Configuring Gmail IMAP (push email) on your phone with Airtel & Vodafone

Let me first tell you what is Push Email, you will receive email as soon a new email is received by the mail server, just like SMS. To use this service you need IMAP or POP access to your mail server & also your mail server should support anyone of them. With POP access you can download your emails to phone, but server & phone will not be in sync. For ex: if you delete a mail on your phone, it will be still there in server. IMAP is more advanced which syncs both mail boxes. Whatever you do on any place, gets reflected everywhere. Thankfully Gmail provides IMAP access for all the accounts, you have to enable it by going to “Settings–>Forwarding & POP/IMAP”. Basic GPRS plans like Airtel Live & Vodafone Live doesn’t provide IMAP access, you have to activate Airtel Mobile Office & or Vodafone Mobile Connect.

Configuring on Phone:

This configuration is for Phones which come up with inbuilt mail client, if your phone doesn’t have that try using gmail mobile app available at http://m.google.com.

Open email client on your phone, goto “Settings–>Add new email” & configure as mentioned below:

Incoming Mail Server:
Email/user ID: Your Gmail ID
Password: Gmail Password
Incoming Mail Server: imap.google.com
Mailbox name: Gmail (you can use anyting)
Mailbox Type: IMAP4
Security Ports: SSL
Port: 993 or Default in some phones

Outgoing Mail Server:
Email/user ID: Your Gmail ID
Password: Gmail Password
Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.google.com
Security Ports: SSL/TSL
Port: 465 or 587 or Default in some phones

After configuration connect to your mailbox, now you wil receive emails as soon as they arrive!

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FooSMS was down yesterday & since it was loading different site, I thought it went down forever. To confirm this, I sent a mail to FooSMS team asking reason for going down. It seems they are coming with new interface including user registration, here is their reply:

Hello Prashanth,

Thank You for Contacting FOOSMS !!

Actually our back-end team is still working with some reseller options.
You can find the same @ http://sms.foosms.com
We are planning to release the same within a weeks time.
With reference to this we changed our servers and while updating the ip
address, a mismatch happened.
And yesterday it takes little more time for the name servers to reflect.
i.e. the actual problem what we faced yesterday.

Thanks,
J.Bibin
http://www.foosms.com

That’s a very good news for all FooSMS users (including me). Since this is still in “Beta” it might not be fully functional. You have to wait until it gets released. By the way, you can use same old FooSMS at http://foosms.com (without WWW). I usually use FooSMS for sending any long web URL to my phone! eNjoY free SMSing!

Probably this is the most asked question in Tech Bangalore comment section, “Is there any trick for free GPRS?”. I had no answer before, but got one now. My fellow blogger Rahul Bansal, who recently became full time blogger has revealed this trick on his blog Devil’s Workshop. The trick works fine for Airtel, just install Tea Shark browser on your phone & done! You need have Airtel Live Free GPRS active on your phone. You can get details here to activate that. Actually Airtel Live free GPRS allows you to browse only Airtel Live wap site & other few affiliate wap sites like Yahoo! mobile. But it was not possible to access other sites like m.gmail.com.

Airtel might be fixing this issue soon, so enjoy free gprs until then!! More details about this is posted on Devil’s Workshop. You can get the Tea Shark browser at www.teashark.com

From just making phone calls, mobile phones evolved as more advanced gadget which everyone should have. It’s been deviated a lot from it’s primary requirement of just making calls. Have you ever seen any mobile phone advertisement saying you can make calls from this device?! never! Now JiGrahak Mobility Solutions adding great functionality to this magic box to do more!

