So you want to send someone a text, but you don’t want them to know it’s you, eh? Maybe you just want to have a little fun with a friend or you may have other reasons. Whatever the case, it’s pretty simple to do. Just follow the instructions below and you’ll be leaving confused looks on people’s faces in no time.
How To Email A Text Message
First, you have to know their phone number and mobile carrier (AT&T, Verizon, etc.). Armed with a phone number and the list below, you should be able to easily figure out the email address to send a text message to your victim’s phone.
where phonenumber = your 10 digit phone number
(Thanks to tech-recipes.com for the list)
Get A Fake Email Account
The easiest way to do this is to head over to Gmail and create a free account. You want this free account because you’re only going to use it for this and you want to set up the name and address to be whatever you want.
The screen shot above shows my new account as B Obama with an email address of prez-b-obama@gmail.com, but I eventually went with President Obama and notreallyobama@gmail.com. Be creative.
Send A Text Message VIA Email
Now here’s the really easy part. Just compose an email from your new Gmail account. Send it to the address from the first step above. You might even leave the subject blank to make it look more like a text. The result might look like it did on my iPhone in the first image in this post, but be aware that some phones/carriers will display the email address, too, like my Verizon DROID Incredible below:
You may also note that I tried to include an image on that one. My iPhone didn’t show the image or even indicate that there was one. The Verizon phone removed the image (and said as much) as seen above. I’ve had mixed results on other carriers. If you’re unsure, just do a test with another friend who’s on the same carrier.
With one more relatively simple step, you can actually spoof the email address as well. All this means is that you’ll make the email look like it’s coming from a more convincing address. In the past, this used to require some technical savvy and access to a server that would let you do it. Now, it’s as simple as downloading a free email spoofer and installing it. For me, this took about two minutes. Take a look at the image below compared to the one above. The one below shows a text that, to most people, looks like it came right from the White House. Of course, with the email spoofer, you don’t even need the Gmail account, but I like to use both.
Share Your Results
I’m interested in what you’ll all be sending to your friends/co-workers/family with this. Let us know, below, about the fun you had and any reactions you got. And remember… This is meant to be for fun with a couple friends. Ultimately, stuff like this can get tracked back you you if you do something illegal with it. You’ve been warned.
A couple days ago, I ranted on Twitter about how I was unable to even use 3G on my iPhone. Already unhappy with AT&T’s cellular reception, I was pointing my finger at the wrong people. It seems there have been a lot of complaints about the IOS 4.0 upgrade killing 3G and Edge data as well as MMS capabilities on the iPhone 3G S and that’s exactly what happened to me.
Why Does IOS 4 Break iPhone 3G S Data?
While some of my information comes from user speculation, some of it also comes from Apple support. The general consensus is that the IOS 4 software doesn’t support the Access Point Name (APN) from the 3G S 3.1.x backup. One person noted that Apple told them their old APN was corrupt, but it’s more accurate to say that some 3.1.x APNs are simply not compatible with IOS 4.
Apple’s Solution
Apple’s currently suggested solution will be fine for some and unacceptable for others. Essentially, their solution is to eliminate the problem APN in the way that involves the least amount of technical knowledge: a factory reset. The suggestion is to use iTunes to restore the phone as new which will download the factory IOS 4. The problem with this is that you will lose all your data, settings, emails, saved games, etc. On top of that, you’ll have to re-install every single application. This is the easiest way for Apple and AT&T to handle the issue from a support perspective, but it’s not a solution and it just creates a lot of headache for customers.
Apple Forum Community’s Solution
This solution was figured out by some iPhone users who didn’t want to wait for Apple to release a patch. It involves creating a new APN without having to restore the whole iPhone as a new install.
1. Make sure your iphone is connected via wifi
2. Head to http://www.unlockit.co.nz
3. Follow the instructions. It’ll need you to download a file.
The problem with this solution is that it doesn’t really fix the problem. It does get you back online with the 3G network, but does not fix MMS and you can’t connect to the App Store. While it’s a smart work around, it falls just a bit short.
The Best Solution Currently
Like the solutions above, this is just a work-around to resolve the problem for now, but it offers a decent compromise.
1. Backup your iPhone
2. Restore to factory settings
3. Restore to a backup you made BEFORE you upgraded.
The reason I like this solution over the others is that it restores full data access, MMS, Visual Voicemail, etc. Additionally, I recovered most of my email, account settings, bookmarks, text history, etc. I even got my photos back and my changed carrier ID that says “JoeTech” from when I was jailbroken. The thing that makes this not the best solution over all is that I still have to manually re-install each and every one of my Apps. I’ll look at this as a little house-cleaning, but it’s still annoying and time-consuming.
The Real Solution?
Ultimately, the real solution here is for Apple to send out a patch to fix the problem with IOS4 on older iPhones. Will this happen soon? I would hope so, but from what I’ve seen, there’s no official acknowledgment of this issue from Apple. I need my data now, so I’ve opted for the best work-around. If you can wait for your 3G data and do everything over wifi, that might be a better option as you’ll have an official fix and you will not have to re-install every app you’ve collected on your iPhone. If you haven’t upgraded to IOS4 on your 3G or 3G S, just wait until they sort out the bugs.
