new vision tool! e-mail pictures "directly"! (want to help me test?)

[docman]

hello, all!

hope everyone had a nice break. welp, after a brief vacation in spain (guess what -- no sprint service there!) i am back and hacking around on my 5300.

anyway, in one of my pickier (http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=6383) posts, i whined about the image-sending capability of the 5300.

basically, i was surprised to see all the hoops sprint makes you go through to get an image to someone! you basically mail a big fat old e-mail with a link to a big fat old web page. yuck! i just want to send a nice clean message with either (a) a link to JUST the image, or (b) a message with the image ATTACHED!

obviously, this was too hard for sprint to do, so i have done it myself. how does it work? well, instead of sending the image to "user@x.com", you instead send it to "user%x.com@y.com". (just add a few characters to the address in your address book and you've got it done.) so y.com gets the cookie-cutter, advertisement-ridden message from sprint, and knows that you really want to send a clean message to user@x.com. so, y.com inspects sprint's message, jumps through their invitation URL, and downloads the image directly to y.com. finally, y.com sends on a message -- as if it came from your phone -- with ONLY the text of your message as well as either a link to the y.com copy or an attachment (your choice.)

whew! that sounds a lot more cumbersome than it really is. basically it is a set-it-and-forget-it thing. anyway, i would basically like to see if a few people wouldn't mind giving it a try whilst i am still tinkering with it. some features are missing, etc, etc, and my goal (in the next week or whatever) is to post the software (basically a python script and some smtp server instructions) for public consumption. it would be a great feature to add to sprintusers.com (though running a mail server should not be considered lightly, especially one which might get a large volume of traffic.)

anyway. drop me a "PM" if you want to give it a try; basically i just want suggestions without opening up my mailserver just quite yet. (i want to be absolutely sure i've considered all the security & spam implications of basically running a mail realy... also i only have a dsl line <wink> )

alright, take care all!
mike wakerly

[docman]

hello, again!

well, good news! it works! now whenever i send a picture, it automatically gets fetched and sent inline with a cruft-free message.

alright, sorry, i am just happy. now i can finally e-mail grandma without her needing to fire up her web-browser and surf to sprint's page...

if anyone else wants to play around just drop me a note or leave a reply here. and your friends will love never getting another message that says "Here Is A Kewl Pic From My SprintPCS (tm) Phone", heh.

alright, take care...

[Dave]

Very interesting, I wonder if you'd be interested in helping create some type of system like yours here at SprintUsers.com

[docman]

Originally posted by Dave
Very interesting, I wonder if you'd be interested in helping create some type of system like yours here at SprintUsers.com

hey dave,

yeah man, for sure; basically what i have is a server running linux and handling mail with postfix... that's all it takes really. my intent is really to get this out there for others to set up lots of 'relays'; it's easily suitable just for personal use. for public use, you need to be a bit more careful that people aren't abusing your mail server, so that's what i'm working on right now...

i'm gonna post a link here in a little bit to a web page for the 'project'.

take care!
mike

[docman]

oh, one more thing i forgot to mention...

once you have something like this setup (intercepting your sprint photo invitations) it opens a lot of possibilities... for example, you could mimic the functionality of the sprint 'vault' by just storing every photo, for you, that you mail... or maybe just photos that you mail to collect@whatever.x... neat eh!

cheers...

[sbono13]

docman, this thing works great! Thanks a bunch for setting it up!

I noticed that you stripped out the ugly white border from the image. how did you automate that process? I can't think of any possible improvements, but if I do, I'll let you know. It's a shame that there's no way for picture recipients to get access to the full resolution pictures (the 640x480 shots). Otherwise, it would have been nice for your script to send that one.

Cheers!

[docman]

Originally posted by sbono13
docman, this thing works great! Thanks a bunch for setting it up!

I noticed that you stripped out the ugly white border from the image. how did you automate that process? I can't think of any possible improvements, but if I do, I'll let you know. It's a shame that there's no way for picture recipients to get access to the full resolution pictures (the 640x480 shots). Otherwise, it would have been nice for your script to send that one.

hey hey!

cool man!

about the border: yeah, isn't it nice to have it gone? another feature! the secret is, the border information is encoded in the sprint image URL. basically the image file is passed along some session information and display parameters... the script removed the border stuff to fetch the image (as it creates an unncessary burden to the images server <wink>)

about the size: hmm! i forgot that this camera allegedly has a 640x480 resolution. that looks like it is going to be a bit trickier to get... i didn't realize that sprint mails you a scaled-down image... hmm... i'll let you know if i figure anything out.

thanks for the feedback! it's lookin good!

cheers..

