Most mobile phones today are equipped with two ways to send the pictures you take with your camera phone to an email address: Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) also known as picture messaging and Mobile Email.

MMS is an evolution of Short Messaging Service (SMS) or text messages, that allows for the sending of multimedia attachments, such as images, audio, video and rich text. MMS is typically pre-configured on your mobile phone, and is what most people use to send pictures to email address. Most carriers market MMS as Picture Messaging, but they are both referring to the same thing. One problem many people do not realize is that most wireless carriers limit the size of picture messages sent over the their wireless network. This process of reducing the image size is called MMS resizing.

Some mobile operators give an option to turn off MMS resizing but most, especially in the U.S., do not. So even if you have a two, three or five mega-pixel camera phone, if you are sending your pictures using picture messaging, then you are probably not getting the maximum image resolution out of the images from your camera phone. Although not a requirement, the current standard recommended size of an MMS for wireless carriers is to not exceed 300 kb. This is due primarily to network limitations at the WAP gateway. Another common restriction for MMS is that only one image can be sent at a time. You will need to check your handset manual or call your wireless carrier to see if you can turn off MMS resizing. My experience with the major carriers here in the U.S. is that you cannot turn it off, and for the most part when you call, and ask about MMS or picture message resizing they do not know what you are talking about.

These MMS limitations take away from the quality of your pictures, your qipits, and limit you from creating a multi-page qipit on the fly. After all you paid extra for those increased mega pixels on your camera phone, and if you are sending the picture or scanning something, it is probably important to you. So you need a solution.

As an alternative, I suggest that you use Mobile Email to send your pictures and to create your qipits. Mobile Email is just what it sounds like, it is an extension of your PC-based Internet email, on your mobile device.

The advantages of sending your pictures using Mobile Email include:

• Full Size Images (The size of the images are not reduced or “resized”)

• Send more than one at a time (You can attach multiple images in a single message)

• Saving Money (It typically costs less, since you are charged only for the actual data sent, not by the message).

Of course, all of these advantages do not come without a little work on your end. Most mobile phones require some configuration to connect to your email account and some carriers charge for this capability. You cannot use the preset WAP or other browser-based email services, such as Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc. to send attachments, so these will not work. You will need to configure your POP3 or IMAP settings. It is very similar to setting up your email client on your PC such as Outlook.

Once you are setup, you will save money, time and get the most out of your camera phone. If you have configured mobile email on your phone, please share your experience as each carrier and handset is a little different.

~ Conrad