us how important smiling is as we parted ways. I've never given him money in the num
Read more

Pouno mega dat - What a terrible thing

As I sat in the back of the scout truck, bumping along an especially pock-marked portion of the highway during our return to Banjul , one of my brothers who sat back there with me - Abdoulie - taught me a new phrase. After a particularly jarring pothole, it is appropriate to mutter " Pouno mega dat !". I gave him an "Oy vey!" in return. See me for the proper pronunciation. That's a completely arbitrary approximation, as there is no standard written form of Mandinka. My brain is exploding. I've been attending a Friday afternoon service at a Muslim Mosque downtown with my co-worker Mehdi for awhile now, I think I've been 4 times now. I'm looking at Hindu-Christian dialogue via a book recommendation I received a couple weeks ago about a Catholic Sanyasi , a seeming contradiction in terms. I've discovered that I can possibly embrace my Jewish heritage more fully by learning the ways of Messianic Judaism. I'm arriving very close to my rel
Read more

And we all float on..

Through the last couple of weeks, I've been taking one trip per weekday to my new studio apartment at 1824 N Lincoln Park W with a load of stuff to drop off. One of the benefits of trying to decrease my belongings over time instead of increasing them is that moving is a wee bit more bearable! (Another benefit is not really caring when your car's CD player is stolen... ;-) The last day on my lease is Tuesday, so I've got till then, not including going back to Indiana this weekend to help Don move and maybe see some of the fam in Angola. I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! - Revelation 3:14-16 Every day around 6:15pm I get a small scripture verse delivered to my phone. This one came in Monday, and spoke to me. Weekends, and work. Weekends, and work. It's a sign of stagnation when you feel that you are living for the weekend, and that the cycle of a week is just an endless cycle, beginning anew each wee
Read more