Use Amazon's TextBuyIt

Amazon.com has just announced a new service that allows you to purchase items from them using SMS text messages. The service is called Amazon TextBuyIt.

Text an item to AMAZON (262966) and Amazon will send you a text message with the top 2 results. Reply with a 1 or 2 (indicating which item you want) and Amazon’s ordering system will call to confirm and complete the order.

You can also get more results (above the first 2) by replying with ‘m‘. Amazon will return up to 8 items. Get details on a specific item by replying with the item number, followed by a d. For example, ‘2d‘ would return details on the 2nd item.

You can search by item name, author, artists, or by ISBN/UPC code. Now, when you see a book that want you can order it from Amazon on the spot.

Very cool service.

ForgettheFilm

Be careful if you visit Forget the Film, Watch the Titles. You might find yourself watching all of the great collections of film title sequences they have.

Split into categories, such as: Animation, Motion Graphics, Mixed Media and 3D, the site offers up tons of content one place. It’s a worthy and eclectic collection and not focused on classic films. Many films in the gallery are bad, but as the site professes, a bad film can still have a great title sequence.

Office-Live-Workspace-logo

This morning I had an email from Microsoft, announcing the Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta. I’ve tried Google Docs and while it’s good, I do like a desktop application for word processing. The promised integration with Word, Excel and Power Point seemed promising, so I signed up.

There’s only one major issue.

It doesn’t work unless you have MS Office. Now I have it at home and at work, but the promise of “Access them from almost any computer with a Web browser” only means you can save and email them – not edit.

You can add notes and view them on the web, but not edit.

You can share them and several users can edit (in Word) and save it to your shared space, but only from their computers – not the web.

So, for Microsoft Office Live Workspace Beta – I give it a big thumbs down. I know I just said I like a desktop word processor, but what’s the point in it being web accessible, if it’s truly not?

smsGuide

Here’s a pocket guide I made featuring most of the tips from the 16 Things SMS article from last week. It’s wallet sized. Just click it for the full size version, print it out, fold it (laminate if you want) and you’re ready to go.