Get emergency text alerts and win a Toyota

First Alert System Text (FAST) issued a press release announcing a contest to promote their national alert service. According to the press release,

Persons who subscribe to the National Emergency Alert Network are automatically entered in the running for one of the 100 new Toyota cars or trucks. Entering simply requires texting the word FAST followed by a space and then your zip code to the National Emergency Alert Service Short code 47733

You can also sign up on the web at firstalerttext.com.

The downside here is that it will cost you $0.99 per month, but I suppose that isn't much if the service is genuinely useful.

More cell phones than landlines in Iowa

Haven't had a blog update in a while, but here's a piece of interesting news: Cellular News is reporting that there are more cell phones than land lines in Iowa nowadays, mostly served by US Cellular. That must also mean that way more people have cell phones than have internet access.

Texting delays expected for New Years Eve

Engadget is reporting that a lot of people are expecting delays in receiving text messages on New Years Eve due to the large expected amount of traffic. According to the article, Verizon alone expects 300 million texts between 12am and 4am on their network. Wow.

Raise $1 for Toys for Tots by SMS

Disney is running a campaign to help raise money for Toys for Tots between December 3rd and December 17th. For every person that texts "heart" to the short code "27138", Disney will donate $1. They'll also enroll you in a sweepstakes to win some Disney stuff.

Track your menstrual cycle with SMS

Just ran across a service called LadyTimer, which helps all you ladies out there track your menstrual cycle. Looks like you supply your last period date and they'll send you an SMS shortly before your most fertile days. Pretty creative, and free.

World AIDS Day: find HIV testing sites by SMS

December 1st is World AIDS Day, established by The World Health Organization in 1988. Today, the Kaiser Family Foundation announced the new short code KNOWIT (566948) for locating HIV testing sites. Text your zip code to KNOWIT and you'll get a response back with nearby testing sites.

For example, I tried sending the text "10173" (a Manhattan zip code) to 566948, and got back the response:

    Testing Center: New York University School of Medicine
    and Hospitals Center (212) 263-6426. More locations
    call 1-800-232-4636.

This sounds like a good way to discreetly and easily find a testing location. It's a good resource that people should be made aware of.

Price comparison by SMS

Several companies offer price comparison checking by SMS (e.g. Google SMS), but the price comparison website AuctionShark has something different going for it: it also checks eBay for active auctions selling the product you're looking for.

So for example, say you're out at Radio Shack looking at the Tomtom 510 GPS receiver, which maybe they have on sale for $325. If you're not sure if Radio Shack is giving you a good deal, you could send the text message "tomtom 510 gps" to the email address price@auctionshark.com. In a few minutes you'd get back a text message that said something like,

    Tomtom GO 510 GPS ...
    Comparemaster.com $345.00
    eBay $204.95 - No Bids ends in 1h 6m
    Reply m for more, e to email

So now you know that the Radio Shack price is cheaper than what you might find online, but that if you hurry you could also get the GPS on eBay potentially cheaper (in an auction that ends in just over an hour). Another neat feature is that if you respond with "e", you'll be prompted to enter your email address so that you can get the listings sent to you by email for later reference.

AuctionShark is pretty cool, but has two minor problems: the first is that they seem to truncate the item name, which in many cases makes it unclear whether or not their system interpreted your search correctly. For example, if you had entered "Tomtom 510", the response message would start with:

    Tomtom Tom Tom ...

Which, according to their web site, is an appreviation for "Tomtom Tom Tom RDS-TMC Traffic Receiver (9V00.080)". Since the information isn't useful at all unless you're completely sure what product you're getting info about, it seems that AuctionShark shouldn't be abbreviating the product name, even if it turns out to be pretty long.

The second problem with their service is that they require you to send a text message to an email address, instead of to a short code, which is non-standard, has a slower response time, and requires more typing.

But other than those two quips, AuctionShark should prove useful if you want to know if you can get a product you're about to buy cheaper online.