How to do a mass text list or mailing list on an Android Phone

I just came back from a trip to Key West and I set up a mass text list for the 68 enlisted people that were out there with me.  I haven’t heard of anyone else doing it and it worked pretty good so I'm going to share it here.  I used this method to send out the phone numbers of our daily duty drivers, pass info on and since I was the Det LPO, I needed everyone's phone number in case there was a problem or someone wasn't where they were supposed to be.  This saved hours of time and we were able to change plans on a moments notice, almost like we had modern communication equipment! 

This works if you have an Android Phone (maybe Blackberry too, not sure about iPhones since I don't own one).  If you have an Android phone, you also have a Gmail account, I’ll put it together is steps.

This method is if you plan on putting the phone numbers in by hand (which I did)

11,         Go to Gmail.

22.       Click on the Gmail button on the top left hand of the screen.

33.       It will bring down a pull down menu, click “Contacts”

44.       If the contact isn’t a contact yet, you need to add them as a contact by clicking “New Contact”.

55.       After they are added, open up their contact card, click on the little crowd of people under the search bar that says “groups” when you put the curser over it and click “Create new” and call it what you will.

66.       Add names like that by opening up the contact you want on that list, clicking on the group icon, and clicking on the group.

77.       To send out mass txt’s by that method, open Messaging on your phone

88.       Click New Message, then Group and scroll down to the group you want

99.       Click on the names of the people you want to send messages to after you’re done, click Add.

110.   Type a message and send it

111.   MAKE SURE YOU HAVE AN UNLIMITED TEXTING PLAN OR YOU WILL REGRET IT!

112.   If you need to send something to all of the same people, just type anther message to them on the same string, you don’t have to click on the individual names again.

There is another method which theoretically should work that I’m going to try next time if I have all of the numbers on an excel file, I’ll export a group into an Outlook CSV, open that file and change all of the information to the numbers on the excel and Import it back into Gmail.

Google maps is a peeping Tom

I was at a friends house and google maps caught me in her front yard unloading my wifes car! I've only been there 2 or 3 times, I just wanted to show her how street view worked. Sheesh! What are the chances of that? Maybe big brother is following me around.


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Google searches and milblogging slackness

Sorry about the total lack of milblogging goodness, most of the serious issues in my military life right now aren’t things I would post about on the blog. Patient privacy, issues with people I work with or things they work on (not issues I have with anybody or things that I’ve done but things going where I’m at and dealing with other peoples lives, a nice way to have a blog shut down is post such things on the internet) and the regular boring drudge work.

I have purchased my plane tickets to the Milblog Conference in May and have reserved my hotel room, now just have to gather up the money for paying for that room, its slow going when you’re as far down the food chain as I am. Thanks to all of the people who hit the donation button on the right hand side, it’s made the drain on my wallet much more manageable!

Every once in a while I do a post searches people use on Google to get here and my latest count?

I’m number 6 for I hate my ex wife (I really don’t!), I get hit with that 5 or 6 times a day lately, the last guy viewed my page 5 times and spent 9 minutes and 53 seconds looking around. Hopefully he found some good advice to follow about not hating his ex.

Number 17 for Rosemarie Siggins, I blogged about her appearance in a TLC show that kept me up late one night. Sorry Rosemarie, no disrespect was intended by the post. Every time that episode airs I get 20 or so hits in a day. The people on TLC who keep me up lately are the primordial dwarfs, they sort of remind me of the Gelflings off of the Dark Crystal, if they make a live action remake of the movie. It would be great to give these guys the parts. (don’t get mad at me little people, I just think it will be cool)

I’m glad I’m not in the top twenty for Gigantiform cementoma or face eating tumor anymore, a lot of info has been put on the internet since then, spooky stuff, I feel for you people that are affected by this.

Still the number one for navy corpsman Iraq, yay, even though I’m just another body in the crowd of thousands of other corpsman. I have a decidedly non-heroic roll most of the time (swinging with the wing) but have had my share of saving lives and likely to have more in the future. There just aren’t many corpsman bloggers out there who are writing regularly nor have had a blog as long as I have.

11 for tall dogs tales and 17 for Del Mar dog beaches, reasonable, it is one of my favorite places.

I don’t know what I think about being number 9 for used packrat tool boxes or 41 for Costco tool boxes, I don’t even own a Costco box (but I do have a Snap On one from a prior life).

PTSD questions, number 3, sorry guys, I can’t give you all of the answers but I can point you down the right path.

Heh, number 12 for Irish Job, look under my Saint Patrick’s day entry for this year.

I like this one, number 41 for the drudgery of filing.

For some reason, I’m number 2 for navy blog, why aren’t Lex, Smash or Salamander in that list? They have more readers then my little blog does.

I have been watching the news and I do have thoughts on what's going on, I'm worried about the British Sailors and think that might explode into something bigger. What's going on in congress is something I'm interested in but I'm not making judgment, I just go where I'm told and do the best job that I'm able to. There are enough voices out there yelling for or against, I have readers from both sides who support me so I'll stick with my flipfloppish nature and read about both sides.

Hopefully soon, I'll have something of interest to post about other then house cleaning, dog beaches and cooking adventures, until then:)

Where I stand with Google

Just a brief post about some of the search terms people used to find their way here.

"sailors deployed in iraq not calling home" I'm somehow number one, yet I call home every day.

"soldiers cheating while deployed to iraq" I'm also number one yet if you know me, I worship the ground my bride walks on.

I'm number 15 for "spider video", ok, I can see that.

"Navy Iraq" I'm number 7, wow, do you know how many Sailor's are out here? Lots.

"navy corpsman" I'm also number 7

"iraq corpsman" I'm number 5

Okay, how in the hell did I become number 10 for "asshole cleaning slave"?!?!

Sheesh! Anyhow, my time in this wasteland is almost done, looking foward to returning to the land where there are other colors besides brown and seeing the color riot of my brides hair. Being able to take a regular bath and drink a beer at the same time. Eat pizza that actually tastes good and not having to put on a stitch of clothing. If you don't see me for a while, it's because I'm busy doing other very important things. Thanks for reading!