The call of the e-mail -- by cell through with Teleflip.com

I was away during the fires two weeks ago, but the website called Teleflip.com helped me stay in touch with friends through e-mail, even though I don’t have a BlackBerry or a Treo and I was away from my laptop.

What’s hot: Teleflip’s free flipMail service converts e-mails to text messages so you can get them on your cellphone. It was easy to set up with my personal e-mail account but didn’t work when I tried to configure my office e-mail account. You can configure settings so you get the important stuff, not a lot of spam.

What’s not: I got text messages for e-mails I sent and received. Though Teleflip.com is free for now, the text messages can get costly if your cell plan requires you to pay per message.