With ngpay you can tranfer funds from your bank account, book a movie/flight ticket, pay electricity/landline bill, re-charge your mobile…..etc.. all from your existing mobile phone! This requirs an active GPRS connection work. You will have to download & install a small application on your mobile phone from ngpay website, which is available for free. Once registration is done, you can add whichever services you want to use. Ex: If you are a HDFC account holder, after installing application goto Add Serices & add your HDFC account by giving your HDFC account number & iPIN. Now you can view your account summary, transfer funds…etc.

ngpay supports wide range of services, few of the major services supported are HDFC Bank Netbanking, Inox Movies, Fame Cinemas, Make My Trip, BESCOM, MTNL, Tata Indicom, BPL Mobile, Spice Telecom…etc. You can get the full list of services supported at http://www.ngpay.com/site/services.html

I personally tested the application on a basic Nokia handset 2626, which worked superbly. I configured my HDFC account on it, checking account balance was a breeze! Though I have not checked all the services, it seems to be working fine as I never got any error message until now which normally happens with Java applications. As this service grows, I guess more & more services will be added enabling people to do almost anything on the go! Though you should have network on your mobile phone

I have already reviewed many SMS services on Tech Bangalore, this is the consolidated post on all available SMS services. Free SMS services are important as many of us don’t have free SMSs on our tariff & service providers doesn’t allow free SMS festival occasions. So, I am making a list of available services with small description about each of them.

Free SMS services:

Way2SMS:

Way2SMS is a free SMS service which enable you to send free SMSs to any mobile number in India from web. Just sign up & start sending SMSs. It also has group messaging service. Out of 140 characters of SMS, users are allowed to send 92 character messages. Remaining characters will be used for advertisements. Despite of web interface to send SMS, way2SMS also has wap interface. So, If you have GPRS active on your mobile phone, you can send SMSs via mobile phone also.

Link: www.way2sms.com

You Mint:

You Mint is yet another service similar to Way2SMS which allows you to send free SMSs to any mobile in India via web. It allows 80 characters of message & remaining used for advertisements. You Mint claims “We actually pay you for getting friends signed up to this service!“. You Mint pay users for referring friends to it’s network.

Link: www.youmint.com

Conclusion:

Way2SMS stands out in lot of areas listed below:

• Way2SMS allows 92 characters unlike 80 characters of You Mint
• Number of SMSs per day or to a number are limited in You Mint, unlimited in Way2SMS
• You Mint has time limitations to send SMS, free SMSs are allowed only between 8 AM to 10 PM
• Lack of wap site

Group Messaging Services:

SMS Gup Shup:

SMS Gup Shup is the best available service to send group SMSs. You can create your own group & start sending SMSs. You can use web interface to send SMSs to group of people free of cost. You can also send SMS to your group from you mobile, send SMS to 567673434 & that gets delivered all people in your group.

Link: www.smsgupshup.com
Tech Bangalore Review

Activ Mobs:

Activ Mobs is a Bangalore based group SMS service which enable you to send group messages from your mobile. The idea of Activ mobs is to send message bunch of people for the cost of one SMS. Activ Mobs don’t have any web interface to send group SMSs. This is the SMS only service with registeration & using services are via SMSs only. Activ Mobs uses karnataka local number rather than premium number which reduces the SMS sending cost.

Link: www.inactiv.com

Tech Bangalore Review

Tagg.in:

Tagg.in is a recently entered into group SMS service. Tagg claims it’s not only group SMS system, but also a Micro Blogging platform. Tagg has pretty good interface & simple registeration process. For me, it looks like clone of SMSGupShup with no additional features.

Link: www.tagg.in

Tech bangalore Review

SMS Sharing Service:

Vakow:

We don’t have any competetors in this service, Vakow rules! Vakow is a greate web service for SMSs I have seen. Vakow is to share SMSs with your friends & world. You can use either web interface to post messages or via SMSs. Users can subscribe to other users, rate SMSs posted by others…etc. You can also store personal messages which carries memories (Ex: First proposal you got from a girl/boy ;)). Personal messages can be marked private which will not be visible to anyone else.

Link: www.vakow.com

Tech Bangalore Review

The whole commercial street is now converted into bluetooth zone. You will get cool offers via messages through bluetooth from retailers as you walk on commercial street. Since this uses bluetooth, it’s operator independent & there will no charges for consumers. All you need to do is turn on bluetooth on your phone & walk on commercial street!

This is the first of it’s kind service in South India introduced by TELiBrahma. Retailers on street can decide what offers they want to provide, can use ads in rich graphical format to attract their consumers. This could be a cost effective advertising medium for retailers.

Similar service is also deployed in Forum Mall & Total Mall