Simply go to File > ‘New Chat with Person,’ and enter the phone number in this format [+16175551212]. When you send the message, you’ll receive notice from AOL that it was sent.
Yeah, there are many ways to do this. I believe you can do it within Gmail Chat, or you can do a Google search for SMS by email. One way is to use a service that does the dirty work for you (finds out your cell provider’s email address) and there are places that will give you the email, such as [cell number]@pcs.ntelos.net.
I do it on Verizon’s text site to send messages of more than a few words to my sons’ cellphones because I am not an adept and I also have to spell out all the words and use capitalization and punctuation. When I attempt textspeak, they laugh and call it “adorable” or “cute” and save it to show their friends.