Before You Upgrade
Moving forward, we know that Apple will have another major software upgrade at some point, so we might as well prepare for it now. Here’s some things to remember before it happens:
- Wait a week or so before upgrading and let us eager beavers find all the problems.
- Back up often. Sadly, my handy old backup was a few weeks old, so my emails, texts, etc were too.
- Download Apps to iTunes, too. Once you’ve downloaded on your phone, grab a copy on iTunes. It won’t cost extra and now you won’t have to remember what all you had installed if this happens again.
- Upload photos and videos to YouTube, Flickr, etc., and copy notes and contacts before attempting these solutions, upgrades, jailbreaks, or anything that can wipe out things you deem important.
Have you tried any of the solutions above? Did it work? Have you noticed any other problems found another solution or have more tips? Share any of this with us in the comments below.
When I bought my first iPhone, the 3G model, I was making a big leap from Verizon to AT&T and I was astonished to hear that I could not get insurance coverage for my phone. I’ve largely been a phone dropper but I enjoy expensive smart phones, so I’d always taken advantage of the insurance option Verizon offered by way of Asurion. Without this option, I looked at alternatives and found none other than my home owner’s insurance with a deductible high enough to make it useless if only my iPhone needed replacing. Today, Asurion has announced MobileProtect, a program designed to insure your iPhone. It’s about time it happened.
Whenever you get insurance for, well, anything, it’s important to take note of what is covered and what isn’t. According to the MobileProtect web site, here’s what you can expect to be covered for your iPhone with their plans:
* Cracked Screen
* Water or Other Liquid Damage
* Loss
* Theft
* Accidental Damage
* Out of Warranty Failure
In the past, you’d have to hope that nothing happened to your iPhone unless it was a phone failure and was under warranty. Asurion finally offers something to rescue the rest of us, but it’s not cheap. In the past, I’ve paid about $8 per month and my deductible was $50. Under the new MobileProtect plans, you’ll pay $11.99 per month and $99 to $199 (depending on your iPhone model) if you need to make a claim. At $600 to buy a new one (without a contract), $199 seems a little high to me. If my 16 GB iPhone 3G S (16GB) were lost or stolen today, I could pick up a new iPhone 4 (16 G) for $218 with a new 2 year contract. To be fair, though, a new iPhone owner who is ineligible for a new contract discount and loses their new iPhone 4 will be able to save about $400 with the insurance plan in place as opposed to having to purchase a new $600 iPhone. Furthermore, it appears that this insurance is really only available within 30 days of your new phone purchase, making my first scenario not even possible.
Working with Asurion
As mentioned above, I’ve dealt with Asurion before. Having been a long-time Verizon customer, I had to file a few claims because I dropped my phone in the snow in Michigan, got rain IN another phone in Paris, and bounced yet another off the pavement. In each case, I was able to make a claim pretty easily and just sent the damaged phone in the return shipping they provided. Usually, they can have a phone to you within a day or so. Mine was always the next day, but it may depend on where you’re having it delivered. Replacement phones can often be refurbished phones rather than a brand new one. There’s a kind of stigma to that, but the only difference, really, is a sticker on the phone noting that it’s refurbished. I never had a problem with a replacement phone. Over all, my experience with Asurion has been pretty good.
Signing up seems to be a lot simpler now, too. Just download the free MobileProtect App from the App Store and sign right up. The only problem is that it looks like it will let you go through the whole sign up process before telling you if you are ineligible because your iPhone was activated more than 30 days ago.
Should I Get Insurance For My iPhone?
In a case like mine, with a year-old iPhone and new contract savings, the insurance plan is not much of a savings and not available anyway. For everyone else buying new iPhones, it’s a welcomed expense. Sure it’s 12 bucks a month, but when you need a replacement due to rain, snow, and my own clumsiness, insurance is an incredible thing to have. I’ve had all those things happen and each time, I was happy to be paying just a deductible compared to the full phone price to replace it.
What about you? Do you have a phone horror story to share? Leave it in the comments below.
What happens to your old dead hard drive after you’re done with it? Some destroy it to protect sensitive data. Some people just throw theirs away. Then there’s Ben Bedell, an artist with a techie flair who repurposes hard drives as clocks.
These are hand-crafted timepieces created from recycled hard drives out of personal computers. Each hard drive is disassembled, painted, and fitted with a timepiece and custom stand. Each unique stand is cut out of recycled motherboards, modems, video cards, and other various electronic components. No two clocks are the same!
Clock hands and hard drive components can be painted in a variety of colors:
- Black, White, Gray, Dark Blue, Blue, Dark Red, Copper
- Red, Orange, Neon Orange, Yellow, Neon Yellow
- Purple, Pink, Dark Green, Green, Neon Green, Teal
- Custom Color Combinations are available
Each clock comes with a “AA” battery so your clock will be ready to keep time.
The clocks run $30 to $40 and cost $10 to ship. That’s not bad for these geeky conversation pieces, but I emailed Ben and he was cool enough to provide a 10% discount to all my readers! Mention JoeTech.com at the time of purchase and he’ll knock 10% off the clock price. Throw one on your desk at the office and let me know what you think.
