by , 7:30 AM EDT, August 21st, 2006

Cell phone text messaging is a convenient way to communicate with someone when speaking on the phone isn't appropriate. The process of entering a message on a cell phone's number pad, however, is less than convenient. If your Mac is handy, you can use iChat instead to send messages to your friend's cell phones. Here's how:

• Start by entering the cell phone number that you want to send a message to into the AIM field in Address Book. You'll need to add +1 to the beginning of the number, and don't forget to include the area code.

Add the cell number you want to chat into the AIM field.

• Now drag the Address Book contact card into your Buddy list in iChat.

Add a cell phone to your buddy list (left), and it shows up just like any other AIM contact (right).

Chatting with a friend's cell phone works just like chatting with someone else on iChat. Their phone even shows up as online whenever it is turned on. Just be sure to keep your messages short because some phones will clip the length to a specific number of characters.

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