How useful would it be to have the latest headlines at your fingertips any time of the day? What if these news stories, weather reports, or sports scores could be sent to your phone without you lifting a finger? Imagine being able to stay in touch with the world around you while you are on the go. Well, there is such a service, and the best part of it is that its completely free.

This article will explain how to take advantage of Yahoo's free Mobile Alerts service, which works with most cell phones and can be set up in minutes.

1. Get a Yahoo account

   Yahoo only offers this service to its members, but lucky for you, membership is free. If you do not already have a Yahoo account, head to Yahoo! now and sign up.

2. Setup Your Mobile Device

   You must give Yahoo some information about the cell phone you intend to use to use their mobile services. Yahoo will send alerts as text messages to any phone that can support them. You may be required to register your phone as part of this setup. Look for the link to start this process and step through the registration pages. When you have finished, your phone will be listed as an available mobile device.

3. Choose Your Alert Types

   After you have successfully logged into your Yahoo account, navigate to Yahoo's Alerts home page and click the "Get Started" button. You will be led to a page that lists a dozen or more alert types which are mostly self-explanatory. Try completing the process for a single alert before going crazy.

4. Configure Your Alerts

   You will be choosing from a list of alert categories including weather, news, stock quotes, auctions,
   sports scores, horoscopes, and more. The configuration for each type of alert is slightly different, but Yahoo does a good job of guiding you through the necessary steps. If you made it this far without specifying a mobile device on which to receive alerts, you may be provided with an option here to setup the cell phone before completing the configuration process.

5. Test it Out

   Based on your own frequency settings, you should begin to receive text messages with your specific information delivered right into your hands. After a few iterations, you may decide to go back and tweak some of the options. Over time you will figure out your own alert tolerance.

Useful Alert Examples

Some suggestions are provided below for your perusal:

• Have your local weather report sent to your phone first thing in the morning to help you dress accordingly.
• Have sports scores sent to your phone every half hour if you will not be able to catch the game.
• Have stock quotes passed along when there are significant movements in the symbols you are watching.
• Have the day's headlines delivered before you reach the office so you can have something to use during the morning coffee break.
• Have your spouse's horoscope delivered daily so you can better understand their moods or behaviors.

This is a tremendous service and will likely generate new respect for your old, boring cell phone. Experience has shown, however, that while alerts are indeed a cool new treat, they can get overbearing after awhile. You should probably expect to revisit Yahoo's page in the next few weeks and trim back some of the alerts that initially seemed so enticing.

Don't forget to thank the nice folks at Yahoo for this great - and FREE - service!