Tech Geek

If you've been following my posts since the beginning, you probably remember me talking about the Jott services. Jott offers a set of voice-to-text services that give you the ability to call a number and have a text message sent to any one of a number of services. Jott Voicemail will also convert incoming voicemails into text messages and send them to you. I used both services and even paid for a one-year subscription to Jott Assistant, but when it came time to renew, I decided I'd try and see what else was out there that might still be free.

When I started searching, I came across Dublin, Ireland based Dial2Do, a similar service to Jott. They don't have an 800 number, but my cell phone has free long distance anyways, so that isn't a consideration for me. I dial the number that they gave me, a 213 (Los Angeles) and say what I want to do. There are an extensive list of services that Dial2Do support, some of which are new to me and some of which I will be looking at in upcoming posts.

Here is the list of services that Dial2Do support today:

• Blogger: Post to any of your blogs on Blogger at http://www.blogger.com
• Business Card: Send contacts to your phone as business cards
• Calendar: Listen to your Google or 30 Boxes calendar and add appointments
• Corkboard: Corkboard helps you remember what you want. Whatever it is. Wherever you are. http://corkboard.it/
• Email: Send emails, Listen to your inbox and even reply! Supports gmail, aol, yahoo and more.
• Evernote: Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere at http://www.evernote.com
• FriendFeed: Post to your FriendFeed page at http://friendfeed.com
• Giga Om: Listen to the Giga Om RSS feed at http://gigaom.com
• HelloTxt: Post your status once and have it appear automatically on all of your networks with HelloTxt. http://hellotxt.com
• Huffington Post: Listen to the Huffington Post feed at http://www.huffingtonpost.com
• Identica: Listen and post to Identica at http://identi.ca
• Jaiku: Post to your Jaiku page and listen to the latest updates at http://www.jaiku.com
• Jajah: Voice-enable your Jajah account - set up cheap calls and sent texts with Jajah! http://www.jajah.com
• jkOnTheRun: Listen to the jkOnTheRun RSS feed at http://www.jkontherun.com
• Lifehacker: Listen to the LifeHacker feed at http://lifehacker.com
• LiveJournal: Post to your LiveJournal account at http://www.livejournal.com/
• Mashable: Listen to the Mashable feed at http://mashable.com
• Mosio: Get an answer to any question with Mosio at http://mosio.com
• New York Times: Listen to the New York Times feed at http://www.nytimes.com
• Perez Hilton: Listen to the Perez Hilton feed at http://www.perezhilton.com
• PingFm: Post to your default Ping FM services at http://ping.fm
• PingMe: PingMe takes a unique approach to keeping track of things you need to do - it's mobile and interactive. Just create a Ping, set a date and you'll receive a reminder by E-mail or TXT to your phone. http://gopingme.com
• Read Write Web: Listen to the Read Write Web RSS feed at http://www.readwriteweb.com
• Remember The Milk: Listen and post to Remember The Milk at http://www.rememberthemilk.com
• Reminder: Let Dial2Do help you remember stuff! Record a reminder and we convert it to text and send it to you in an email.
• Seth Godin: Listen to the Seth Godin feed at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
• Tech Crunch: Listen to the Tech Crunch feed at http://www.techcrunch.com
• Text: Send a text message to one of your contacts or groups with Dial2Do. We can even send you a copy!
• Textamundo: Textamundo is the only service that answers your questions from anywhere in the world. Just ask a question, and you’ll get the answer back as a text message. http://www.textamundo.com
• 30Boxes: Post and listen to your 30Boxes Calendar and Task list. http://30boxes.com
• Toodledo: Listen and post to your Toodledo task list at http://toodledo.com
• Translate: Translates what you say into another language and sends it back to you as a text message.
• Tumblr: Post a message to your tumblr page at http://www.tumblr.com
• Twitter: Post messages to your Twitter page, and listen to your timeline. You can even record replies for your friends while listening! http://www.twitter.com
• TypePad: Post to your TypePad account at http://www.typepad.com/
• Vitalist: Listen and post to your Vitalist task list at http://vitalist.com
• Weather: Listen to the weather in your location
• Web Worker Daily: Listen to the Web Worker Daily feed at http://webworkerdaily.com
• Wordpress: Post to your blog on Wordpress at http://wordpress.com
• Xpenser: Post expenses to your Xpenser account at http://xpenser.com 
• Yahoo Finance: Listen to the Yahoo Finance feed at http://finance.yahoo.com
• Yahoo News: Listen to the Yahoo News feed at http://news.yahoo.com
• Yahoo Sports: Listen to the Yahoo Sports feed at http://sports.yahoo.com

I have not explored the capability, but it may be the case that you could use Dial2Do to send text messages to a group of people for free. Tatango used to provide this service, but they are now charging for it as the market for text-message advertising has collapsed. I'm currently using Dial2Do to send expenses to Xpenser and calendar items to Google Calendar and it's working well for both!

