GSM Shield

I'm looking to use a GSM shield for machine to machine communication from an Arduino Uno to a cell phone. I'm looking for the arduino to text me and me it, perhaps to tell it to start running the code remotely. I was just wondering how this worked, what hardware I would need to do so and how it would be incorporated in to a code.
Thanks

check the GSM section - Arduino GSM Shield - Arduino Forum -

The threads in that section are rather specific. I am literally just after how to go about getting it to work, i.e. the hardware I will need and any libraries/initializing I will have to use in the code

The GSM library is included with Arduino IDE 1.0.4 and later. It includes 6 or 7 of examples.