vgsmail - a QX Telecom Ltd service

[geoff]

This is how it will work:

When you log out of MSN Messenger, vgsmail will notice this and login on your behalf. Then if one of the people in your buddy list starts to message you, all their messages will be forwarded to you by SMS. Obviously, you can reply to them either by normal SMS (for which your network provider will charge you accordingly) or through the vgsmail system (which is free aside from the minimal GPRS charges).

MSN provide this functionality in some countries, but at a premium SMS rate. We don't charge any more than the normal vgsmail SMS rate.

This feature be coming very soon, and I'll be need some testers. To volunteer, please go to your vgsmail account on the web and put in your MSN password under 'account setup'. Nothing will happen immediately: I will post here when it goes live (probably tomorrow or the day after).

Geoff.

[geoff]

Right, I think it's ready for testing. Here's how to use it:

1) go the the vgsmail webpage and under the 'account setup' enter both your MSN userid and your MSN password.

2) when you are away from your computer, send an SMS to 447791892547 with the command 'login'. This will tell the vgsmail robot to log in to your MSN Messenger account and start receiving messages on your behalf.

NOTE: If you are logged in to your MSN Messenger account from elsewhere, vgsmail will not log you in. The vgsmail robots will automatically log you in whenever you are not logged in from elsewhere, so you can leave the system in this state and whenever you leave your desktop just remember to log out of Messenger and vgsmail will detect this and log in again for you.

3) to turn off the vgsmail robot, send an SMS to 447791892547 with the command 'logout'.

A couple of notes:
1) You MUST have a mobile phone authenticated before this will work
2) If there are any other accounts on the vgsmail system registered to the same mobile phone number, this will not work.

[geoff]

To send messages to the robot, send them to "447791892547". If you send these via vgsmail, they are delivered free!

- To find who is online, send the command 'who'.

- To find who is online (whether they are tagged as 'away' or not), send the command 'who all'.

- To start a conversation, type 'send'. Follow this with the name of the person you wish to converse with and then the message you wish to send. The matching is 'fuzzy', so if you have a buddy called "Joe Bloggs", you could initiate a conversation with them with:

"send joe Hello, I'm out shopping"

- Any 'active' conversations will be allocated a shortcut number. So when Joe first sends you a message, it will appear on your phone as

"Joe Bloggs (5): Hello, are you there?"

which means that in the future you can send messages to Joe by simply sending

"5 Yes, of course I'm here!"


Here's an example of a conversation. Messages sent by me from my mobile phone are in 'green', messages received by me as SMS are marked in 'red'.

send Fred Hi Fred, want to come to the pub?
Fred Smith (1): Yes, I'd love to come. I'll tell Pete.
1 Ok, see you in 10 minutes.
Pete Jones (2): Fred says you're in the pub. Can I come too?
2 Hi Pete, of course you can.
2: Ok, see you there.
1 Pete says he's coming.

[geoff]

BTW: just thought I'd point out that this service is pretty much identical to the "SMS Messenger" service run by MSN themselves, but significantly cheaper:

- Messages TO the server are free (if you send them using vgsmail);
- Messages FROM the server are charged at the standard vgsmail rate (which is much cheaper than MSN).

Added to that, the MSN service isn't available in most countries yet, although it's apparently 'coming soon'.

Geoff.

[geoff]

There's been a distinct lack of interest in this feature... I personally think this is the coolest feature I've implemented so far . But seriously, I've been using it for a week now and it's great! I actually use webmessenger (http://www.webmessenger.com/index.jsp) most of the time, but it's nice that the vgsmail bot takes over when I turn that off or go out of coverage.

And while I'm at it, a command I forgot to document:

status away
status busy
status online

Obvious what they do...

Geoff.

[mjadams]

It's a great idea - just about to start playing with it!
Can we have one for ICQ too please?

[Reborn-Network]

Sounds cool. me and steeev where wonderin. is this a msn bot made for perl?..
_________________
Darren Cook
GenieTexter Staff

GenieTexter.co.uk

[geoff]

It is...

[geoff]

I'm hoping to include the following protocols over the next few days, as I have managed to wrap gaim in a nice little perl script.

Oscar
Yahoo
IRC
Jabber
Zephyr
Gadu-Gadu

[rcal]

If you can add Jabber and Oscar I will be a very happy man!

[rcal]

I have realised that if someone sends me an instant message they get back the reply

"Your message has been forwarded to your party via SMS (see http://www.vgsmail.com for details) and therefore they might take a few moments to respond. Please be patient."

Is it possible to configure this so that a message is not displayed if so desired? e.g. something like:

message on
message off

It would be useful as I don't always want people to know that I am messaging via my phone.

[geoff]

They only get that message at the beginning of a conversation. But yes, I could make it user-configurable if that's what you really want. I prefer it personally as I don't want people thinking that I'm very very slow at typing.

Of course, it also provides a tiny bit of advertising for vgsmail.

In the meantime, I'll disable it completely for your userid.

Geoff.

[rcal]

Thanks Geoff, much appreciated.

Ideally being user configurable would be the best option (assuming it isn't too much work for you). I could see situations where it would be useful to display such a message.

[rich]

Geoff, slow take up might be because folk don't know it is there! I have not been to this forum in a while so just found out about it!

Can you send out emails when these features are set up.

I am going to sign up for it right now!

Rich

[geoff]

Yeah, I was waiting until I had completed the other IM networks before I really announced it officially.

Hope it works for you...