Getting SMS text messages on your Mac or iPad may just be the holy grail for many Macbook and iMac users, but until now iMessage has not worked with messages sent from Android phones. If the person with whom you are messaging has an iPhone, then you can message them from your Mac with iMessage, but that has not been the case for texting with Android and other non-iOS phones.

Efforts to ban texting while driving don’t work. Heartfelt pleas from heartbroken parents whose children have died while driving and texting while in traffic don’t work. So maybe putting up billboards with pictures of drivers who are caught driving while texting while in traffic will work. At least, that’s the hope of Brian Singer, the founder of the TWIT Spotting site.

Reports are saying that WhatsApp users are leaving WhatsApp and signing up with an alternative to WhatsApp at an astonishing rate since the announcement that Facebook is aquiring WhatsApp for $19billion. While the WhatsApp outage that happened just a few days after the announcement hasn’t helped, most industry sources say that the international userbase is jumping ship primarily over privacy concerns, with users trusting neither the United States in general, nor Facebook in particular, to protect their privacy.

A lot of people don’t realize that they can actually send and receive text messages on their Mac computer. In fact, it’s one of the best kept “secrets” out there, which is too bad, because being able to type text messages with a regular full keyboard is glorious! So, here’s how to use your Mac computer, be it Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, or iMac, and the included Messages program, to send and receive text messages.

With the news of Microsoft acquiring Nokia, there has been a resurgence in the news of the terms “feature phone” and “dumb phone” (both as contrasted to a “smartphone” – and why is “smartphone” one word, but not “featurephone” or “dumbphone”?) So, some of you may be wondering “just what is a feature phone? And how is it different from a dumb phone or a smartphone?” We explain.

We all know better, but so many think that they have it under control, and can sneak “just this one text message” in while behind the wheel. And you know, you could get away with it. But you might not. That’s the hearbreaking lesson that the parents of Alexander Heit learned this month, when their son fatally crashed his car while sending that one text message. In fact, the crash happened with that last text half-written, waiting to be sent. Now Alexander’s mother, Sharon Heit, has released a photo of that text, in hopes that it will help people realize just how dangerous a practice it is.

The Wickr self-destructing message app (pronounced “Wicker”) gives you complete messaging security. This is because you can set your messages to self-destruct after a certain time, assuring that your privacy is protected. Wickr works with both email and text messages, and the intention is that the self-destructing Wickr message app will also be able to be used with services like Twitter and Facebook, one day.

VIPSafeToday.com is an outfit that claims to want to give you a loan – or even a payday loan – and they are letting people know by spamming their cell phones with a text message that reads “You qualify to get up to 1200 DOLLARS instantly at WWW.VIPSAFETODAY.COM – It takes only mins for approval. ‘NO’ to unsubscribe” This message is dastardly for several reasons – read on for the full information, and don’t text them “no” (or anything else) to ‘unsubscribe’!

The U.S. and U.K. both seem poised on the brink of allowing people to send text messages to emergency services, instead of dialing 911 (999 in the UK).

With the new “Do you owe over $10,000 to the IRS?” SMS text message spam making the rounds (ours came from 857-205-2199) we thought it would be a good time to remind you that cell phone spam (including SMS spam) is illegal, and there is a way to report it.

A recently released study has discovered that teenagers who do an excessive amount of texting are more likely to also be involved in riskier behaviors, including drinking alcohol, experimenting (or worse) with other drugs, and being active sexually, even to the point of promiscuity. This excessive texting is being dubbed “hypertexting”.

A new study released by the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI) suggests that laws which are aimed at curbing texting while driving not only don’t serve to reduce texting-related accidents, but, counter-intuitively, if anything such laws seem to lead to an increase in, if not accidents, at least the filing of accident-related insurance claims.

Recently some people have begun to question whether SMS is corrupting our language – have the confines of 140 characters forced people to rethink how they speak such that they use the shortcuts borne of texting even in non-SMS – even face-to-face – conversation? The advent of Twitter has surely pushed us ever more towards that linguistic evolution, and anyone over the age of 30 who has ever had someone, of any age, say to their face “OMG” (pronounced “oh em gee”) may well have asked themselves “Is SMS corrupting our language?” (or may have on the spot concluded that SMS is corrupting our language!) But not everyone – including some experts – sees it that way.

There is a series of SMS text message spams going around right now, from TM-GODSGIFT, that has people wondering. The messages from TM GodsGift say that you have won money – usually in the Coca Cola lottery or the Exxon Mobile draw. It’s all spam – it’s all a scam. You can ignore it – or you can report it. But whatever you do, don’t respond to a message from TM GodsGift.

We’re not sure what Miss Manners would have to say about the correct way to apologize to someone whom you’ve just shot, but we’re pretty sure that she would not say that it’s ok to apologize by text message. Then again, given that the victim might not want to see your mug – except on a ‘wanted’ posted with “apprehended” stamped over it – maybe she would. While this may sound like an “only in the movies” scenario, it actually played out in real life in Orange County, California.