NotePage SMS, Paging and Messaging Blogs

Cellular phones and other mobile devices often contain toxic materials that can pollute the environment. The chemicals contained in the cell phones and electronics are harmful to the health of both humans and animals. Cell phones and their accessories contain a large number of hazardous substances known as Persistent, Bioaccumulative, and Toxic Chemicals (PBTs). Some of the chemicals contained in the PBTs have been known to cause damage to nervous systems, reproductive systems, and developmental systems, as well as causing cancer.

Why Recycle Cell Phones?

Ever make a personal call on your company cell phone? Did you record the value of that call as taxable income, as required by law?

Join the club, but do not worry. President Barack Obama will propose repealing the widely ignored requirement as part of his 2011 budget plan, a Treasury Department official said Saturday.

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NotePage Newsletter has been posted. Read the latest SMS and Text Messaging News.

A bill that would impose a fine on motorists in Pennsylvania who use a cell phone without a hands-free device easily cleared a hurdle Monday in the state House of Representatives.

The House gave preliminary approval to the bill, 156-40. A final vote on the bill could happen as early as Tuesday.

Under the bill, a $50 fine would be imposed on anyone talking or sending text messages on a cell phone, or otherwise using an electronic device for most other purposes. Using an electronic navigation system would remain legal, as would calling 911 while driving.

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NotePage has recently introduced an SMS learning center to assist customers in sending text messages to mobile phones and wireless devices. The SMS and text messaging center includes interactive video tutorials, educational articles and support resources all pertinent to the sending of text and SMS messages. NotePage, Inc. has long been a leader in wireless communication and the SMS learning center expands on their commitment to educate users about messaging technologies, procedures and protocols.

The SMS learning center and videos are freely available, and no login is required. Additional details can be found at: http://www.notepage.net/learning-center/notepage-learning-center.htm

China has restored mobile text message services in a Western province where they were suspended for months following unrest. Limited Internet access is also returning to the region.

Residents in the Xinjiang region, which is home to Chinas Uighur ethnic minority, can now send up to 20 text messages a day but are still barred from making international phone calls unless they register with authorities, the official China Daily newspaper said Monday. China cut off virtually all Internet, text message and international call services in the region after deadly ethnic riots there claimed nearly 200 lives last July.

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The two largest U.S. wireless carriers, Verizon and AT&T, cut their rates on Friday, escalating a price war that began with smaller carriers.

Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. mobile service, said it would cut prices 30 percent for voice customers. It was followed by similar price cuts from its main rival, AT&T Inc.

Mobile Price Wars

Cellphone users in the United States have contributed more than $11 million to Haitian earthquake relief through text messages in what is being hailed as an unprecedented mobile response to a natural disaster.

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Online maps, mobile phone donations, wikis and a slew of websites are being deployed as telecoms firms, technology giants and startups set aside their rivalries and put the latest tools to work to help earthquake-ravaged Haiti.

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Text messaging services restarted with some restrictions Sunday for cell phone users in far western China, more than six months after deadly ethnic rioting prompted the government to shut them down.

Users are once again able to send text messages throughout China, but sending texts to overseas numbers remains prohibited, a staffer with the information office of the Xinjiang provincial government said. She declined to give her name as is customary.

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Long suspected of causing brain tumors, mobile phones are now being eyed as key allies in the fight against Alzheimers disease, US researchers said in a study.

Researchers at the University of South Florida found, to their surprise, that 96 mice they zapped twice daily for an hour each time with electromagnetic waves similar to those generated by US mobile phones benefited from the exposure.

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Apple has acquired Quattro Wireless, according to an item posted Tuesday on the mobile advertising companys blog.

Quattro has an ad serving, tracking and analytics platform to help advertisers engage with mobile consumers. Its Q Elevation platform can be used to target ad campaigns based on consumer demographics, location, time of day and other factors.

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Stun gun maker Taser wants to help parents, not with jolts of electricity but with a tool which allows parents to effectively take over a childs mobile phone and manage its use.

Taser Goes Mobile

Nokia chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo praised the mobile phone on Friday as a history-changing tool and challenged developers to create programs for poor countries.

These little devices have done more to improve peoples lives than perhaps any technology in history, the head of the Finnish mobile phone giant said in a keynote address at the Consumer Electronics Show.

