Orangeman Burns - Sriram Sridharan's Blog

Here's a guide on using Google India's new SMS channel feature to get RSS feed updates and custom search results on your mobile phone via SMS. Hack this feature to get your email free of cost to your cellphone, delivered via SMS.

Step 1:
Log in to your Gmail/Google Account. If you don't have one, create it here: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount with Location set to India.

Step 2:
Go to Google India SMS Channels page: http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/

Step 3:
Register your nickname and use the select nickname button. Enter your Indian cellphone mobile number and hit send verification code.


Step 4:
You'll receive a code as an sms to your mobile phone. Just enter it in the confirmation dialog.

Step5:
To get your Email via SMS, set your email service to forward a copy of your emails to username@mailbucket.org. Make sure to obfuscate the username or your emails will be publicly viewable. as356ghjgs@mailbucket.org is a good idea. james@mailbucket.org is not.


The Mailbucket will create an rss feed from your emails. For example, if you forwarded your emails to 1337h4x0r@mailbucket.org, http://mailbucket.org/1337h4x0r.xml is your rss feed that contains your email.

To get updates of rss feeds or custom keywords, move on to the next step.

Step 6:
Click on Try Now in the Create Your own Channel section of the Google India SMS Channels page.


Enter a name. Any name will do. Like H4X0R or 1337KR3W. Make sure it's above eight characters.
Then enter the description. Just in case you create a zillion channels and don't want to be flailing around. Or obfuscate it so that only you will understand that it's your feed. Whatever floats your boat.

Choose a category and location.

Step 7:
For receiving Email via SMS and other sites' RSS updates, select the RSS/ATOM feed radio button and enter the url. For receiving Email via SMS and other sites' RSS updates, select the RSS/ATOM feed radio button and enter the url. Be it http://mailbucket.org/1337h4x0r.xml for your email or http://www.sriraminhell.com/atom.xml .

Step 8:
Select the "Only Me" to disallow anyone else from posting. Leave it enabled if you are creating a Channel for a discussion group.

Step 9:
For those opting to receive Email updates via SMS, select "By Invitation only" for privacy[We don't want the whole world reading your mails do we??].

For others, use the setting at your own discretion.


Step 10:
Agree to the ToS and click Create Channel.


Step 11:

Enjoy.

Click here to subscribe to my Channel:
http://labs.google.co.in/smschannels/channel/Sriraminhell

Note: Please exercise caution while using the SMS Channel to get Email as it may not be as private as your think The weakest link is probably your user ID at mailbucket. Gmail does allow you to get your mail as an RSS feed but it uses SSL and the Google SMS Channel doesn't support SSL encrypted feed as of now.

Please do leave your comments or queries in the comment section. Cheers!!

Edit:
I came across a couple of web services in the same vein. One is MailOnFeed . This would be a replacement for the MailBucket service used above. The site claims that MailOnFeed supports the following features:

• Support IMAP protocol.
• Unlimited email accounts.
• Private or public feed.
• Autodiscovery feed.
• Full text mail on feed.
• Plain and html email content.
• Simple webmail.
• Nothing to pay.
• Secure system.

Still, I see that SSL feeds are not supported. I have personally not used this service but there seems be be some kind of authentication system in place to further increase your email feeds' security.

I also came across a new site called Notify.Me . This site makes the whole conversion and SMS'ing process simpler by generating feed from your email account and sending it to your registered mobile device. I can also see that Notify.Me supports a whole lot more countries. However, at the time of writing, I couldn't add my mobile phone as a mobile device during registration. I have contacted the site to let them know about the bug and I'll update this post when I have more information.

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Labels: blog, cell, cell phone, email, free, google india, Google Labs, guide, hacking, mobile, rss. feed, sms, sms channels, sriram sridharan, sriraminhell, updates