When formerly-free phone-to-text service Jott announced they would start charging for its smartest functions this week, it caught a lot of fans by surprise. Good, free things can't last forever, but once you get used to adding calendar appointments and to-do items, emailing or texting friends, and even blogging directly from a phone call, it's hard to imagine losing those tools. While $4/month isn't an unfair price, many folks just don't shell out for web-based services—and, in many cases, they might not need to. Here are some of the best ways to capture your thoughts and to-dos while on the go from any cellphone, with or without voice transcription.

reQall has been the lesser-noticed phone-to-text service ever since its soft launch in January 2007. That's a shame, since it offers similar quality in transcription and a wider array of interfaces to access those notes. It doesn't have Jott's full complement of compatible webapps, because it's focused instead on serving as your personal server for no