Back in 2008 I posted an article which included a list of prefixes to use before SMS text messages to ensure that you get a delivery report. A delivery report is an sms message to confirm that your original text message was delivered successfully to the other persons handset.

I posted the list because the iPhone didn’t (and still doesn’t) have a function that allows you to get delivery reports. This used to be a popular feature with Nokia and other brands of mobile phone.

My original article is here http://www.thinkjim.com/2008/07/sms-delivery-reports-on-iphone-3g.html

This list has gradually grown as people have contributed and now includes SMS prefix codes for networks around the world. Whilst this is useful for iPhone 4, iPhone 3 & 3GS users, I also think the list has value to other smartphone and cellphone users, so I’ve decided to duplicate the list and maintain them both in parallel.

Hopefully this new article will be easier to find for non iPhone users on google etc.

UK Mobile Networks
O2 prefix *0#
Orange *0#
T Mobile prefix *0#
Virgin prefix *0#
Vodafone (unconfirmed) – *NOT#
Tesco Mobile *0#
Channel Islands; Jersey Telecom *0#

US and Australia Cell Networks
US T–Mobile prefix *noti#
Australia Three *not#
Australia Vodafone – No code exists

European Mobile Networks
Belgium Base prefix *N#
Belgium Proximus prefix *R*
Czechoslovakia o2 prefix YYYY
Denmark prefix *0#
Denmark Bibob prefix *KV#
Denmark Three prefix *NM#
Estonia Tele2 prefix *T#
Estonia Elisa prefix -K-
Estonia EMT prefix *0#
Finland Sonera prefix *0#
Germany T-Mobile *T#
Germany Vodafone D2 prefix *N#
Germany O2 prefix *N#
Germany e-plus prefix *N#
Greece Vodafone GR prefix *#
Greece Wind prefix *0#
Greece Cosmote *0#
Holland T-mobile prefix NM#
Hungary T-mobile prefix **0#
Ireland O2 prefix *R*
Ireland meteor prefix *R*
Italy Wind prefix *n#
Luxembourg Tango prefix *0#
Norway Telenor *k#
Poland PlusGSM prefix XYZ
Portugal Vodafone prefix *NOT#
Romania Orange prefix *NOT# or *NM#
Slovakia Orange prefix *?#
Spain Movistar prefix *N#
Spain Yoigo prefix *N#
Sweden Telia prefix *KV#
Sweden Comviq prefix KV#
Sweden Telenor prefix ##
Sweden 3 prefix *kv#
Sweden Tele2 prefix kv#
Switzerland Sunrise prefix #*#
Switzerland Swisscom prefix *NOT#

Other Mobile Networks
Vodacom / Mtn prefix rrr
Singapore SINGTEL prefix #R#
Brasil Oi prefix *N#
Brasil Clario prefix *N#
Israel Orange prefix NM#
India Vodafone prefix *NOT#
Qatar Qtel prefix *N#
Maxis Malaysia *N#
Egypt vodafone prefix *VF#
Egypt Mobinil prefix *NM#
India Ideal prefix YYYY
India Vodafone prefix *NOT# or *N#
Lebanon MTC Touch prefix *N#
Angola Unitel prefix *N#
Algeria Djezzy prefix *N#
Indonesia telkomsel prefix *N#
Indonesia Satelindo prefix R#
Serbia Telenor prefix *!#
Serbia MTS prefix *!#
Croatia T-Mobile prefix *r* or *r#
Croatia Tele 2 prefix *R*
Croatia VIP prefix !
Turkey Turkcell prefix *N#
Bangladesh Grameenphone prefix YYYY
UAE prefix *N#
Greenland (Tele Greenland) prefix *!#
Bangadesh banglalink prefix *n#
If you have other codes, please post them in the comments and I will add them. Thanks!

After a Getting Things Done micro-seminar given by a friend, I took it upon myself to start learning about, and introducing, GTD into my life. I’m not an expert but a few simple changes have made a huge difference already. One of these is how I manage and organise emails.

photo credit: Yodel Anecdotal
I now know what needs action, what I’m waiting on, where reference emails are stored and I don’t keep lots of emails unnecessarily. The system helps me manage my emails. It works with email clients and webmail (so outlook, Apple’s mail, thunderbird, gmail, yahoo mail etc. you name it) and the simple structure can be used at home as well as in the office. Organized emails!

