21.   But for most people who own one, the text messages are used for little more than displaying the telephone number of callers.

22.   A few start-up firms have spammed users in this way, either by purchasing phone numbers or by randomly sending text messages to phones.

23.   Cell phones that can exchange short text messages are also becoming common.

24.   Chikka is developing technology to allow a user to send a text message from the Web to a cellphone and vice-versa.

25.   De Guzman said his cell phone experiments have already taught him how to make free calls and send free text messages.

26.   Europeans, who have relied on digital cell phones for years, prefer to send short text messages by tapping on their telephone dialing pads.

27.   Farther from home, a Dubai husband apparently has divorced his wife by text message.

28.   Finally, newsgroups are a specialized part of the Net where folks use text messages to exchange information on a variety of topics.

29.   Having a pager that can display text messages is fairly common these days.

30.   I pop open the screen to read a text message from Dotcom Scoop, an Internet industry tip service I had signed up for.