I came across this absolutely fantastic overview from Webmonkey that shows you how to create an SMS notification application in no time. I reckon it would take me about 20 minutes, using their code samples, to knock it together.
If you’ve got a working knowledge of PHP, I challenge you to take 20 minutes and knock this together. You don’t need to be a programming demigod. If you setup your own WordPress account on some webspace, you can probably do this, no hassle.
The How-To uses mobile services company, TextMarks — one of my favourite American services. They take care of all the texting stuff.
All you need to do is a bit of code hacking. (i.e. cut, paste, publish, test).
I think this is brilliant, brilliant stuff. You too can create a Twitter clone, basically. The How-To (it’s actually a wiki page, so it’s editable if you’d like to improve it) takes you through creating a service that lets you query the sunrise and sunset times based on you texting a keyword and providing a city, state or zip.
This is exactly what UK companies Esendex and AQL should be doing. Wiki-how-tos that really let folk innovate without forcing too much thinking.
Does the lack of an incoming text charge make it less profitable to run a service like this in the UK?
Ewan, it's a great example and something we'll certainly be throwing into the mix at our development meetings.
We've recognised that demystifying the whole process for developers is key, though I have to say we do receive plenty of plaudits for the simplicity and performance of our APIs and SDKs already.
Our developer site http://www.esendex.com/developers has been revamped over the last few months and we've made all of our SDKs open source so it's very easy for developers to see exactly how to get the best out of our service.
We'll be launching a new web application in beta to our customers shortly and the great news for developers is that this is using the same API and SDK that any of our customers can use, giving them full access to the power of the Esendex platform.
Along the same lines… How to make a homebrew SMS gateway out of an old phone and an old PC by yours truly. I reckon I've done this enough times to get it down to taking about 10 minutes not including installing the OS 😛
Along the same lines… How to make a homebrew SMS gateway out of an old phone and an old PC by yours truly. I reckon I've done this enough times to get it down to taking about 10 minutes not including installing the OS 😛
Along the same lines… How to make a homebrew SMS gateway out of an old phone and an old PC by yours truly. I reckon I've done this enough times to get it down to taking about 10 minutes not including installing the OS 😛