Do any of you have a similar free service that you've been using?

Those involved in youth ministry understand that communicating effectively and easily with teenagers and parents is one of the most important parts of the job. Even though a perfect solution to the communication conundrum doesn’t exist, Tatango makes the process significantly easier, and best of all — free.

Before I say any more, I’ll let the CEO of Tatango describe their utility for youth workers. Check out the video below:

Like Derek said, Tatango lets you send out group text messages and voicemails for free, which for youth workers might as well be manna from heaven. Although the free version is supported by ads, they are unobtrusive and the message you send is still communicated, so who can complain?

One of my favorite things about Tatango is the different ways available for you to promote your group and get members to join. You can embed a widget in your website where users can type in their information, and every group you create has a unique web address where users can sign up as well. But the greatest tool, in my opinion, is using customizable keywords. For example, I set up a customized keyword of “EIKON” (the name of my high school ministry). All I have to do is tell students to text the word EIKON to a five-digit shortcode number, and they’re immediately subscribed to any updates I send out for that group.

Of course, Tatango has paid subscriptions ranging from $5/month to $100/month, which give you some benefits, such as using customized widgets and personalized keywords, but it’s an expense I think many youth workers will easily be able to justify.

On top of everything else, the guys running Tatango are great people, and they have offered readers of JakeBouma.com a 10% discount on any of their paid subscriptions. Just enter the word Tango in the “Coupon Code” box on the payment page, and you’re all set.

If you have any questions about Tatango’s services, be sure to check out their Frequently Asked Questions page, follow them on Twitter, and/or leave a comment below. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I am not receiving anything from Tatango in exchange for blogging about their company. I simply feel strongly about their services and believe that other youth workers could benefit from them as well.

Thanks to Jake Bouma for giving me permission to share his article. Jake blogs regularly at JakeBouma.com. He currently resides in West Des Moines, Iowa, where he works as both the director of youth and family ministries and contemporary worship leader at St. Mark Lutheran Church.

I've been fascinated by Google Forms ever since it was announced as a part of what was at the time called Google Docs and Spreadsheets, also known as Google Dachshund! One of my cousins, who is getting married this summer, is using Forms to help with her wedding planning. But I've never actually used them myself. So I have invited Justin Snider to help all of us learn a bit about how they work. Thanks Justin!

P.S. - It was good to see some of you at the Extravaganza! I was the one running around setting up projectors for the workshops, in case you saw me and didn't know who that was! - Pastor Andy Arnold, the ELCA Youth Ministry Network Tech Geek

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In this stressed economy and working with a tight church budget our large church staff was told by our council to "reduce printing and publication costs." I immediately thought of finding ways to convert some printed publications into digital publications. One big one for me was our registration for our annual high school winter retreat with another church. I would mail a packet to all 50 of my high school youth that included a flyer, a registration sheet, the rental forms, and the tubing forms which created a heavy, costly, tree-killing, paper mailing. This year I have a created an online registration, using Google Forms, that I posted on our youth site. Google Forms is a part of Google Docs, the free online application suite from Google. Youth and volunteers can go online and register, and using options within the form, this creates a neat spreadsheet with all their data including name, cell number, rental information, if they needs lessons, etc. I then share this spreadsheet with the other church, so we both have one spreadsheet with all our vital data for when we call the ski resort to make our lift ticket, rental, and lesson reservations.