[docman]

regarding the image size that is mailed: okay, i figured it out <wink>. the default for now is to mail the '640x480' size image.. coolness, huh!

cheers!

[longhornfan]

docman,
this sounds really cool. when can u make this available to all of us 5300 users???

[docman]

hey longhornfan and chum,

thans for the interest, i'll mail you some instructions if you PM an e-mail address (they wont fit in a PM, ah well)

anyway, about the accounts... yeah right now the system is 'open', ie... there is no need to set up an account for anything. it works instantly. so that is why i havent posted the info in public (not that i expect TONS of people to need this, but just as a precaution..) what i am doing is just making a simple account system so mail from user@sprintpcs.com is authorized... this will make sure that no one spams through the relay or uses your identity, etc... anyway i'll post more tonight, in the meantime class is getting in the way <wink>

cheers,
d

[oktane]

Docman,

Very clever. Nice work.

[docman]

hey all!

alright, i've posted the instructions for testing this. (i also got paranoid and worked up a disclaimer, heh.)

anyway, check the page out:
http://hoho.com/mike/pcs/

and just let me know if you have any problems, etc! it's been running very well for the past couple days (sbono and i have been testing it) but just keep your eyes peeled for wierdness.

take care...

[longhornfan]

Docman, you are the man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This works to well, i bet you are getting a lot of traffic.

Thanks

[docman]

Originally posted by longhornfan
Docman, you are the man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This works to well, i bet you are getting a lot of traffic.

Thanks

thanks! yes, i haven't noticed any problems, it's doing its job swimmingly. actually the traffic has been quite low, which i suppose is good =) i haven't found a good cause to send pictures lately myself! funny!

alright, take care

[docman]

hi all,

just a quick heads up... i'm making some changes at the moment and the relay might be down for the next couple hours. will post an update soon when it is again safe =)

take care,
mike

[docman]

hi guys... i changed the relay around because i was going to post a wider message to usenet. anyway, basically you just need to register an e-mail address now (else the relay will drop all messages it gets from you).

details at the page... http://hoho.com/mike/pcs

thanks all! let me know if you have any problems =)

[samskudd]

Signed up, sent pictures.....works great....Thanks a lot!

Have a question: Did you ever think about adding an option so that you could send the pic to multiple parties instead of just one?

[docman]

Originally posted by samskudd
Signed up, sent pictures.....works great....Thanks a lot!

Have a question: Did you ever think about adding an option so that you could send the pic to multiple parties instead of just one?

hmm, interesting idea! some sort of mailing list, perhaps?.... i'll take a look in to it! first i am going to change it so you can set your preferred message title.

take care!
mike

[samskudd]

Yeah, maybe you could set up a mailing list...sweet!

This thing is cool....and its only getting better!

[Limca3]

How do i use this with my lg 5350? will it work?

[docman]

Originally posted by Limca3
How do i use this with my lg 5350? will it work?

i am not familiar with the 5350 at all. if it sends pictures the same way (ie, an email with a URL) then it is probably the same system, so it would work. i'm curious though, let me know if anyone knows..

[lrb3000]

If I change my email addresses to use your service, can I still send regular email from my phone. when I go to send email through the phone, it uses the address in the phone (which were changed to use your picture service). the emails I sent were never received.

Thanks!

[docman]

Originally posted by lrb3000
If I change my email addresses to use your service, can I still send regular email from my phone. when I go to send email through the phone, it uses the address in the phone (which were changed to use your picture service). the emails I sent were never received.


hey there,

yes, that is a needed feature... i should be able to make that work tonight. what it will do is treat your message like an image invitation, and if that doesn't work, it will simply pass the message through. (this would also safeguard against radically altered invitation message formats, that might confuse the relay)

thanks!
mike

[docman]

hi all,

thanks for helping me test the relay. i've now posted the source code to the script and some setup instructions, so that you can hack away at your own relay. (i'll still be keeping mine running.)

linkys!
browse the source (http://hoho.com/mike/pcs/picture-relay-0.5/)
downloadable version (http://hoho.com/mike/pcs/picture-relay-0.5.tar.gz)
the project page (http://hoho.com/mike/pcs/)

take care,
mike

[SpineDoc]

Im still waiting for a confirmation email to be sent to my phone. Plus how the hell do you log in to your page? You might want to work on your web page for a couple of hours dude.

The idea is great though and I cant wait to help you test it out.

[JBHorner]

I'm either missing something (entirely possible), or Sprint has disallowed the use of the "+" character in e-mail addresses.

