Yup Eudora is great for quickly sending e-mails using ones Palm address book. Thanks MB, one learns new tricks every day.

BB

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That'sssssssss all folks!

BTW, Looking at Scott's TM2.1, which for me currently, works with Sprint, Cingular and Verizon, but not with Tmobile... I now believe that its brokenness with Tmobile has nothing to do with the other SMS problems that have been happening these past couple weeks. Rather I now believe that Tmobile probably changed its web interface. TM2.1 seems to go out to www.t-mobile.com to do its work whereas now I think you are supposed to go to wmg.tmomail.net. That's why its a little dicey to depend on these websites for messaging and hardwire them into these apps, as the websites will change anytime the webdesigner learns a new technique, or decides the colors don't look right... so the SMTP approach is probably better in the long run...

I tried to see what I could do with the current TM2.1 just by patching/hacking it -- I hope Scott doesn't mind. I've made the following changes:

- TM no longer does a mandatory Disconnect every time you leave the program, i.e. switch to another program, close the i500 flip, answer a call, etc.

- When doing a Lookup for a recipient, TM now only displays the Mobile phone numbers, not every phone number -- it cuts down on number of entries and pages one has to wade through by up to 4X.

- SMS to Tmobile wasn't working for me, presumably because Tmo changed their website. I patched TM to use SMTP delivery to number@tmomail.net, so I can now send to Tmobile again. Unfortunately, at least for the moment, I had to use an intermediate SMTP relay, so I'm using mine. It is possible that my SMTP relay may not recognize/authorize submissions from all parts of the US (let me know if this is the case).

- I also added an option to use as the "carrier" www.teleflip.com, a 3rd party free service. I had to hijack the Qwest entry to do this. The upside to this is that teleflip.com will transmit SMSs to nearly ALL carriers, and, without you having to know which carrier to use. The downside is that a 3rd party is now involved, and they stick their little one-line signature at the bottom of the SMS. Also it still, unfortunately, doesn't work with Synfonic.com (directory services).

Well, its the best I could do with limited time investment. Presuming that Scott isn't totally pissed off by this, if you want this patched version, you can d/l:

tm-hack.prc

Feedback welcome...

Well I made a few more patches to clean this up... The biggest change is that I eliminated the use of the intermediate SMTP relay (mentioned above). You probably won't notice the difference, but it is better this way. Also I relabeled the Teleflip entry to be "Auto" to reflect its importance -- that it figures out which carrier to send the SMS to.

If you plan to use the Auto/Teleflip option a lot, you may wish to read their website, at http://www.teleflip.com. Probably the most important note is that it is only free for the first 100 messages each month (but that's plenty for me)...

In digging around for fixing sending to T-mobile, it looks like Tmo has switched their textmsg website: they now have 2 such sites, one is apparently for customers only and requires a password. The big problem is that both require SSL now (https). I don't think Scott's TM will handle SSL without a bit of recoding (way beyond the scope of my efforts). So the patched SMTP solution is probably the way to go for Tmo.

Anyways, here is the revised patched version of TM, thanks again to Scott:

tm-smtp.prc

It's not like sms on my old Treo 650, but man it works. Thanks for the link/work.

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Rolling with Sprint since 3/99, and counting.

MBoy,

How do I know if I have successfully installed your patched version? Is there a difference in the version number or any other indication vs. Scott's latest version?

Thanks,

BB

PS: I500SMS seems still to be working, as well as it has just before 9/15. There was some concern that they make take down the server post 9/15. I check it by sending myself a test message whenever I use it these days, for it does not tell you it did not work if a message fails. BB

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That'sssssssss all folks!

Monkeyboy thanks alot for the jpeg help and YES TM now works great for me, really fast and effective.

Keeps us posted when you find a fix for T-mobile

Well I did relabel the last version (tm-smtp) as v21a instead of v2.1, but the easiest way to know is that if you hit the Carrier select pulldown menu, in my version, you'll see the option for Auto! instead of Qwest. Auto! is the option to use the www.teleflip.com service, which will send SMSs to any domestic carrier (apparently some Canadian carriers also!) without you having to know what the carrier is. Although the entry for Qwest has been hijacked, you can of course use Auto! to send to Qwest customers.

I500SMS still works... for Sprint destinations only, which is a big limitation for me. I've now disabled I500SMS completely from my i500, which incidently now reenables the Sort function in the Messages app. The notice on the PDAapps website is that the I500SMS "support" (does that mean server ?) will shutdown Dec 15th. We'll see... but I don't use I500SMS anymore... (sobsob...) I'd be even more pissed had I paid for it (I made Sprint pay for it, way back when...)

Tmobile should work now, in either of my two posted versions. Is Tmobile not working for you ? I was just commenting that Tmobile no longer works in Scott's original v2.1 release, a big part of my reason to patch it.

