Trancell.com offers free information services using short (SMS-sized) emails. For example, if you send a blank email from your cell phone to help@trancell.com, you'll get a list of Trancell's available commands. Here are some more examples:
- An email to dictionary@trancell.com or encyclopedia@trancell.com with a single word in the title gets the definition or encyclopedia entry for that word.
- An email to forecast@trancell.com with a zip code as the subject gets your weather forecast.
- An email to directions@trancell.com with a subject line of '600 scott blvd,santa clara,ca' and a body of '1 university ave,palo alto,ca' gets directions to Santa Clara.
- An email to yellowpages@trancell.com with a subject line of 'barbers' and a body of 'santa clara,ca' gets a list of barbers in Santa Clara.
- An email to whitepages@trancell.com with a subject line of 'mcdonalds' and a body of 'mountain view,ca' gets a list of McDonald's locations and phone numbers.
- An email to peoplepages@trancell.com with a subject line of 'john doe' and a body of 'san jose,ca' gets somebody's phone number.
- An email to english2french@trancell.com with a subject line of 'Read my lips!' gets a French translation.
You can even browse the web over your SMS-capable cell phone. For example, after signing up with Trancell, an email to web@trancell.com with a subject line of 'dmoz.org' will give you the text version of the dmoz.org web site ("Open Directory Project [1]about dmoz | [2]add URL | [3]help ..."). If you want to find out about Dmoz, reply with a subject line of '1'. (No body is necessary, since state is associated with your email address and is kept on the server. BTW, if this looks like the old Unix Lynx text browser, that's because it actually _is_ Lynx running on the Trancell server.)
Getting search results is trickier, since Trancell doesn't support HTML forms. Here's how I did it:
- Add 'info@trancell.com' to phone book using this.
- Send an email to the phone containing 'web search-completed.ebay.com/search/search.dll?SortProperty=MetaHighestPriceSort&query=' in the body.
- Save that email in the phone's memory.
- Forward that email to info@trancell.com, editing the body to something like 'web search-completed.ebay.com/search/search.dll?SortProperty=MetaHighestPriceSort&query=nokia+5165'
(The URL really needs to go through a junk-filtering proxy server to eliminate the ebay navigation bar! Or better yet, maybe someone knows of a free WAP2email gateway?)
www.hz.com also has some handy SMS-sized email commands:
- An email to hz@hz.com with a subject line of 'ADDRESS 4087332730' will give you the address that corresponds to that phone number.
- An email to the same address with a subject line of 'PAGEME +89day "renew airtime"' will remind you to renew your phone's airtime.
This is an especially good deal if you signed up for the free-after-rebate AT&T Free2Go Nokia 5165 and are planning to switch to ecallplus.com, since ecallplus gives you free and unlimited two-way email.
- An email to dictionary@trancell.com or encyclopedia@trancell.com with a single word in the title gets the definition or encyclopedia entry for that word.
- An email to forecast@trancell.com with a zip code as the subject gets your weather forecast.
- An email to directions@trancell.com with a subject line of '600 scott blvd,santa clara,ca' and a body of '1 university ave,palo alto,ca' gets directions to Santa Clara.
- An email to yellowpages@trancell.com with a subject line of 'barbers' and a body of 'santa clara,ca' gets a list of barbers in Santa Clara.
- An email to whitepages@trancell.com with a subject line of 'mcdonalds' and a body of 'mountain view,ca' gets a list of McDonald's locations and phone numbers.
- An email to peoplepages@trancell.com with a subject line of 'john doe' and a body of 'san jose,ca' gets somebody's phone number.
- An email to english2french@trancell.com with a subject line of 'Read my lips!' gets a French translation.
You can even browse the web over your SMS-capable cell phone. For example, after signing up with Trancell, an email to web@trancell.com with a subject line of 'dmoz.org' will give you the text version of the dmoz.org web site ("Open Directory Project [1]about dmoz | [2]add URL | [3]help ..."). If you want to find out about Dmoz, reply with a subject line of '1'. (No body is necessary, since state is associated with your email address and is kept on the server. BTW, if this looks like the old Unix Lynx text browser, that's because it actually _is_ Lynx running on the Trancell server.)
Getting search results is trickier, since Trancell doesn't support HTML forms. Here's how I did it:
- Add 'info@trancell.com' to phone book using this.
- Send an email to the phone containing 'web search-completed.ebay.com/search/search.dll?SortProperty=MetaHighestPriceSort&query=' in the body.
- Save that email in the phone's memory.
- Forward that email to info@trancell.com, editing the body to something like 'web search-completed.ebay.com/search/search.dll?SortProperty=MetaHighestPriceSort&query=nokia+5165'
(The URL really needs to go through a junk-filtering proxy server to eliminate the ebay navigation bar! Or better yet, maybe someone knows of a free WAP2email gateway?)
www.hz.com also has some handy SMS-sized email commands:
- An email to hz@hz.com with a subject line of 'ADDRESS 4087332730' will give you the address that corresponds to that phone number.
- An email to the same address with a subject line of 'PAGEME +89day "renew airtime"' will remind you to renew your phone's airtime.
This is an especially good deal if you signed up for the free-after-rebate AT&T Free2Go Nokia 5165 and are planning to switch to ecallplus.com, since ecallplus gives you free and unlimited two-way email.
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