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Text messaging has been blamed for all sorts of woes in recent years, from distracting drivers and walkers to causing chronic pain and promoting less personal communication. But a pediatrician now suggests that these quick messages have a bright side: They can remind us to take our medication.

Research has shown that up to half of patients may fail to take their daily medication properly, with forgetfulness being a top reason for non-adherence. So at least in some cases, sending a text message reminder may be all that a patient needs, said Robotham, who has encouraged the use of appropriate texting among doctors at her hospital.

Texting to Remind You to Take Your Medication

Another year has rolled by marked by miracles, political milestones and tragedies alike. 2009 was the year of financial uproar with bailouts and ponzi schemes dominating the news on a regular basis. Chrysler and GM stalwart car giants struggled to survive. Bernie Madoffs financial pyramid came tumbling down, taking average citizen's retirement plans with it, emptying the coffers of trusting non-profits and celebrities alike.

The United States democratically dominated political landscape juggled health care reform, accusations of death boards, raucous town hall meetings and tea parties from coast to coast. The Swine Flu was quickly renamed H1N1 so that the pork industry would not suffer, and the politicized name change did little to calm pandemic worries.

2009 was also marred by a number of notable deaths. Farrah Fawcett, the charming Charlies Angel, battle with cancer came to an end. The controversial but talented Michael Jackson succumbed to what appeared to be a fatal drug cocktail. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, known for the creation of the Special Olympics, passed on. Ted Kennedy, the patriarch of the Kennedy clan, and another controversial and historic figure, succumbed in his battle against a brain tumor. Walter Cronkite, the most trusted voice in America, died, bringing about the end of an era in journalism. Patrick Swayze who danced his way into our hearts, left us with nothing but sadness over his untimely death.

Some may see, the most noticeable death, as the death of capitalism. The bailouts, the governments role in the car companies, big government and what some seem to feel are steps toward socialism, have caused an unprecedented divide in the US.

2009 Reflections, 2010 Predictions

Mobile phones smuggled into British prisons could be used by Islamist militants to spread their extremist ideology and threaten national security, Conservatives claimed today.

Tory security spokeswoman Baroness Neville-Jones quoted official Justice Ministry figures which show that more mobile phones and SIM cards than ever are being secretly brought into jails, despite a ban on their use.

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Projects that NotePage has launched in 2009

January
Follow NotePage on Twitter @notepage

May
NotePager Pro Tutorials

June
Green Tips  

July
Green Policy  

September
New Integration partner Simple Server Monitor

October
Green Efforts and Policies -

November
Launched Text Messaging Learning Center

December
Launched Video Tutorials

People who send text messages while driving are six times more likely to crash, a new study finds.

The research adds to a mountain of evidence showing that texting or talking on mobile phones while driving is dangerous. Texting seems to be the worst.

The new study was done in a driving simulator, however, so it's not known exactly how the results would translate to the road. Still, the results were stark.

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Americans punched out more than 110 billion text messages in December 2008, double the number in the last month of 2007, as the shorthand communication becomes a popular alternative to cell phone calls.

The nations 270 million cell phone subscribers each sent out an average of 407 text messages in December 2008, according to government statistics released Tuesday by the Census Bureau. That is more than double the 188 messages sent by the average cell subscriber during the same period in 2007. The figures did not break down the texting by age, but the overall numbers understate the thousands of texts sent each month by many teens — balanced out by older folks who don't text as much.

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A wireless company that will serve more than 800,000 former Alltel Corp. subscribers announced Tuesday it will locate its corporate headquarters in Little Rock and hire more than 200 workers.

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For the second time in a week, BlackBerry users found themselves without e-mail and Internet service, refreshing their screens in futility on Tuesday night as they languished in an agonizing information vacuum.

Some BlackBerry users continued to experience intermittent service disruptions on Wednesday after a major failure shut down the popular wireless e-mail service throughout North and South America.

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Maine legislator wants to make the state the first to require cell phones to carry warnings that they can cause brain cancer, although there is no consensus among scientists that they do and industry leaders dispute the claim.

The now-ubiquitous devices carry such warnings in some countries, though no U.S. states require them, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. A similar effort is afoot in San Francisco, where Mayor Gavin Newsom wants his city to be the nations first to require the warnings.