So here are some helpful steps in creating your Google Form:

1. Go to docs.google.com and sign in. If you have never used Google Docs, you may need to create a free account. You do not need a Gmail account.
2. Getting started. When you are logged in, click the New tab on the left side on the page and click Form in the drop-down menu. (You may also create another type Google Doc from this menu.)
3. Creating the input form. Here is where you give a name and description to your form, then create all the questions. For each question, you can give it a title, help text, then what type of question you want (text, paragraph text, multiple choices, checkboxes, choose from a list, and scale 1-?), and finally an option to make that question a required question in your form.
4. Tweeking the questions. To add a new question click the Add Question button at the top left of the page. To change the order of the question simply drag the question box and drop it in the order you like. To edit a question click the pencil on the top right of each question box. To delete a question click the trash can.
5. Getting it out there. Once you have your form how you like it, you can either email the form to the group or individuals you like, or, as I like to do, embed the form into your website or blog. This is done by clicking More Actions, then Embed, copying the address it gives you, and pasting into a web design software or some blogging sites.
6. Viewing your results. You can choose to have the Google Forms email you when someone completes a form. Or, docs.google.com will have a list of your forms. Click on one and it will show your spreadsheet with the results, which you can edit, export to to Excel, a PDF, a website, or other programs (under the Share menu). You can also share with others or view a summary of the answers that magically appear in pie charts (for multiple choices answers) and graphs.

For an example of a form that you can fill out click here.
For the results of this example form click here. 

Enjoy using a new tech tool in your ministry!
Justin Snider
YouthDirector - at - GloriaDeiOlympia - dot - org
www.GloriaDeiYouth.org

I just got back from a great gathering of young leaders and adult mentors at the Council of Synod Lutheran Youth Organization Presidents at MountSequoyah Retreat Center outside of Fayetteville , Arkansas. It was a great weekend of sharing, fellowship, and worship as we explored the theme of Uni-Diversity, the things we have in common and the things that make us a diverse group of people, as well as how we can more fully appreciate that diversity.

During one of our exercises, we were moving around the room to show whether or not we fit into a variety of different categories. Many of the questions were around labels that we put on other people or on ourselves. Some of them were of the "Do you own" variety. One question, "Do you own a cell phone?" was answered "yes" by every participant, youth and adult. I expected the majority of participants to answer yes to that question, but I, along with other youth and adult participants, was a little surprised to see that every person there owned a cell phone.

Why do I bring that up? Well, do you own and use your cell phone in ministry? Are you using text messages to stay in communication with the youth youminister to? Are you using text messages to remind people of events and opportunities? Are you exchanging cell phone numbers so that you can always re-group if you get split up while doing something? Your group may not have 100% cell phoneusage , but it may be closer to that than you think. I also was chatting with an adult participant marveling at the ability of our young people to text message while engaged in just about any other activity. We may use them for voice, but they are very definitely text devices to our young people.

The ELCA Youth Ministry Network has a new partnership with TxtSignal, a permission based text messaging service. You invite your young people to sign up to receive your texts. You can send group messages immediately, or schedule them to go out at a specific time. Send out reminders, daily devotions, or electronic pick-me-up notes. The plan works with all of the major and almost all of the minor phone services.

There are a variety of plans to match the size and needs of your group. Plus, TxtSignal is giving members of the ELCA Youth Ministry Network 10% off of the monthly cost for the first year, plus is adding an additional 15 days to the standard 30 day free trial. Just go to the TxtSignal web site and when prompted for a promotional code, please enter ELCA. Thanks to TxtSignal for their partnership!

I have also written before about Pinger. They are currently free, and they provide not just text messages, but voice messages to your contacts. You call the magic number, it sends a text message to those you want it sent to that invites them to call a magic number. When they call, they hear the voice message you've left for them.Pinger also lets you transfer your voicemail from your cell provider to them. That means you can listen to your voicemail on your computer, helping hold down the number of minutes you use. (Although, the calls that get forwarded to yourPinger Voicemail may cost you minutes because they were forwarded. I'm not sure about that yet.)

God's blessings and peace,
Pastor Andy Arnold

If I've done it once, I've done it a thousand times; meant to send an e-mail to someone that had an attachment attached, but forgot to actually hit the paperclip to attach the attachment. Sometimes I catch it myself and send a second e-mail right away, but other times the recipient or, even worse, recipients, have to e-mail me back and tell me that I forgot to send them the attachment that I neglected to attach. It's annoying to them and makes me feel like a real dunce. I'm guessing that at least some of you can relate, having sent the same, shall we say, detached e-mails.

So I was excited to notice a new feature in the Gmail Labs a few weeks ago. Forgotten Attachment Detector by Jonathan K which prevents you from accidentally sending messages without the relevant attachments. Prompts you if you mention attaching a file, but forgot to do so. If you use Gmail, sign-in to your account and click the Settings link at the top right of your screen and then click the Labs tab. Scroll down to Forgotten Attachment Detector and click the Enable button. Now if you indicate in your e-mail that you're going to attach a file, but you haven't actually attached it, you'll get a pop-up window asking if you really mean to send the e-mail without the attachment.

