EXCELLATRONIC COMMUNICATIONS

Send free SMS from your mobile phone via GenieTexter

Ive written an application that lets you send SMS via GenieTexter remotely from your mobile phone, my application is basically an HTML webpage with embedded javascript. I decided to write it because a guy called Dean wrote a similar application, but it required 2 Java applications to be installed, one on the phone and one on the PC. My phone doesnt allow the user to install their own Java applications on it, but it can run webpages with embedded javascript and my phone can also send email (for free :) so I decided to write my own GenieTexter remote client that utilises those features.

The application lets you select the contact you want to send an SMS to and lets you enter the message, then when you click send, it pops open your phones email client and lets u send the specially formatted email to the POP3 email account that you have set GenieTexter to check. When GenieTexter checks the POP3 mailbox and finds the specially formatted email message, it deciphers it and sends off your message via SMS to the intended recipient.

Firstly if you havent already downloaded and installed GenieTexter, you should do that now, you then need to setup some SMS services and add some contacts to the GT address book, information on how to do this is available in the GenieTexter Tutorial.

Once you have setup GenieTexter goto http://steeev.cfdeveloper.co.uk/3mail/gt-phone-app.cfm
This is the page that will generate your custom GenieTexter Email 2 SMS client. You need to enter the POP3 email address that you are going to be sending your SMSes to in the first box, then you need to open your GenieTexter contacts file, the instructions on how to do this are on the gt-phone-app webpage, you then need to copy and paste the contents of that file into the other textbox, then click submit. Upon clicking submit you will be presented with 2 options, either to load the file or to save it, you should choose to save the file. Then if you have got an NEC e616v phone you need to email the file to your phone as an attachment. (You need to have already setup your 3mail account, if you havent see the phones instruction book).

Now you need to check your email account on your phone, but you must do this via the Services menu in the phones web browser (clicking the triangle key usually takes you to the web browser on most 3 phones) Then after going to Services you need to select Mail. Once you have selected Mail, you should bookmark this page, as it will make it easier to come back to in future. Tip for NEC e616v owners, if you hold down the button for a couple of seconds when clicking a link you automatically add a bookmark for that link.

Now you are in the webmail client, you need to go to the inbox, and you should have an email waiting for you. Open the email then click "View attachments" Then click on gtclient.htm, then click Download. If youve got a different phone you might be able to just copy the saved webpage directly from your PC to an area on your phone where you can open it in your phones web browser, as that is the ultimate aim of emailing the page to the phone. Anyway you should now be able to see the Email 2 SMS client in your phones web browser. Now that you have this set up. You should setup GenieTexter on your PC.

In order for this to work you need to have a PC that is connected to internet and running GenieTexter, and GenieTexter needs to be setup to check a POP3 mailbox. To setup GenieTexter's POP3 checking function, you just need to goto the Edit menu, then select POP3 setup. Then enter your POP3 email server, username and password, and make sure the "Jammy Client" box is ticked and also make sure the box for "Normal Client" is not ticked. Then click "OK". Now you need to put GT in pop3 checking mode, which you do by going to the "File" menu and selecting "Start POP3 Checking"

Now after all that you can try the Email 2 SMS application out. Go back to your phone and move the cursor to the Select Box under the Text "Send SMS To" and click on it, then select the person you want to send the SMS to. Once you have done that, move the cursor to the Input box under the text that says "Message" click on that then enter your message. Once you have finished, click the send button. You will now be presented with some options, you need to choose Number 4 (Email). You will now be shown the email compose window, with all the necessary data filled in for you :) All you need to do now is to click the send button and your specially formatted email will be sent to your POP3 email box that GenieTexter will be checking.

When GenieTexter checks the email account and sees your specially formatted email it will read it and attempt to send your SMS for you.

While developing this Email 2 SMS application, i found out that if the mobile number you want to send to is in International format eg +447xxxxxxx or 447xxxxxxx then GT's POP3 Email 2 SMS function wont work, it looks like a bug in GenieTexter, as you can only send to numbers beginning with a zero using this system.

I have only tried this application out on my own NEC e616v phone and it works fine, and dont know if it will work on others, I have access to a Nokia 7600 though, so I will test it out on that shortly too. I can see no reason why it wouldnt work on other phones too. People who might benefit from this application are people on the Three network, as at the moment its possible to send free Emails from these phones ;)

Steeev

UPDATE I just tested the app out on the nokia 7600 but it didnt work. It looks like the Nokia 7600's web browser doesnt support Javascript.

Posted by steeev to 3 - UK Mobile Network | GenieTexter | Mobile Communications | NEC e616v Mobile Phone

at January 27, 2005 03:48 PM