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Getting notifications SMSed to your phone


CapeDoc

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I was playing around with trying to get notifications SMSed to my phone. Somewhere on the forums I was directed to this site, but I have had no joy when entering the info into the notifications set up page.

 

I did a test and emailed the number (from my personal email account) and low and behold I did get an SMS of the test email. I just can't get GC.com emails to be turned into SMS's.

 

I do get emailed notifications on my phone, but would like to share the SMS method with others (who don't get email on their phones) if I can get it right.

 

Anyone else had any joy? Please share how if you have.

:blink:

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I was playing around with trying to get notifications SMSed to my phone. Somewhere on the forums I was directed to this site, but I have had no joy when entering the info into the notifications set up page.

 

I did a test and emailed the number (from my personal email account) and low and behold I did get an SMS of the test email. I just can't get GC.com emails to be turned into SMS's.

 

I do get emailed notifications on my phone, but would like to share the SMS method with others (who don't get email on their phones) if I can get it right.

 

Anyone else had any joy? Please share how if you have.

:huh:

 

I've been trying to do this for quite some time now. At first it did work, but since then it seems that Vodacom has implemented filters which can somehow detect an autoforwarded email to number.

 

I've given up on this a while ago, but I think I'm going to try again and see if I can make it work.

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I know at least one of the local mobile service providers (MSPs) make a free email address available to subscribers, and SMS notifications can be received on incoming email to those accounts at no charge.

 

All you need to do, is to setup a MSP email, turn on SMS notifications, then direct your GC notifications to that email.

 

Voila!

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I know at least one of the local mobile service providers (MSPs) make a free email address available to subscribers, and SMS notifications can be received on incoming email to those accounts at no charge.

 

All you need to do, is to setup a MSP email, turn on SMS notifications, then direct your GC notifications to that email.

 

Voila!

 

Yes that would be vodacom as that site CapeDoc pointed to indicates. I tried sending myself a message and got the reply that I had to register which I did. You get to send 3 sms per day from the REGISTERED address. There for simply putting yourcellnumber@vodacom.co.za into the email address of the notification setup screen will not work as the originating Groundspeak email address will obviously not be an email address registered on the vodacom system. I don't think it is possible.

 

Of course vodacom say this is to provide you with a better service.......yes of course it is!

 

Even if this did work, it might be of limited use as the subject that is sent is included towards the 140 character maximum length SMS. The notification I forwarded to my cell phone from my own mail address arrived as an SMS but of limited value as there was not much info - the subject header had taken half the SMS.

 

The FREE solution as I see it. You have to have a machine that is online all the time receiving your notification alerts - perhaps best to set up a separate email address. On receiving a notification have it forward the notfication from your vodacom registered address. This is quite easily done in any mail client. This will be good for three SMS per day.

 

But the same problem of the subject taking up valuable message space applies.

 

Better solution but requires some "programming" . When your notification comes in you would have to parse the relevant information and strip out the fluff and then send the message to your phone without a subject.

 

I am not sure if the mail clients out there can do this so you might have to write your own interface program to do the parsing. Sending the mail would be trivial and if you know what you are doing so would the parsing.

 

Unfortunately I do not have the programming skills required but I am sure the solution is a short python (or insert your fave language) script away!

 

Battlerat - you up for it?

 

Trev

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Trev, you're probably right. SMS'd notififations are not easy.

 

For me, the next best way is to receive the email notifications on my phone, and a SMS telling me I have email.

 

The email can be immediately retrieved, the link clicked, and be on the cache page within seconds, downloading the GPX-file to import into your application, if needed.

 

Quoting from http://mail.mtnloaded.co.za: "An SMS notification for new emails will be (are) available as an option. Whenever a new email is received an SMS notification is sent containing the subject line of the email. The default setting for this SMS notification is off but you can turn it on (and off) via the web on the settings page. These SMS notifications are free."