For those that use Thunderbird to manage their e-mail, there is a similar extension called Attachment Reminder which scans your outgoing e-mails for certain keywords and asks if you really mean to send them without attachments if any of those keywords are present.

I would imagine that there are similar tools for Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail and other e-mail services that I haven't used as much. If you know of an attachment reminder for one of them, please post it in the comments section below and help others avoid sending e-mails without their accompanying attachments.

Bonus Gmail tip: Add the dragdropupload extension to Firefox and you can drag your e-mail attachments onto the screen without having to browse for them!

I received a question from a reader in Texas who asks, Are there sites where you can get volunteers or youth to sign up on a calendar, like for working shifts at a fundraiser? It sure seems like there should be. But I can't figure out any that are actually designed for this specific purpose. I looked around and searched lots of different sets of terms. There are some expensive paid software packages designed for businesses, but I didn't find anything simple and cost-effective for church groups. Do any of you know of something? What I have done in the past is use a wiki to accomplish this task. What is a wiki?

A wiki is a web page that is designed to be easily editable by any users. One of the best known wikis is the web encyclopedia, Wikipedia. The beauty of a wiki is that any person can add (or delete) content. To help guard against things disappearing that should have stayed there, most wiki software tracks all changes and allows moderators to revert to previous versions of the page if something was incorrectly (or maliciously) changed. There are a large number of wiki farms available at this list. A wiki farm is a website that you can build a wiki on, either for free or using a paid service. I have generated sign-up sheets using PBwiki in the past.

To create a wiki on PBwiki I start by logging in and selecting Create a New Wiki. If you need to create an account on PBwiki, go ahead, they're free. First I create a name, in the {name}.pbwiki.com format. I'm going to use seniorleague.pbwiki.com for my wiki. I'm going to make my wiki public, since users will need a password to edit it in either case. So on the next page I select public and I click the checkbox to agree to the Terms of Service.

The next page wants to sell me an upgrade. I am going to use the free version, so I click the link underneath where it says, Continue Trying out the Free Version. This takes me to my new wiki page. I could add any number of things here, but I really want to set up a schedule for a fundraiser, so I'm just going to click the link at the top right that says Create a Page. Then I'll enter the page name of Car Wash Schedule and pick the Schedule template before clicking the Create New Page button.

Then I'll edit the table to contain the information that I want it to contain. I'm setting up a sign-up sheet for a car wash. You can see it at seniorleague.pbwiki.com/Car-Wash-Schedule. The editor is fairly standard, you can add and delete rows and columns from the table by right clicking and making your choice. When I've edited to my heart's content, I'll set a few tags at the bottom, and click Save.

You can either add users to your wiki by entering their e-mail addresses or you can allow them to request access. I would use the latter mode as it is less typing. Because some folks may not want yet another account, I also provided the option for them to e-mail me and I'll update the sign-up sheet.

These basic steps could be used with any of the wiki farms to accomplish the same goal of having an online sign-up sheet. I'm not thrilled with this solution and  I still think there should be a more elegant way to do it, so if one of you has found it, please drop me a line! I'll keep looking and maybe have something different for a future post.

P.S. - You can use OpenID to login to pbwiki, and that's probably a subject for another post!

The posts that are the most work, but also the most fun, are the ones that I write in response to questions posed by you! This week I received a question from a friend who wondered if it were possible to send text messages to a group of people easily. Of course, one shudders to think of thumb-typing the same message out dozens of time, so I went looking for another way! I thought this should be possible, but didn't know if it would be easy or not. Some phones support sending text messages to groups, but depending on your plan, you may be dinged a dime or so for each one you send. Thankfully, I have this tool called the 'internet' which I can use to do research! :)

It seemed to me that this is technically a fairly easy thing to do and there should be tools to help do it. One option that came to mind was sending e-mails to the SMS gateways that most cellular carriers have. For example, you can send a message to a Verizon user by addressing it to {phone-number}@vtext.com. Wikipedia has a list of many of the e-mail and web gateways here. The challenge to this method is that you need to know which carrier each of your youth is using. I suppose you could ask each of them, but that seems like a pain. There are some online tools that might help, but because of number portability, they are not always accurate. (If I sign up with one carrier originally, then port my number to another carrier, most of these tools still list the first carrier.) One blog I stumbled upon suggested that you e-mail to all the carriers in your area and then see which messages do and do not bounce.

