

Show HN: Online SMS, My Weekend Project - spicavigo
http://fauzism.com/post/37587975976/once-upon-a-saturday
Last Saturday, I made this app for sending SMS from your computer via your phone. It consists of an Android application and a Python GAE server. The source code is available on github. You can read more about it at [http://fauzism.com/post/37587975976/once-upon-a-saturday]a
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lucaspiller
[Shameless plug] I also wrote one of these a couple of years ago. I wanted it
to run entirely from the phone though rather than all my messages going
through some third party. I ended up using Restlet (<http://www.restlet.org/>)
as the server, and writing a client in Backbone (in the early days).

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.stackednot...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.stackednotion.textjs.rosebud&hl=en)

(I haven't touched it for a while, I don't even have an Android phone any more
so no idea if it still works :P)

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adunar
Definitely not useless!

Using an Android app as an SMS gateway is convenient for personal texting, but
it's even more valuable for organizations working in developing countries --
where SMS is even more important, but services like Twilio don't provide local
phone numbers and getting a shortcode can cost thousands of dollars.

My start-up (<http://telerivet.com>) works with a bunch of organizations that
pay us for a more advanced version of essentially the same basic concept. (For
example, Kiva.org uses our system to communicate with their borrowers in Kenya
via an Android SMS gateway.)

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arihersh
This is very cool-- send text messages easily without ever leaving your laptop
or having to deal with the phone's keys. For anyone over 30, texting from a
real keyboard makes a lot of sense.

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osmotw
Good for anyone sitting at a desk monitoring multiple social media and sms
inquiries from sales contacts.

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readme
I was thinking of doing this exact thing, but I started another project.

Useless? I disagree entirely.

Having a place in the browser to text from is _priceless_. Perhaps the most
obvious use case is texting without taking my phone out of my pocket? The next
most obvious having a better and searchable UI to filter through texts?

It's a good project.

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phireal
If you're on Android, such functionality can be gained by installing something
like Airdroid[0] which gives you something approaching a desktop experience of
the contents and functionality of your phone. I use it to type out messages
from my browser rather than trying to do so from the much smaller and less
practical keyboard on my phone.

[0]
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sand.airdr...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sand.airdroid)

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habosa
Did you use Google Cloud Messaging? If so, any chance you could post a
tutorial or at least your thoughts on setting it up? There are a surprising
lack of those around.

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spicavigo
Yes I did. Right now I am using it in conjunction with Urban Ship, however, I
will soon delink it. Would try to post some basic tutorial for GCM and let you
know when its done. Tell me how I can contact you.

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karl_gluck
I'd also be interested in knowing more about GCM. Hit me up at
karl.gluck@gmail.com if you get a chance to write something up! Thanks for a
view into a cool project, too.

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espadagroup
Ha I actually pay for BrowserTexting, which does this. Mostly because I want
to be able to text at work without having my phone out.

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xugle
You might say it's useless (in your blog post) but would it surprise you to
know that there's a venture funded startup doing pretty much what your weekend
project does (with extra bells and whistles perhaps).

<http://mightytext.net/> <\--- This one

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spicavigo
Damn! Its quite similar. Thanks for the link :)

~~~
CWilliams1013
There's also DeskSMS, from the author of ClockworkMod and ROM Manager:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdut...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.koushikdutta.desktopsms)