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Police officers must obtain a search warrant before scouring the contents of a suspects cell phone unless their safety is in danger, a divided Ohio Supreme Court ruled Tuesday on an issue that appears never to have reached another state high court or the U.S. Supreme Court.

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A small fraction of teens have engaged in sexting, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, which spoke to 800 teens around the country. The nonprofit research group found that 15 percent of teens who own cell phones have received these messages, and four percent have actually sent them. Sexting is jargon for the practice of sending nude or sexually suggestive text messages.

The results skew slightly lower than past studies from other groups, but those studies also included e-mail or other means of communication. I will not get into all the previous numbers -- you can read Pews full summary online - but the only group that found significantly higher sexting incidents was the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, whose study said 19 percent of teens used technology to send sexually suggestive photos or videos, and 31 percent had received such materials.

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Terminology and definitions of words related to wireless messaging - wireless messaging glossary.

Google employees are testing a new mobile device that runs on the companys Android operating system, as the search giant continues its push into the wireless market and toward more direct competition with Apple Inc. iPhone.

In a blog post Saturday, Google said the new device combines hardware built by an unnamed partner with its Android software. The free software is crucial in Googles efforts to make its search engine and other services as accessible on cell phones as they already are on personal computers.

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I thought I would share this forum post:

Using Solar Winds Orion with PageGate

1) Install PageGate application on your Orion Server.
2) From the PG Admin screen, Go to the Registration page and enter your Registration Key. Also check the GetAscii check-box on the Registration Page.
3) Open the Program/Settings page and check the GetAscii check-box under run on this server:.
4) Open the Interfaces/GetAscii/Settings page and check the Enabled check-box. Select a path for the Polling Directory. Apply the settings.
5) Right-click on the Interfaces/GetAscii object and select "Start".
6) Open the Interfaces/GetAscii/Status page to verify that the status is running. Click refresh several times until you see it running.
7) Right click the Carriers object and select Add. Create a profile for your paging service using the appropriate protocol, i.e. TAP, SNPP, SMTP etc.
8) Right click the Recipients object and select Add. Create a profile for a paging recipient. Check the GetAscii check-box. Select the Carrier profile created in step 7. Enter the paging device phone number in the ID/PIN field. change the Max Chars to the appropriate number, i.e 160 chars. Repeat as necessary to create multiple paging recipients.
9) optional Right click the Groups object and select Add. Fill out the Description and Group name fields. Check the GetAscii checkbox under Enabled Services. Click on Apply. Select the Groups//Email page and create a Mailbox Name. Select the Groups//Members page and add recipients to the Members box and click Apply.
10) Right-click a recipient or group object and select Send Message". Fill out the message form and click Send to test your configuration. If your texts make it to your phone, you should be able to create Orion alerts at this point.
11) Open Orion System Manager and create an Alert. Under the Trigger Actions page, Add an Action and select Dial Paging or SMS Service. Click the ellipsis button next to the Page Recipient and you should be able to select from the list of Recipients and or Groups you created in PageGate. Type the SMS message to be delivered in the Message to Send box, using the Insert Variable button to add the Orion Macros to customize the message.

A Boston city councilor is hoping his proposal to ban drivers from sending text messages will spur a statewide ban on a practice most consider dangerous.

John Tobin says he expects his fellow councilors to sign off on the proposal and send it to the mayor by Dec. 16. Mayor Tom Menino, who has already barred city workers from texting while driving, supports the measure.

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First Missouris youngest drivers were told to quit sending cell phone text messages, and now lawmakers are going after everybody else.

Lawmakers have filed several bills for the 2010 session that would extend a ban on texting while driving to all motorists. Last year, the Legislature barred just those 21 years old and younger from sending electronic messages.

The Federal Communications Commission on Friday asked Verizon Wireless why it recently doubled the fees it charges customers when they break their contracts on smart phones.

In November, the carrier hiked the maximum early contract termination fee for smart phones to $350 from $175. Like other carriers, Verizon subsidizes the cost of the devices for contract-signing customers, then expects to make that money back in service fees over the term of the contract.

Todays society is all about being connected 24-7. Cell phones now provide instant access to anyone and everyone, from corporate executives to housewives and children alike. While cellular connectivity is a comfort to some, it can be rude and disruptive to others. You may wish to be available at all times, but there are some times when it is simply not appropriate to use your cell phone.

