On this page we review services that send alerts and other forms of
messages that you want to receive in your inbox, including fax to
email servcies, voicemail to email, and alert services.
Voicemail Services
There are several phone and voicemail services that send alerts to
your email, or email receiving device, when new voicemail is received.
Some of these include an audio attachement with your email, and some
(Google Voice) will even transcribe the voicemail and send the
transcript. Among these services are:
Fax Services
There are also services that provide you with a fax number, and receive faxes on your behalf which are then sent to your mailbox. Among these services are:
Alert Services
The last category of services that I will discuss are the alert
services that send you e-mail notifications of particular events.
Most of these services are offered by companies with which you already
interact, such as airlines and banks. News services like CNN, and web
sites that aggregate news from other sources, such as Google News,
also offer services where you can sign up for email alerts for events
that match your search criteria. There are even real estate sites
that wil send you an alert when a property marching your search
criteria comes available on the market.
- Airlines - Most airlines offer flight status emails that send
alerts of the gate and scheduled departure times for flights on which
their frequent flyers are booked. There are usually additional events
that can be tracked such as flight arrival time, upgrade clearance,
and schedule changes. Check your airline's web site for the services
that are available.
- Banks - Many banks and credit card issuers will now provide the
ability to sign up for alerts for transactions above a pre-set dollar
amount, as well as alerts when you approach your credit limit or your
payment due date. Check your bank or card issues web site to find out
what alerts might be available.
- Real estate listing services - like
 zipRealty
allow you to set parameters for a search and they will notify you by
email when a matching property is listed.
- News alerts - Google news and CNN both allow you to specify search
terms and when news articles matching those terms are published online
you receive an alert.
- Home Automation Systems - Some home automation systems are able to
send alerts when partcular events occur. I have mine set to send an
email whenver one of my irrigation cycles completes.
- Security Systems - There are home security systems that will also
alert you by email when specified monitored events occur.
|
|
,
, or
.