Over the past few years, dozens of websites have sprung up allowing you to send text messages from your computer to a mobile phone. Unfortunately you have to pay for most of them, and the ones you don't either usually work or have other strings attached.

If you want to find out more, one site genuinely useful is TextMeFree, a portal that lists free text service providers for your region. It also has some pages of advice and information about the possible pitfalls of finding free text services.

Another service which expands on the idea of PC to mobile is Vazu. It's a service with various features, but its main use is to send information from your computer to your mobile. It's great for updating your contacts on your phone, but you can even send blocks of text from any web page directly to even a basic phone.