Optus takes IOUs from Pre-Paid Customers

Optus has just started to offer Pre-paid customers who have less than $1.50 in their account an extra $3 emergency credit rather than requiring them to top up straight away. When the user recharges next, the $3 will be deducted from the credit.

How do you get the $3 emergency credit from optus? Text "IOU" to the number 468 and $3 will be added to your account.

Conditions:
* Only available if your credit is less than $1.50.
* Your $3 expires in 3 days
* SMS is free
* Only applies to optus customers (obviously)

Gmail 2.0 Explains Mysterious Vibrations

Have you ever had the experience that you could swear you heard your phone ring or vibrate only to discover there were no missed calls or new sms? Perhaps its your newly installed Gmail 2.0 for Mobile. I've noticed that there is one feature of Gmail people don't seem to mention on other review sites, its the "notify of new mail" function hidden in the settings for Gmail. The unexplained vibrations could be your phone telling you that you have new gmail waiting. Of course this will only work if you leave GMAIL on.

So how do you leave Gmail running in the background on your phone? Press the HOME or MENU key to get back to the menu. Do not press the hang up button or else you exit Gmail.

How to pick your own mobile phone number in Australia

An interesting thing i noticed in Dick Smith Electronics the other day is that Virgin sells pairs of sim cards for $2. This marketing promotion is to encourage you to buy a sim for you and a friend, even with the two sim card envelopes addressed to you and the other one addressed to your friend.

The interesting thing is that the pre-allocated mobile numbers are consecutive numbers for example:

0449 751 000 and
0449 751 001

This may only be applicable to Australian users but just something to keep in mind if you are picky about having phone numbers that are easy to remember and you would choose the phone numbers based on that. If you know how you can select your own number in your home country, share your strategy here.

If you dont like Virgin Mobile, you could probably buy those sim cards, load up some credit and then port the numbers over to your preferred carrier.

For some Optus and Telstra resellers, they will take out their pre-paid numbers in their shop and allow you to choose the number that you want.

What? Gmail 2.0 Still Can't Save Attachment?

I've looked. You still cannot save attachments with Gmail for Mobile 2.0. The GoogleMobile and Official Google Blog both don't say anything about this but one wonders why attachments has been a deliberate omission in the Gmail applications.

One possible problem is the introduction of viruses when you can save files to your mobile. Excel and Word files can be viewed but not very well on the Gmail application. It would be easier if one could save (and then potentially edit) documents using QuickOffice. The only way of doing this is to ensure that you have another email application such as a webmail which you can access on your phone other than Gmail to download your attachments.

If we can get some response to the Google engineers, it would be good but for now just consider that they have our best interests in mind.