So here's the promised quick and very, very, extremely alpha-quality twitter/SMS send/receive app. It uses twitter to send/receive SMSes, so you need a twitter account and you need to have already configured it to send/receive SMSes (twitter.com has plenty of instructions). Since it piggy-backs on twitter, any twitter client will do. You don't need to send it any SMSes.
Currently it only echoes what you send it: I'm not yet done with a rough version of the language-parser but I thought it would be useful to release what I have (the app and the source-code) to see where others might want to take it.
To use it:
- friend the twitter user "petroltracker"
- after a minute or so, "petroltracker" will auto-friend you back
- direct message (DM) "petroltracker" and it will DM you back what you sent it (pretty soon it should be able to parse your message and try to make sense of it)
I've explicitly only allowed DM at this point because this is a prototype and it has plenty of errors: it would suck if it filled your public timeline with gibberish ;) At least DMs are private to you so no embarrassment caused.
The code runs on Google AppEngine, the python version.
It is licensed under the Apache License 2.0 (one of many open-source licenses), so feel free to download, install in your own AppEngine instance and tweak to your hearts content. And if you feel inclined, improve the code and share the enhancements.
Everything you need to get it running on AppEngine is included, you only need to change a few things:
- the twitter username and password you will be using (modify twitter_credentials.py)
- your AppEngine app-id (modify app.yaml, replace the text <your-application-id> with the actual id)
- this downloadable version only checks twitter once an hour. I set it this way on purpose so you don't accidentally get your IP banned by twitter for violating their rate-limits (the code as is doesn't do any rate-limiting yet!!). To configure different schedules, edit cron.yaml (a simple text file).
So go ahead and test using it, send your feedback on this thread and let's see what we can do with this project.
Saidi
On Fri, Aug 6, 2010 at 1:45 PM, saidimu apale
<saidimu@gmail.com> wrote:
PS: In the spirit of release early, release often, let's get up and running with a prototype ( however 'dirty' ) and refine it (daily)
Absolutely!
I'll try and code some rough and tumble app that reads/sends SMSes (via twitter) so people can start live testing the SMS message formats.
I'll also create a public repo so anyone who wants to checkout/commit code can do so as well.
The sms send/receive app is a prototype for testing so we can practically figure out what SMS message formats work under which constraints.
Anyone experienced with good but simple-to-use twitter libraries?
Saidi
Updating:
-> location <delimiter> petrol station <delimiter> fuel_type <delimiter> price
-> "Dago Corner,Kobil,Petrol,99.0"
Query format:
-> location <delimiter> fuel_type-> Westlands,petrol
Response (same as Update format):
-> location <delimiter> petrol station <delimiter> fuel_type <delimiter> price
-> start
Westlands,Oil Libya,Petrol,99.2
Westlands,Shell,Petrol,98.4
Westlands,Total,Petrol,98.3
-> end
PS: In the spirit of release early, release often, let's get up and running with a prototype ( however 'dirty' ) and refine it (daily)
Updating:
-> location <delimiter> petrol station <delimiter> fuel_type <delimiter> price
-> "Dago Corner,Kobil,Petrol,99.0"
Query format:
-> location <delimiter> fuel_type-> Westlands,petrol
Response (same as Update format):
-> location <delimiter> petrol station <delimiter> fuel_type <delimiter> price
-> start
Westlands,Oil Libya,Petrol,99.2
Westlands,Shell,Petrol,98.4
Westlands,Total,Petrol,98.3
-> end
PS: In the spirit of release early, release often, let's get up and running with a prototype ( however 'dirty' ) and refine it (daily)
Cheers.
Mike