New Folder Structure:

Here are the mail subfolders I have created under my ‘inbox’ and their descriptions. Placing an @symbol in front of the folder name causes it to appear at the top of the screen, so it puts the important folders first

@ Action – emails/items/tasks that require me to do something
@ Read or Review – emails that take me more than two minutes to read
@ Someday Maybe – things I may look at in the future, not right now. For instance training courses I’m interested in.
@ Waiting – emails where I’m waiting for a third party to reply/perform an action etc before I move this email elsewhere.
Current Year – Contains organized sub-folders with each of my current projects. These project folders contain the emails I really need to keep.
Archive (at the end of each year I move the ‘current year’ folder (and it’s subfolders) into the archive and rename it 20XX). I then create a new ‘Current Year’ folder for the new year.

The Rules

Here are the rules I follow in order to process and deal with my emails on a day to day basis:

1. As soon as an email arrives: it is moved into one of the subfolders below the inbox, read or deleted. If the email is going to take more than two minutes to look at I immediately file it into @ Read or Review. No exceptions.

2. I only keep emails I think I will really, really need in the future. These emails are moved into an appropriate project folder under Current Year. This is usually after they have been in the @ Action, @ Read or Review or @ Waiting folders for a time. If I’ve had a ten-email conversation with someone I may only keep one of these messages if I really think I will need it for reference in the future. I used to keep them all. Keeping unnecessary emails clutters up the system and makes it harder for me to find the emails I really need.

3. I delete emails more than I keep them. I used to keep everything in my inbox and sporadically move emails into a project folder or an archive folder. I had so many emails in my inbox I had no idea what I needed to action and things were sometimes lost or forgotten. I kept thousands of messages in my archives that I didn’t even need.

4. I allocate myself blocks of time each day to process the @Action and @Read or Review folders and also check or chase @waiting emails.

How I implemented this system

1. I started with a clean slate: I moved all of my existing inbox emails, folders and subfolders into a folder called ‘old-system’.
2. I created the new folder structure.
3. I started processing new emails using the system immediately.
4. I sorted through my ‘old-system’ folder gradually. I allocated a block of time each day to sort through these old emails. I went through all of the old messages and folders, deciding what I really needed to keep and either moving the messages into the new system or deleting them altogether. It took some time, but I knew I was keeping on top of all my new emails.

Simple as that! This system works well for me. If you can recommend any improvements, please comment below! For non GTD’ers I would recommend you read Getting Things Done, by David Allen.

A lot of people ask me about how to OSX print screen (i.e take a screen grab in OS X) and also how to take a print screen in Windows XP/Vista. I know this has been covered before but I thought I would put up a little post up….

OS X Print Screen

In OSX you press [and hold] the apple command key, hold shift and then press either 3 or 4 (what does the command key look like?… click here). Here are the most commonly used options:

Capture Entire Screen: Command + Shift + 3

Capture Selected Area: Command + Shift + 4;  then click [hold] and drag a box around the area you wish to capture. Once you release the mouse button the image will be captured.

Using the above key combinations will cause OSX to take a screen grab and then store the file to your desktop. The first screen shot will be called Picture 1, and then further screen shots will be named Picture 2, Picture 3 and so on.

Windows Print Screen

Windows print screen copies the captured screen to the clipboard. Once you’ve done this the image can be pasted into a document using your application of choice (e.g Word/Wordpad etc.) by selecting >edit >paste from the toolbar or by pressing ‘Ctrl’ + ‘V’. There are two types of screen capture:

Capture Entire Screen: To take a screen capture of the entire screen in Windows 9x/XP/Vista simply press the ‘PrintScrn’ button. This takes a screen grab and stores it to the clipboard.

Capture Current Window: To take a screenshot of the current window (not the whole screen) in Windows 9X/XP/Vista hold down ‘Alt’ and Press ‘PrintScrn’.