Whenever I go to pictures.sprintpcs.com and try to use the service, it chokes on the + character. The same thing happens when I use the phone. (Which I presume just connects to Sprint's lame site.)

If I am doing this correctly, I'm really ticked at Sprint. They can ruin this functionality, but they cannot fix their SMS issues!

[docman]

Originally posted by SpineDoc
Im still waiting for a confirmation email to be sent to my phone. Plus how the hell do you log in to your page? You might want to work on your web page for a couple of hours dude.

The idea is great though and I cant wait to help you test it out.

drop me an e-mail and i will see what's up.

yes there is no way to log on because there is no reason to; the 'accounts' are just so the relay isn't spammed. <wink>

mike

[docman]

Originally posted by JBHorner
I'm either missing something (entirely possible), or Sprint has disallowed the use of the "+" character in e-mail addresses.

Whenever I go to pictures.sprintpcs.com and try to use the service, it chokes on the + character. The same thing happens when I use the phone. (Which I presume just connects to Sprint's lame site.)

If I am doing this correctly, I'm really ticked at Sprint. They can ruin this functionality, but they cannot fix their SMS issues!

there are two issues at the moment.

first, adding plusses in the online phonebook seems to have always been a problem, but my phone still accepts them and mail sent with them still gets delivered to the relay... i doubt sprint would disable this functionality, since + is widely used in many email addresses.

second, there is a problem with the relay where the web page with the picture cannot be detected. i'm investigating this at the moment; it's possible sprint is making an active attempt at thwarting my bot, which would really be a shame considering how rarely (less than a dozen times a day) anyone uses it to do its job.

i'll keep an eye out for errors & post back..

anyway, proceed lightly. let's hope sprint is playing nicely with its loyal users.

cheers...
mike

[docman]

Originally posted by lrb3000
If I change my email addresses to use your service, can I still send regular email from my phone. when I go to send email through the phone, it uses the address in the phone (which were changed to use your picture service). the emails I sent were never received.


hi there,

this works now; messages that are not recognized as image invitations will be passed through untouched.

cheers,
mike

[sbono13]

Originally posted by docman
first i am going to change it so you can set your preferred message title.


Hey mike, if you can rig it up so that one can customize the message subject, would it be possible to customize the "Sender" email address also? I hate it that replies to the picture email get sent to my sprint email address, which is not the email that i normally use.

[docman]

Originally posted by sbono13
Hey mike, if you can rig it up so that one can customize the message subject, would it be possible to customize the "Sender" email address also? I hate it that replies to the picture email get sent to my sprint email address, which is not the email that i normally use.

hey sbono13,

thanks, that's a good one. i'll add that and a round of fixes tuesday afternoon. one guy has suggested a mini language for modifying the pictures. this might be kinda cool, so we're looking at that.

take care!
mike

[shekyboy]

Hey Docman,

I read your comments in the earlier thread about this relay server you were going to develop. So I was keen on looking for the problem myself.
Here is what I found.
There is a reason why the Share emails have a URL in them versus attaching the whole picture to them.
When the shares are sent out to email addresses, the pictures server does not know on what device a User is going to access this shared email. The email can be received on a PC, PDA or a phone itself.
Now the idea behind the URL is that wherever you launch the URL from (phone or PC) the Pictures server recognizes the device and server appropriate pages. I hadnt realized this until I tried accessing the email on my 5300.

So when you click the URL via your phone the Pictures server serves a WAP site with images optimized for the WAP browser on phones. Whereas the same URL when launched on PC gets their HTML website. I tried this also on a Pocket PC and they seem to have a PDA share page as well.

Now I dont think there is anyway of premptively knowing what device the receipient going to access this share on. So I think they send URLs which let them get enough information about the device/browser trying to access. This way they can tailor the pictures and User experience to whatever device user comes from.

I would suggest trying to send the share to your sprintpcs email. Then go and access this email from your phone. Click the share URL with the invite and you will see what I mean.

Shekyboy
ps: By the way kewl job with the relay server, I am going to try it myself.

[danny4u]

Has any one heard anything about you will be able to carry your cell phone number to another carrier if you decide to change carrier starting this november.

[docman]

Originally posted by shekyboy
Hey Docman,

I read your comments in the earlier thread about this relay server you were going to develop. So I was keen on looking for the problem myself.
Here is what I found.

hey shekyboy,

nice investigation! you're right, the web-based vault is not without its merits; i think most users find the current setup to be just fine. still, it is nice to be able to customize it a little.

(i only ever mail people's real mailboxes, too, so i'm a little biased when it comes to the usefulness sprint's extra features...)

i've just done a little work updating the relay and will have some cool new parameters within the next day or so..

take care...

