Google and GMail

53

Instant 411 You can perform basic Google searches from a mobilel phone in the US by sending text-message queries to 46645 (GOOGL). To search for general services in your vicinity, type a word of description followed by a period and your city/state or post code (sushi.10018). To get the weather, use the same format preceded by the word "weather," or for addresses and phone numbers, by the name of the business. You can even get driving directions by typing from followed by the post code of your starting point and to followed by your destination's post code -- for instance, from 10016 to 10018. You'll receive text-message responses free of charge (depending on your carrier's text-messaging plan) within seconds.

54	Create a virtual drive Turn your GMail account into an Internet hard drive with Softpedia's free GMail Drive shell extension 1.0.5. This app adds to your PC a virtual drive that uses your 2GB of GMail storage space.

55

GMail calling Can't live without e-mail? Have your GMail sent directly to your mobile phone as a text message. Log on to your US account and click the Settings page. Select the Forwarding and POP tab, then the radio button labelled "Forward a copy of Incoming Mail to." Enter your mobile phone's e-mail address, and click Save Changes. Verizon customers, for instance, would enter their 10-digit phone numbers, followed by @vtext.com. T-Mobile users would enter @tmomail.net, and Sprint customers enter @messaging.sprintpcs.com.

56	Lost in translation? Need to translate text? Head over to Google Translate, paste the text into the field and make a selection from the drop-down menu. You can also insert URLs to translate Web pages.

57

Personalise your news You can customise Google's news page at news.google.com by clicking "Customize this page." Delete sections, increase the number of stories shown, and even add news categories of your own. To view your customised page from any computer, click the link "Share your customized news with a friend" at the bottom of the page, and e-mail the URL to your Internet-based mail account.