Phone Amego User's Guide

SMS Text Messaging

        Introduction Description Configuration Bluetooth Google Voice SMS Text Messaging Troubleshooting Landline VoIP Placing a Call Caller ID Lookup Call Records Daylite Integration Helpful Hints Spotlight on Innovation Phone Amego Application Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Thank You! Reviews & Comments About Us

Send an SMS using Google Voice

Phone Amego can send SMS (Short Message Service) messages of up to 160 characters using

Google Voice. Sending is free, but the recipient may be charged for the message depending on

their cell phone plan. Google Voice supports limited International SMS at this time. Pressing SMS

from the Call window or SMS with Phone Amego from your Address Book will bring up the Send

SMS window.

Once the window appears, you can specify additional recipients by selecting different numbers

from your Address Book or pressing + to create and edit a new entry. To select a number from

your Address Book, click and hold the mouse over the label next to the number you want to add.

When the contextual menu appears, select SMS with Phone Amego. The Address Book Plug-in

must be enabled for this item to appear.

Since Google Voice does not support "bulk messaging" at this time, Phone Amego will send the

message to one recipient after another every few seconds. Sending messages to a group of

contacts is especially convenient when your plans change at the last minute since people who

might not have a chance to check their Email will still have their cell phones with them.

I understand Google chose not to support bulk messaging initially because free messaging might

attract abuse. Phone Amego tries to respect that choice by asking you to select each recipient

individually and sending only one message every few seconds.

Notice that if you use Google Voice (GV) to send or receive SMS messages, Google will

conveniently archive them for you. The only messages not archived are new messages you send

directly from your cell phone. When replying to a SMS message received on your GV number, GV

translates the incoming number to an alias (406) number so the reply can be routed back

through Google Voice correctly.

Receiving SMS on Your Desktop

A missing link for many users is how to get SMS text messages received on your Google Voice

number to display on your Mac desktop. I use a free webservice called

"GVMax" (www.gvmax.com) to monitor my Google Voice account and automatically forward SMS

or voice mail notifications to Google Talk (GTalk Instant Messaging service). On the Mac, I use

iChat as my GTalk client. On the iPad, I use IM+. When someone sends an SMS text message to

my GV number, within seconds it appears in iChat where I can reply directly.

The instructions for getting started with GVMax lack a clear overview of how it works, so I have

expanded on them below.

(1) login to your Google Voice account on the web and navigate to "Settings -> Voice Settings -

> Voicemail & Text". Configure "Voicemail Notifications" and "Text Forwarding" to point to your

GMail address (this step will allow GVMax to configure the rest automatically).

(2) proceed to the GVMax website and create a GVMax account using your Google Voice login

name which will often be the same as your GMail address. You can specify a unique password, or

use your GV password (the later makes the process a little simpler).

(3) Configure GMail filters to recognize messages from your Google Voice account and forward

them to your GVMax forwarding address (which was created when you signed up). After signing

up, you will find a button on your GVMax account page titled 'Create GMail Filters" to do this

automatically. Alternatively, you can create these filters yourself by following the instructions

provided so you don't need to share your GMail password with GVMax.

When an SMS arrives, Google Voice will notify your GMail account which will forward the

notification to your GVMax forwarding address. The GVMax service converts the Google Voice

Email notification to a Google Talk IM (Instant Message) so it can be picked up by any GTalk

compatible IM client such as iChat.

To learn more, see Unified Voice, Text, and Visual Voicemail.

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