Also, cell phones should not be treated as status symbols, and should not be paraded out simply to impress others. Regardless of how new and impressive your cell phone may be, dragging it out in a public setting is seldom going to win you any fans.

Follow these simple cell phone guidelines to strike a balance between accessibility and consideration for others...

Cell Phone Etiquette

The growth of cell phones with global-positioning technology is making life uncertain for the makers of personal navigational devices that help drivers figure out where they are and where to go.

Manufacturers of standalone GPS products will have to move quickly and smartly to transform their dumb map readers into intelligent devices that can provide a host of services such as traffic avoidance.

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In order to assist customers and prospective customers we have created a series of Text Messaging Video Tutorials. The video tutorials walk users through a series of setup scenarios in NotePager Pro and PageGate.

Online auction giant eBay announced it had completed its sale of Skype to an investment group that includes the two founders of the Web communications company.

One-fourth of US teenagers aged 16 and 17 have sent text messages while driving and over 40 percent have had a cellphone conversation while behind the wheel, according to a study published on Monday.

Twenty-six percent of teenagers aged 16 and 17 have texted while driving, according to the survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project -- about the same rate as found in separate studies conducted among adults.

The survey found boys and girls were equally likely to text while driving.

Shares of Sprint Nextel Corp. slipped Wednesday as Standard & Poors warned it may cut the wireless providers credit rating based on the its weak performance this year.

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Google is giving the gift of free wireless Internet to travelers at a host of US airports this holiday season.

The California-based Internet powerhouse said Tuesday that it is working with Boingo Wireless, Advanced Wireless Group, and Airport Marketing Income to turn airports into free Internet hot spots through January 15 of next year.

With my luck I would lose half!

Fujitsu is breaking new ground in the cell phone market with the imminent introduction of a cell phone that splits into two parts.

The F-04B was announced this week as part of NTT DoCoMos new line-up and is scheduled to hit Japanese shelves in March or April next year. At first glance it looks like a conventional slider cell phone: grab onto the bottom of the phone and a numeric keypad slides out. But decouple a catch and the entire back half of the phone can be pulled off.

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Google Inc said on Monday that it was acquiring of AdMob, one of the largest mobile advertising networks, for $750 million, widening its bet that cell phone advertising could become the Internet's next-big money maker.

High prices they pay to wireless service providers, as well as the treatment they get from providers once they are locked into a two-year service contract. Americans have limited choices in mobile broadband devices and services, and mobile operators in the United States currently enjoy relative freedom from regulation.

Because of those two conditions and in light of the billions of dollars that U.S. consumers spend on wireless devices and services, a bill of rights is necessary to protect consumers against mistreatment by service providers. Following are the standards, safeguards and solutions that we'd like to see.

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If you are worried that your employees or children are disengaging from the world by using the Internet and cell phones, relax. A new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that these technologies have not increased social isolation in the U.S.

The Personal Networks and Community Survey is the first to examine this issue. It found that the amount of severe isolation has hardly changed since a previous study, which was conducted in 1985 before these technologies emerged. About six percent of adults, roughly the same as in 1985, report they have no one in their life that they consider especially significant and with whom they can discuss important issues in their lives.

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Teenagers may think it is harmless, but sending sexually explicit pictures and messages over cell phones can lead to emotional problems and criminal charges that will affect them for the rest of their lives, criminal justice officials said.

Investigators and prosecutors on Thursday warned of the dangers of electronically transmitting racy images and words at a hearing organized by Rep. Anastasia Pittman, D-Oklahoma City, into the practice of sexting, distributing nude or seminude self-portraits over cell phones.

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The Republican leadership in the US House of Representatives unveiled a free application for the Blackberry on Thursday to keep users up to date on the latest in Congress through their cellphones.

The Blackberry application called WhipCast comes slightly more than two weeks after the Republican Party rolled out a new website that embraces the social media tools used by Democrat Barack Obama to win the presidency.

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Wireless provider T-Mobile USA Inc. says it has cleared up service problems that were interfering with calls and text messaging for about 5 percent of its customers.

The company posted a message in its online customer forum saying service was restored by late Tuesday after problems had popped up around 5:30 p.m. EST.

T-Mobile says the outages appeared in several regions. Subscribers from Atlanta to Los Angeles complained on Internet message boards.

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