[ Home  |  Add  |  Delete  |  Help ]

This was a little project I started because the other reminder-type sites didn't seem to work with my phone. I read lifehacker.com regularly, and really saw how useful a tool like this could be...but my phone used to be under Nextel, and now it is under Sprint PCS. Since the existing services didn't work with my phone, I decided to build a better mousetrap.

How To Set It Up

This software is something you can set up on your own web server. If you have no experience doing this, then you should ask someone who does for help. There are two components. One is the application that runs on the server. The other is the application that runs on a local machine to trigger the scheduled messages. You will need to customize a few things to get this up and running in your environment. Click HERE to view the readme.txt that comes with the software, which should explain what you need to do.

Privacy

If you use this, there is the possibility that the person managing the database could read your messages. I toyed with the idea of AES Encryption, but it seems completely impractical since the messages would have to be decrypted using your password when they are sent out. Thus, there would be no way to automatically send messages on your schedule without you logging in and typing your password. That really defeats the purpose.

If you use the Grocery List feature, anyone can easily read your grocery list by typing your phone's email and appending "GroceryList.txt" to the end. Again, this feature isn't meant to hold important or potentially embarassing secrets.

The vbs that triggers the scheduled messages also writes a log...but only of what email address was sent and the message ID. The messages are deleted upon sending, and are never recorded. Really, the purpose of the log is to help you track down any problems.

This is one of the reasons why I decided to make the software open source...you can put it on your own web server, and encrypt or otherwise password protect it as you see fit.

How It Works

All of the cellphone providers in the US have e-mail to SMS gateways. So, rather than sending messages natively in SMS, this uses email. The "Add A Person" page has a reference of how to enter your phone's email address. Basically, you need to append your 10 digit phone number to a string like "@messaging.sprintpcs.com".

Scheduled messages are sent from the server by a Windows Script that runs natively on your own computer. I'm sure there are better ways to do this, so please open-source community, make it better. Otherwise, just schedule the vbs file on your machine.

Scheduling Messages

In the "When:" field, you can use the word "now" and messages will be sent immediately.

You can also use a date and time, like "7/26/2007 3:45pm".

There are several key words to make this easier. These words are "today" and "tomorrow". Use them instead of a date, if you want.

If you just put a date without a time, the system will think you mean midnight.

Managing A Grocery List

Really, this can be a list for anything. All you need to do is check the box next to the and then the software becomes a Grocery Manager.

In your message, just type the items you want to remember...they will be added to your grocery list. You can also type the following special keywords into the "Message" field:

• send - This will send your grocery list at the date and time you specify in the When field.
• clear - This will clear your grocery list
• view - This will open up your grocery list for you to view

Tips

• Put it on your desktop. Enable "Active Desktop", and add it as you would any website. This way, the software is always available on your screen.
• If you are running the Windows Script that triggers the scheduled messages, make sure you run the vbs script once on the machine that will trigger the scheduled messages. If there is a firewall, this should trigger that little message "something is trying to access the internet" that you can then say allow.
• Do you want your name to be automatically selected when the page is opened? Simply append the following to the address:
  ?smsTo=yourphonesemail
• Do you want to automatically select the Grocery List feature when the page is opened? Simply append the following to the address:
  ?GroceryList=True
• Want both features? Then you need to append:
  ?smsTo=yourphonesemail&GroceryList=True
• If you want to include a Subject in your messages, just uncomment the subject line from sendSMS.asp

[ Home  |  Add  |  Delete  |  Help ]