There are also websites and services that allow you to send messages to groups of people at a per-message cost of a dime or more. This could quickly get expensive, although I suppose it is quite a bit cheaper than the postcards I'm using now! For example, Skype (a great tool for on-line calls) will let you send text messages for about 11.2 cents per message. You can send text messages to phones from Yahoo Messenger for free, but I'm not sure it supports sending to a group of people all at the same time.

So I kept researching and looking for a better way. I found a blog called Life in Student Ministry: Conversations among those passionate for teenagers. On this blog was a post that seemed to fit what I was looking for. It was titled, Sending youth group announcements as mass text messages. I read through both the article and the comments that followed and then went to the sites that were linked too. Most of the conversation made a lot of sense to me as it raised the pros and cons of the ideas I had had. Here's what I found out, sort of ordered in what I found least interesting to what I found most interesting.

• TXT Signal is a service that people on the blog post seemed to be quite fond off. It allows you to send messages to a group of people after they enter their numbers on line. You need to send a sign-up e-mail or post a link on your website that your youth need to respond to to opt-in to the text messages. A basic 100 person plan with 60 messages per month is $14. This service does not allow people to reply to you.
• Jabber*Text charges 3 cents per message and allows you to manage your contact list online. They say on their website that they "started this service with church youth groups in mind -- giving youth workers the power to communicate to their students easily and affordably."
• Club-Texting has a page devoted to how their services can be used by religious group. I couldn't find pricing information on their site.
• Broadtexter mobile clubs were originally designed for musicians, but they have opened membership to others as well. For groups, Broadtexter is free with occasional advertising included in messages. They also have a premium, ad-free product.
• Zemble is a free service that does exactly what we're looking for. It lets you create groups and send text messages to them. You can send messages to people who have not signed-up for the service. From the poking around I've done today, this looks like the best and least expensive (free) service to send text messages. However, they don't seem to offer an easy way to import contacts, so you'll have to enter them one by one. The focus of Zemble seems to be on social networking (like Facebook or MySpace) using text messages. It could work for you if you can survive the setup process!
• Jott, a service I use and talk about often, will also allow you to send to groups. They use both e-mail and text message delivery. You could set up a group of contacts in Jott and send messages that way. Then you call and dictate your message to Jott and have it sent to the group. Some folks will get them as text and others as e-mail. Jott allows you to use CSV files to import your contacts.
• Pinger is probably the most interesting of the services that I have looked at today. It's similar to Jott in some ways, but it also gives you some other options. Instead of just sending a text message, it sends a text message that invites the recipient to call back and hear a voice message. It provides numerous ways to get your contacts into their system, including directly from Outlook or Palm Desktop. The website describes the service as one which lets you "send voice messages to each other's mobile phones without interrupting.  It's fast and efficient like email, portable like text messaging, and powered with your voice." Pinger also allows you to stop using your cellular carrier's voicemail service and switch to an online service (saving those minutes) instead. I haven't tried it since I just discovered the service today, but I am intrigued!

What has your experience been with getting the word out to the youth of your church? What tools have you used and how effective have they been?

A quick update to last week's post. If you wondered (or are still wondering) what Twitter is, check out the short film at http://www.commoncraft.com/Twitter . The Common Craft folks have done an excellent job of explaining what Twitter is and why you might want to use it. They have some other great videos there as well!

This week I want to take a look at badges that you put on your blog or website to show your online status or latest status updates. I don't have much of a blog myself, but I'm going to point you to it so that you can see what I'm talking about. Visit http://pastorandy.blogspot.com/ and look at the right column which updates dynamically depending on what I'm doing online.

At the top of the column, underneath my profile, you see my Facebook Profile Badge. This is a small bit of HTML that I pasted into a section on my blogger page. To get your own, visit http://www.facebook.com/badges.php while you're logged into Facebook. There you create your badge and get the HTML that you will paste onto your site. There are options for vertical and horizontal badges displaying as much or as little information as you wish. It's all updated to reflect your latest Facebook status.

Next you'll see the Twitter Updates section. I have this set to display my last five Twitter updates, which are also my last five Facebook status messages. To get this one, I visited http://twitter.com/badges/ and clicked the appropriate links to get a badge for Blogger.

The Online Status section contains my Skype, Yahoo Messenger, and Google Talk badges. They're all clumped together because I was tired of adding individual sections!

The Skype one comes from http://www.skype.com/intl/en/share/buttons/ where you enter your Skype username and choose a button type to get the HTML code. I like the one that shows my online status to blog visitors.