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I have managed to hack together a python script that follows the methodology I suggested in my previous post.

 

It is rough and ready but works in principle.

 

Because my script is unsophisticated it would be best to setup a special email account just for the notifications. How you get the notifications to that email account is up to you - either have the notifications sent there straight from Groundspeak or filter them from you existing stream of mail and redirect them to the special email account. Forwarding might break my script so please do redirect/bounce.

 

The script checks a specific email address and downloads the notifications. It only does a brief check of the headers to filter on the words Notify and published in an attempt to avoid all other notifications and emails.

 

From the notifications I receive I deduced that all the info is contained in the first three lines of the body which unfortunately is sent in HTMLformat.

 

My script strips the HTML and takes just those first three lines and emails that to and address of your choice. This typically will be yourcellnumber@vodacom.co.za. This 3 line email with all the info of a new cahce is then delivered by SMS to your phone.

 

You need to have python installed - I used and tested 2.6.2 on windows and linux. Most linux distros should come with python installed Windows users can download from www.python.com.

 

The script does not attempt to delete emails and should not modify your inbox but you should be using your special account for this. Later the script will delete notifications as it sends them.

 

This is very raw stuff.

 

You will also have to schedule the script to run how ever often you wish. Linux users can use cron windows users Scheduled tasks.

 

The three python files can be downloaded from sativa.co.za/notify.zip Unzip all three in to the same folder and edit notify.py to include your details such as mail servers email account and password

 

DO NOT USE ON YOUR NORMAL MAILBOX nothing bad should happen but you will waste bandwidth downloading all the mail from your server.

 

This is really for other programmers to tinker with and comment on. Since I am keen to teach my self Python this is a nice little project to cut my teeth on so it should become useable fairly soon

 

Trev

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I have managed to hack together a python script that follows the methodology I suggested in my previous post.

 

It is rough and ready but works in principle.

 

Because my script is unsophisticated it would be best to setup a special email account just for the notifications. How you get the notifications to that email account is up to you - either have the notifications sent there straight from Groundspeak or filter them from you existing stream of mail and redirect them to the special email account. Forwarding might break my script so please do redirect/bounce.

 

The script checks a specific email address and downloads the notifications. It only does a brief check of the headers to filter on the words Notify and published in an attempt to avoid all other notifications and emails.

 

From the notifications I receive I deduced that all the info is contained in the first three lines of the body which unfortunately is sent in HTMLformat.

 

My script strips the HTML and takes just those first three lines and emails that to and address of your choice. This typically will be yourcellnumber@vodacom.co.za. This 3 line email with all the info of a new cahce is then delivered by SMS to your phone.

 

You need to have python installed - I used and tested 2.6.2 on windows and linux. Most linux distros should come with python installed Windows users can download from www.python.com.

 

The script does not attempt to delete emails and should not modify your inbox but you should be using your special account for this. Later the script will delete notifications as it sends them.

 

This is very raw stuff.

 

You will also have to schedule the script to run how ever often you wish. Linux users can use cron windows users Scheduled tasks.

 

The three python files can be downloaded from sativa.co.za/notify.zip Unzip all three in to the same folder and edit notify.py to include your details such as mail servers email account and password

 

DO NOT USE ON YOUR NORMAL MAILBOX nothing bad should happen but you will waste bandwidth downloading all the mail from your server.

 

This is really for other programmers to tinker with and comment on. Since I am keen to teach my self Python this is a nice little project to cut my teeth on so it should become useable fairly soon

 

Trev

And there was I, looking for a quick solution! Trev, when do you want to come round for a cup of tea and explain all that? ;)

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Likewise, MTN allow up to 5 SMS's a day, but the restrictions on sending seem to be the same. You have to register the cell number that you wish to send to and can only send from the "registered" address. This is the link for registration

 

www.mtn.co.za/MTNServices/MessagingServices/Pages/Email2SMS.aspx

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