FYI, I am in talks right now with TeleFlip about adding support in the text messenger for an "auto" option that will "loop" through teleflip to determine the carrier. If we can work out a deal that doesn't cost me anything (ie. put their name/ad in the app, etc.) I'll change the options to "direct to sprint" and "auto through teleflip". Direct to sprint is worth keeping -- but it seems that an "auto" feature may be cool for the others.

*hopefully* teleflip will let me talk directly to their servers, without the email loop, which would be extremely cool...

_Scott

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i500 Headquarters (http://i500.nopdesign.com)
i330 Headquarters (http://i330.nopdesign.com)

Not sure if you're suggesting eliminating the direct to Cingular, Verizon, Tmobile, etc. Since Teleflip.com wants to charge $$ for service greater than 100msg/month, if one SMSs to someone on these other carriers frequently, then using Teleflip isn't ideal. Also, Teleflip does add their one-line ad to the bottom of each SMS.

So what do you see as the major advantage of avoiding the "email" route (SMTP) ? BTW, Teleflip's SMTP servers require a slightly different SMTP format than the others, in case you didn't notice.

(thanks again for creating this great app... now that I500SMS is nearly dead, its the only game in town)...

I'd like to avoid SMTP, since there is no confirmation the message was received or in the correct format. Using a direct network connection via another protocol usually let's me know if the message was accepted, and everything was ok.

I could keep the other carriers, and just add an "auto through teleflip".

I'm glad the app. is useful to you! I use it all the time, but all of my friends, family and co-workers are on Sprint, so I honestly only added the other carriers to help others who really wanted them.

Adding teleflip looks like an easy route to add the "auto" feature quite a few people asked for. Anyone have any thoughts on this -- is it worth adding? Any other gateways more valuable?

_Scott

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i500 Headquarters (http://i500.nopdesign.com)
i330 Headquarters (http://i330.nopdesign.com)

By "accepted" I presume you mean accepted by the server, not necessarily by the destination phone... I believe that at least some carrier's SMTP/SMS gateway servers determine whether the requested recipient is valid (a valid customer/phone number handled by that carrier) on the fly (at the time of the SMTP transaction) and reject the email if it isn't. So at least for some carriers, I think SMTP is as good as the "direct" method in this regard, but not all carrier's do this. I figured that was the original reason you didn't do SMTP in the first place.

The Teleflip servers, either SMTP or "direct", won't know whether the recipient is valid anyways, I don't think, since they need to hand it off to the appropriate carrier, so I don't think Teleflip can be sure about deliverability on the fly (at the time of initial submission), no ?

Is it worth adding ? Sure, but I wouldn't drop the other carriers. One of the biggest deficits is not being able to mimic real MO-SMS in the use of shortcodes and the like. Its always been disappointing that the i500 has/had no way of using, e.g. the GOOGL service, and while I500SMS could use synfonic.com, apparently Teleflip can't . So right now, the i500 can't do *any* SMS-based directory/information services. Finding a way around that would be great. If you're in contact with the Teleflip folks, perhaps you could ask them why their service can't do Synfonic (6504307183). And if Teleflip could work with SMS shortcodes, that would be even better. Finally, there is the issue of int'l SMS...

No it doesnt work, I get some message about "Provider replied with an error", Cingular and of course Sprint works fine works fine...

You think updating my firmware would fix it?

Are you using Scott's original TM 2.1, or my patched version "tm-hack.prc" or my patched version "tm-smtp.prc" ?

The original will not work, but both of my patched versions should (I just used tm-smtp.prc to send to Tmo this morning with success. If tm-smtp.prc doesn't work for some reason, try tm-hack.prc and let me know... Finally, you should be able to use the Auto! (Tflip) carrier choice to send to Tmo as well. If you don't have this choice available, you are using the original v2.1 (which won't work). And no, firmware update is not expected to fix the problems you're having.

Please let me know how it turns out...

MB:

Thanks for your answer re checking which version I have. Texting only to Sprint I500 is still fine for me but I have also tried your Auto version to know I have a backup. Thanks again.

BB

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That'sssssssss all folks!

I tried your idea and it still gives that same error.

hmmm... please be more specific about what exactly you tried... Did you d/l my patched TM file called tm-smtp.prc and install it in your i500 and then you tried sending an SMS to a known good Tmo phone number selecting the Tmobile carrier option ? And then you tried it again, selecting the Auto! carrier option ?

I deleted my version and downloaded your hack and smtp version tried a good T-mobile number and got that provider error. I didnt try the auto though...

Please try the tm-hack.prc and the tm-smtp.prc versions separately. They cannot be installed together. I would try tm-smtp.prc first. You do not need to explicitedly delete any of the 3 TM's. Simply install what you want to try on top of any previous one.

Still didnt work...