The Yahoo Messenger one comes from http://messenger.yahoo.com/addpresence.php where you put in your Yahoo ID to get the HTML code.

Finally, the Google Talk one comes from visiting http://www.google.com/talk/service/badge/New while logged into Google. You get the HTML code and paste it in.

I haven't had too much of a problem with extra SPIM or SPAM from these badges, but if you're nervous about putting your Skype username, Yahoo ID, or Google ID out on the web, you might not want to use these features.

How many instant messenger clients do you have running? Yahoo Messenger, Skype, AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, MSN/Windows Live! Messenger, ICQ, and the list goes on and on. Each one of those clients take a small bit of the power of your computer and when you add them all up, they may be slowing it down significantly. One thing I hate is a computer that is unnecessarily slow.

I have accounts on many of the various messaging systems since I can't get everyone I know to stop using whatever they are using and switch to just one. There has been some progress towards inter-op-ability of the various clients, Yahoo Messenger users and Windows Live Messenger users can now send messages to one another, but you still need to run three or four to stay connected to everyone. There are features that are unique to each client and features, such as webcams, that you can only use within an individual client, and so I do download and install each one that I use. But for general purposes, I have stopped using all the different ones on a daily basis and switched to Pidgin. I set the other clients not to load on system startup and enter all my accounts into Pidgin.

Pidgin, available at www.pidgin.im, let's you send and receive at least the basic text messages from users of:

• AIM
• Bonjour
• Gadu-Gadu
• Google Talk
• Groupwise
• ICQ
• IRC
• MSN
• MySpaceIM
• QQ
• SILC
• SIMPLE
• Sametime
• XMPP
• Yahoo!
• Zephyr

It is an open-source program, released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) and runs on Windows and a variety of Linux distributions. There is also a related program called Adium designed for Mac OS X.

According the the Pidgin website, "Pidgin supports many features of the various networks, such as file transfer, away messages, and typing notification. It also goes beyond that and provides many unique features. A few popular features are Buddy Pounces, which give the ability to notify you, send a message, play a sound, or run a program when a specific buddy goes away, signs online, or returns from idle; and plugins, consisting of text replacement, a buddy ticker, extended message notification, iconify on away, spell checking, tabbed conversations, and more."

I haven't used all of these features, but I do appreciate having to only run one program to talk to people from a variety of networks at the same time.

Have you ever lost your cell phone? Or dropped it in a toilet? Or run over it with your car? Or just upgraded to a new phone? It's a pain, isn't it? All that contact information that you've collected on the phone but never copied into your address book, PDA, or Rolodex is gone. Then you have the joy of inputting it back into your replacement phone. I would be happy if I never had to do that again! Since I found Mighty Backup, I should not have to!

Mighty Backup is a service that communicates with your cell phone directly and synchronizes your phone's contact list with a website. They have instructions for using it to upgrade to a new phone and you can also use the website to add contact information to your phones contact list using a full sized keyboard instead of the one on the phone. I use it for free since I signed up for an online account with Verizon Wireless, which, thanks to IN calling may very well be the preferred carrier of the ELCA Youth Ministry Network. If it weren't free, it would only be $1.99/month, which is probably worth it for the peace of mind it provides. Verizon customers can visit www.getbackupnow.com to see how to add this service to their phones.

If you're not on Verizon, but you are on Alltel, Bell Mobility, CellularOne, Cellular South, or Midwest Wireless you can visit www.mightybackup.com/get to see how to install the application to your phone. They also say that they are working on developing versions of their software for users of "Cingular, T-Mobile and many other networks." Once you have everything working, you can even go onto the website and print out a hard copy of the information.

Your specific instructions may vary slightly, but what I did was the following:

1. Went to the "Get it Now" menu on my phone and downloaded the Backup Assistant application.
2. Ran the application and picked a PIN number.
3. Picked the time I wanted to automatic backup to run each day.
4. Ran the first backup and verified that it worked.
5. Visited the website and logged in with my phone number and PIN.
6. Printed out a good old fashioned paper copy of the information! (Well, actually, I didn't. Just not my style! *grin* )

Each day during the time window you configure the service sends a text message that triggers the program to run. You may want to disable the automatic feature if you pay extra for data services and only want to run the application when you manually start it. After it runs, any changes you have made online or on the phone are synchronized and your contact information is backed up! Visit www.mightybackup.com/how to see a bit more about how the service works.