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Send a text message to your phone from your site!

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Join Date: Jan 2005

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igotdreams igotdreams is offline

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Send a text message to your phone from your site!

Jan 1st, 2005

A Brief History

I like to call this my instant call back feature. Basically I knew that you can send a text message to your phone through email. So I said to myself, "self, why not send yourself the text message through a web form through some type of sendmail script!". So that is how I came up with this little script several years ago, it has been my little secret ever since. I use it on my Real Estate Web Site program, where I build web sites for real estate agents. Basically I label "Instant Call Back Feature", to imply that as soon as they enter the information, the real estate agent will call them instantly. The user fills out the form and then a text message is sent to the web site owners phone alerting them that they had a web site visitor that wants them to call them. I have only seen a handfull of people on the net think of it as well and implement their own variations, but today I decided to teach you!

Examples of Potential Script Use!

- instant call feature
- alert web site owner of a sale
- send personal messages
- alert web site owner they are out of inventory

How to send text messages to your phone via email

ussually your email for text messaging is your phone number w/areacode (without spaces) @ your provider.com You will have to go to your providers web site and look it up.

Here are some examples I know;

4075551212 {@} messaging.sprintpcs.com (sprint pcs)
4075551212 {@} tmomail.net (T mobile)
4075551212 {@} vtext.com (Verizon)

The Tutorial

We are going to make this as simple as possible. We are going to create 2 pages, these pages are sample.htm and sampleproc.cfm.

There will be 3 sets of code snippets used, they are;

- the form
- javascript validation
- the processing form

sample.htm

here is the code to put in your sample.htm page.

 Help with Code Tags 
 ColdFusion Syntax (Toggle Plain Text) 
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Sample Page!</title>
<script language="javascript">
<!--
function validateit()
{
temp = true;
 if(document.form.name.value == '' || document.form.phone.value == '')
	{
	temp = false;
	alert('Please fill out the Name and Phone field to continue...');
	}
 return temp;
}
//-->
</script>
</head>
<body>
<p align="center"><strong>INSTANT CALL BACK</strong><br>enter you name and number<br>and I will call you immediately.</p>
            <form name="form" action="sampleproc.cfm" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data" onSubmit="return validateit();">
			<table width="300" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">       
			  <tr> 
                <td width="125" valign="middle"> <div align="right">Your Name:&nbsp; </div></td>
                <td width="150" valign="top"><input type="text" name="name" onFocus="this.value=''" style="width:150px"></td>
			    <td width="25" valign="middle"><div align="center">*</div></td>
			  </tr>
              <tr> 
                <td valign="middle"> <div align="right">Phone Number:&nbsp; </div></td>
                <td valign="top"><input type="text" name="phone" onFocus="this.value=''" style="width:150px" ></td>
                <td valign="middle"><div align="center">*</div></td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td valign="top"><div align="right">
                  </div></td>
                <td valign="top"><div align="right">
                  <input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Call Me">
                </div></td>
                <td valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
              </tr>
            </table>
</form>
</body>
</html>
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Sample Page!</title>
<script language="javascript">
<!--
function validateit()
{
temp = true;
 if(document.form.name.value == '' || document.form.phone.value == '')
	{
	temp = false;
	alert('Please fill out the Name and Phone field to continue...');
	}
 return temp;
}
//-->
</script>
</head>
<body>
<p align="center"><strong>INSTANT CALL BACK</strong><br>enter you name and number<br>and I will call you immediately.</p>
            <form name="form" action="sampleproc.cfm" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data" onSubmit="return validateit();">
			<table width="300" border="0" align="center" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">       
			  <tr> 
                <td width="125" valign="middle"> <div align="right">Your Name:&nbsp; </div></td>
                <td width="150" valign="top"><input type="text" name="name" onFocus="this.value=''" style="width:150px"></td>
			    <td width="25" valign="middle"><div align="center">*</div></td>
			  </tr>
              <tr> 
                <td valign="middle"> <div align="right">Phone Number:&nbsp; </div></td>
                <td valign="top"><input type="text" name="phone" onFocus="this.value=''" style="width:150px" ></td>
                <td valign="middle"><div align="center">*</div></td>
              </tr>
              <tr>
                <td valign="top"><div align="right">
                  </div></td>
                <td valign="top"><div align="right">
                  <input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Call Me">
                </div></td>
                <td valign="top">&nbsp;</td>
              </tr>
            </table>
</form>
</body>
</html>

Basically, we have the HTML code for the form as well as an easy javascript fro you to undertand to validate the form before submitting it to the next page.

sampleproc.cfm

This is where we will process the code. Put this in your sampleproc.cfm page.

