SMSRelay Suite: Website Work

I wanted to add Google Analytics to my website. Simple. Not so with iWeb, which I had used to create the website. Fortunately Echo One provide an Automator plug in to help with this task. The plugin can be downloaded here.

It is simple to install and works great, the only problem is that you have to remember to run the Workflow against the website folder prior to uploading it to your live website. So using Automator it is very simple to add the upload (by automating Transmit) to the Workflow. This means that to add Google Analytics tracking code and upload all the files to my website can now be done just by right clicking the local copy of the website folder.

Automator is great, I wish I had more time to play with the features, I think they could save me a ton of time. Below is a screenshot of my ‘Add Google Analytics and Upload’ workflow:



Incidentally, if you wish to open the workflow again later for edit purposes it is saved in the rather unwieldy location:

/Users/myname/Library/Workflow/Applications/Finder

"Dreams come true. Without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them." - John Updike

SMSRelay Suite: Nearly There

The coding is now complete for my SMSRelay Suite project. The last couple of days have been spent on documentation and the website, with lots more work on the website required :-)

There are lots of features I would have liked to add before release but I think it is important to get *something* out there. Extra features can be added later. Some of the features I intend to add in the next release are:

Save the Messages to a Hierarchal Structure
Scheduled, Repeating SMS Text Messages.
Convert to ‘Txt Talk’ ie: ‘before’ to ‘b4’, later to ‘l8r’ etc.
Save / View / Analyse and Export History
Accept SMS Replies
Etc.

The website is here: http://www.artenscience.co.uk

A Trial Version of the software can be downloaded here: http://www.artenscience.co.uk/autoupdate/latestversions/smsrelay.zip

The documentation can be downloaded here: http://www.artenscience.co.uk/autoupdate/documentation/smsrelaymanual.zip

The client software is zipped individually for each platform and can be downloaded from the links below:

ArtenSMS Client for Windows

ArtenSMS Client for Macintosh OSX

ArtenSMS Client for Linux

SMSBatch Client for Windows

SMSBatch Client for Macintosh OSX

SMSBatch Client for Linux

If any of the ‘30 Dayers’ would like a free of charge license for SMSRelay Suite, let me have your name, company name and address and I’ll send you a license file over.

"I must govern the clock, not be governed by it." - Golda Meir

SMSRelay Suite: Quick Update

Well, I solved my Linux ‘button display’ problem, it only happened under certain (rare) circumstances so I was able to implement a work around - so all is good with the world :-) Tomorrow I am concentrating on documentation ... wow, the fun never stops :-)

"There is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero." - Walt Whitman

2 x Book Reviews

I’ve been reading books at a rate of knots recently and the two most recent are:

High Stakes No Prisoners - A Winners Tale of the Internet Wars



and

Showstopper! - The Race to Create NT



Showstopper is a book about how Bill Gates recruited Dave Cutler from Digital and asked him to head development of the next Windows Operating System, Windows NT. This book is very well written, exciting and moves at a good pace. Although the subject matter (NT) is old, the lessons learned are still applicable today. Dave Cutler was an old school coder, a macho tough guy who made things happen and pushed NT through to release over 5 years and $150 million dollars. Deadlines, politics, bugs and in-fighting - it’s all here. This is for anybody interested in Microsoft, Software or just likes to read about a huge struggle and a triumphant ending. Recommended.

High Stakes No Prisoners is a different kind of book. It chronicles the story of Vermeer, the company that created Frontage and went on to sell to Microsoft within two years for $140 Million dollars. Written by Charles Ferguson (founder of Vermeer), he pulls no punches in his descriptions of the people and the events that surrounded his successful startup. Sometimes it seems to me that Mr Ferguson and his ego got in the way of a good story a bit, but overall it’s reasonably well written and entertaining enough to be read over a weekend. Interesting and detailed but maybe not that relevant anymore.

"If you do not wish to be prone to anger, do not feed the habit; give it nothing which may tend to its increase." - Epictetus

SMSRelay Suite: Linux Testing Etc.

I’ve been using Ubuntu Linux recently for testing the Linux versions of my software. The ideal way of doing this for me has been to download a Virtual Appliance from VMWare and run this under Fusion on my Mac. This works extremely well. With a new version of Fusion a couple of weeks ago my Linux VM was telling me that my VMWare Tools were now out of date.

