An awful lot of fuss 4 a B'day card

IT'S AN awful lot of fuss to go to just to send a birthday card but online service, Remind4u, has just gone mobile. So for £3 any Brit can receive a personalised birthday greeting on their mobile phone.

The concept is good. The snag is that in order to create the birthday card, it's necessary to have access to the web. Because the cards are viewed and personalised from a PC not from the phone.

There could have been a much wider selection of cards but then this service has probably only 'soft-launched' so far. Having satisfied yourself with the selection, it's then possible to send the card to anybody with a WAP phone.

That's just about everyone these days. Incidentally this service is strictly UK only at present. Having filled in the recipient's mobile phone number, the sender then supplies his or her own number.

That's because Remind4u charges £3.00 for each card sent. The charge is levied by a premium rate SMS (text message) sent to your phone. The system sends an authorisation text to your mobile so that nobody can just load your phone to send the card.

It's luck that "using their web-based Startxt account, the Remind4u.com team can monitor all transactions as they occur," according to the software supplier, Kodime.

That's because there's a definite bug at present. The system instructs the sender to reply to the authorisation with just the letter 'Y'. Actually it won't work unless you type 'Yes'.

There's also another option for the recipient to forward the received card as an email attachment. That didn't work either.

Luckily, the ability to save the card to the phone and then use it as wallpaper worked properly. The INQ isn't quite sure why the Fulham Football Club birthday card is the most popular choice, either.

Apparently a good looking woman called Carol Voderman is a shareholder in Remind4u. Which gives editors the excuse to run a picture of her. INQ readers have to be content with a cake. µ

L'INQ
Remind4u mobile
Kodime