 Help with Code Tags 
 ColdFusion Syntax (Toggle Plain Text) 
<CFMAIL To="phonenumber@cellphoneprovider.com" From="you@youremail.com" Subject="Web Alert" server="mail.yourmailserver.com">
call #form.name# at #form.phone#
FROM WEB SITE, Instant Call Back
</CFMAIL>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Confirmation</title>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
	alert( "I have received your request and will be contacting you shortly" );
	location.href = "sample.htm";
</script>
</head><body></body></html>
<CFMAIL To="phonenumber@cellphoneprovider.com" From="you@youremail.com" Subject="Web Alert" server="mail.yourmailserver.com">
call #form.name# at #form.phone#
FROM WEB SITE, Instant Call Back
</CFMAIL>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title>Confirmation</title>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
	alert( "I have received your request and will be contacting you shortly" );
	location.href = "sample.htm";
</script>
</head><body></body></html>

Okay Thats it, have fun and remember to "think outside of the box".

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Join Date: Sep 2004

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ReDuX

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Re: Send a text message to your phone from your site!

Jan 1st, 2005

Cool idea.
I notice your phone number there is a US one, where you have the state/region code and then phone number.
How would this work in other countries ? would we need to add the country code ( e.g. Uk = +44 so "44") followed by the mobile phone number ?
Does the format follow the common UK practise of add country code and drop the leading 0 on the phone number ?...

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Join Date: Jan 2005

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Re: Send a text message to your phone from your site!

Jan 1st, 2005

These guidlines would be set by your cell phone (mobile) provider.

It should work because it is just like an email address. All emails are unique and if your cell phone provider gave you a unique one, then it will not matter what country can send you a message.

Send your self an email first before you upload this to your site.

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Join Date: Feb 2005

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Re: Send a text message to your phone from your site!

Feb 14th, 2005

Is there anyway that we can send messages to somebody else using this code. FOr example using my phone number in this code but to send the text message to somebody else phone number.

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Join Date: Nov 2004

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Re: Send a text message to your phone from your site!

Feb 14th, 2005

I've also modified the code from my cell phone provider's website. They usually have the form right on there to send a text message... grab the code from there and use your cell phone provider's already-in-place processing.

Web Design in Wisconsin : Milwaukee Web Design : Second Platform

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Join Date: Jan 2005

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igotdreams igotdreams is offline

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Re: Send a text message to your phone from your site!

Feb 15th, 2005

•

Originally Posted by mohachenawi

Is there anyway that we can send messages to somebody else using this code. FOr example using my phone number in this code but to send the text message to somebody else phone number.

Of coarse you can, just put in there telephone number instead of yours. Find out what provider they have and get the email address information. Easy.

Dan Kinchen
One Step Solutions Corp.

Provides website design services outside of the Orlando, Florida metro area.

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Join Date: Mar 2005

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aixhero

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Re: Send a text message to your phone from your site!

Mar 2nd, 2005

cool feature. but i'm problem implementing it, for the part "phonenumber@cellphoneprovider.com", what do i put down for "cellphoneprovider.com"? does it work for any phone provider in the world?

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Join Date: Jan 2005

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igotdreams igotdreams is offline

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Re: Send a text message to your phone from your site!

Mar 3rd, 2005

•

Originally Posted by aixhero

cool feature. but i'm problem implementing it, for the part "phonenumber@cellphoneprovider.com", what do i put down for "cellphoneprovider.com"? does it work for any phone provider in the world?

you would put YOUR cell phone provider! Who ever gives you service, you need to find out what the email address of your phone is. So you would go to the website of your service provider and look for this information or read your manaul.

Dan Kinchen
One Step Solutions Corp.

Provides website design services outside of the Orlando, Florida metro area.

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Join Date: Oct 2004

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Re: Send a text message to your phone from your site!

Jul 30th, 2005

Does anyone know what it is for Cingular service?

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Join Date: Aug 2005

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Re: Send a text message to your phone from your site!

#10

Aug 1st, 2005

hi der!!! its such a kewl idea to do sumthng like dat by coding.......i am not clear on how to use the code.....it wud be great if u cud elaborate stepwise on how to use the code.....thanx a lot....appreciate ur help...
insatiable