It’s not immediately obvious how to update the VMWare Tools, the following method is what worked for me:

Load the Ubuntu VM and log in

Select Update VMWare Tools from the Fusion menu

Drag the VMWareTools-X.X.X-XXXXX.tar.gz file to the /tmp directory

Double click the VMWareTools-X.X.X-XXXXX.tar.gz file and drag the vmware-tools-distrib folder from the archive into the /tmp directory

Open a terminal window and type the following: cd /tmp/vmware-tools-distrib

Type: sudo ./vmware-install.pl

Enter your root password

Press RETURN to accept the default response to all the questions asked by the installer

When the installer has finished, type: vmware-toolbox & to run the VMWare Tools

I do have a problem to solve however. Under this particular version of Ubuntu my dialog buttons aren’t displaying correctly, but the buttons on my form are rendered fine ... This might be a tricky one to overcome as I don’t think I have much control over dialog buttons. Until I solve this it could turn out to be a showstopper for the Linux versions of my software, at least with this version of Ubuntu, unless it’s a screen resolution, DPI type problem ...

On a lighter note, here’s a screenshot, and I can definitely recommend the KAsteroids game :-)



"A raise is like a martini: it elevates the spirit, but only temporarily." - Dan Seligman

SMSRelay Suite: Flyer Feedback !

A couple of posts ago I uploaded an early version of a flyer I am creating to advertise my SMSRelay product. I’ve had loads of feedback via email and it was all useful. The best one however came from my former boss, a company owner and entrepreneur who included the following sentences in his evaluation:

The product’s great but you’re no more a Graphic Designer than I am

and ...

Don’t forget you buy with your eyes !

Harsh ! this made me laugh out loud. I recognised the truth in what he was saying immediately, that’s what I call honest feedback - no sugar coating at all :-) I’m not going back to the drawing board on this however, I had a lot of other great suggestions which I am going to incorporate and then run with it. It’s the classic ‘Chicken and Egg’ situation, but I would like to earn some revenue from this product before I spent more money on professional artwork and design.

I have had a professional Graphic Designer working on my company logo however. The image below is where we are with it at the moment. I would appreciate any comments on this logo, this is something I do need to get right. What do you think ?



"The world is not yet exhaused; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before." - Samuel Johnson

SMSRelay Suite: SMSBatch

Today I managed to sit down for a few hours and code SMSBatch. SMSBatch is a cross platform utility that is designed as part of the SMSRelay Suite. The purpose of SMSBatch is to allow a single SMS message to be composed and then sent out to multiple people. An example of this would be informing your customers or suppliers of something important or urgent, a move of premises perhaps.

At the moment SMSBatch supports an import of Names and Telephone Numbers from either CSV or TAB delimited files. Once the list is imported and the message written it can be sent to all the contacts highlighted in the grid.

To make the message personalised I have incorporated a ‘placeholder’ option. If the text [Name] is found within the message it is substituted with the appropriate contact name when the message is written.

SMSBatch is shown below: (Mac OSX Version shown)

SMSRelay Suite: Flyer, 1st Attempt

So today I attempted to pull together a draft ‘flyer’ document. The sort of document I can include in a mailshot or give to interested parties. Graphics and design are not my strong suit but that doesn’t stop me trying. Below I have enclosed an image of what the document looks like currently. It will of course be tweaked over the next couple of weeks, and the logo for Arten Science is still not final but overall I am quite pleased that I have at least *something* :-)

Tomorrow I am back to my IDE for some more programming, the clock is ticking ...

SMSRelay Suite: Back Online ...

Time flies. A combination of a 5 day break with the family, meetings with customers, Chamber of Commerce events and a sudden lack of network access within the home office has all meant that virtually nothing has progressed over the last week or so. I’m intending to put in the effort again soon, starting tomorrow. I’m going to concentrate on some promotional / marketing stuff first and then get back to programming hopefully by the end of the week.

I hope the rest of you ‘30 Dayers’ are doing better :-) I’ve caught up with my blog reading today and there seems to be some incredible software being developed.

"Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry." - Spanish Proverb

SMSRelay Suite: Quick Update

The ArtenSMS client application now has an AutoUpdate function that checks on startup (subject to preferences setting) for the latest version and offers the user the option of downloading an update. I have also included a ‘Check For Updates’ menu option. The client application is written in REALbasic and this now works well for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, only downloading the version for your specific platform.

The main program, SMSRelay is written in VB.net so at some point I have to investigate how .NET handles HTTP so that I can use the same infrastructure at the server end regardless of the code I have written the application in. Once that is done however I will have reusable code for handling online updates for .NET and REALbasic for the three operating system platforms.

One area I am struggling with is the visuals, screen layouts, colours and icons ... I have the graphic design skills of Stevie Wonder, I may have to enlist the help of a former Jedi Apprentice who used to work for me ... :-) If you are reading this Danny - what do you think ? :-)

"Brains, like hearts, go where they are appreciated." - Robert S McNamara