[docman]

hiya all,

i just updated the relay to do another cool thing sprint forgot about: rotating images. i find myself always taking 'portrait' style pictures, but maybe this will change now.

so, if you're using the relay, to apply some rotation, you have the following three choices:
< for left (-90 degree) rotation
> for right (+90 degree) rotation
^ for a vertical flip

you use these by beginning your comments with the desired character. so if you type '<hi', your friend will get a left-rotated image with 'hi' as the comments.

this was suggested by another user, and i think it was a great idea.

also, you can now use '__' (two underscores) instead of the plus-sign in the relay address; they work the same, but sprint treats the underscore method a bit friendlier.

that's all for now! take care...

(ps: new source available as usual at http://hoho.com/mike/pcs)

[Snortimer]

Neat! This works great for sending pictures, I love it. I tried sending a normal text email but it didn't go through. I sent a picture immediately after to make sure it wasn't a problem on my end, but the picture went through just fine. any ideas? I have my email recipient addy setup per instructions. user__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com

Thanks, great work!

James

[docman]

Originally posted by Snortimer
Neat! This works great for sending pictures, I love it. I tried sending a normal text email but it didn't go through. I sent a picture immediately after to make sure it wasn't a problem on my end, but the picture went through just fine. any ideas? I have my email recipient addy setup per instructions. user__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com

Thanks, great work!

James

heya... i wasn't able to reproduce this, sounds strange. how are you sending the e-mail -- from the phone? i did a quick test and it works for me. i think the email never made it to the relay for some reason. maybe give it another try..?

take care...

[Snortimer]

Odd. I sent the email from the phone, yes. Still doesn't work. Oh well, such is life i guess.

[PcsNut]

Great idea, if possible I'd like to get the steps for my 5300. Most of my pics will go to a n-400, as I stated in the underground section I work at sprintpcs if I can help in any way let me know.

[halo17x]

Thanks for this system, docman! I hope maybe you could answer the following:

I am a retailer of Sprint and I have two good friends who are considering getting two Sanyo 5300s for their business they are starting. They are both auto dealers and buy their cars from salvage auto auctions. Their intentions are to take pictures and send them to each other in considering if they want to purchase the vehicle. It is easy to send a picture from one phone to another. What they want, though, is a higher quality picture. In other words, when they send the picture to the other phone, they want it expanded. Knowingly they would have to scroll around in a browser window, but it doesn't matter to them. They just want the detail. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

[docman]

Originally posted by halo17x
Thanks for this system, docman! I hope maybe you could answer the following:

I am a retailer of Sprint and I have two good friends who are considering getting two Sanyo 5300s for their business they are starting. They are both auto dealers and buy their cars from salvage auto auctions. Their intentions are to take pictures and send them to each other in considering if they want to purchase the vehicle. It is easy to send a picture from one phone to another. What they want, though, is a higher quality picture. In other words, when they send the picture to the other phone, they want it expanded. Knowingly they would have to scroll around in a browser window, but it doesn't matter to them. They just want the detail. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

hiya halo,

hmm, good question. i haven't had ever really tried looking at e-mail pics on my phone, but i'll try it and see what happens. if it turns out that you can't do what you want through sprint, then using the relay, just offhand, i don't think it would be too much of a problem; just a simple matter of e-mailing along a different wap-page with the big image.

let me play around with the relay for a bit and hit you back.

cheers...

[docman]

Originally posted by Snortimer
Odd. I sent the email from the phone, yes. Still doesn't work. Oh well, such is life i guess.

hi snortimer,

strange. i poked around in the log a bit more, and it has only recorded one incoming mail that was going to that domain, and it says it was relayed onward. (probably the one success you had.)

would you mind trying again? i'd like to take a look at the smtp server's log, so i can see whether or not the message is making it (and if so, why it isn't showing up in the relay.)

thanks!

[Snortimer]

Ok, I emailed a picture from my phone to user__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com and it went through just fine. I tried emailing regular mail but i get a stupid application error, blah. anyway... I went to my pcs email from the sprint website and found previous non-picture email that was sent from my phone to the above address. It was bounced email. The following is pasted from the bounced email. I find it odd that a picture goes through without a hitch yet normal text email never works.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated!

Begin pasted email
------------------------


This report relates to a message you sent with the following header fields:

Return-path:
Received: from dedicated60-bos.wh.sprintip.net by
dedicated60-bos.wh.sprintip.net
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.03 (built Oct 1 2002))
id <0HB500IMODJWI3@dedicated60-bos.wh.sprintip.net>; Mon,
3 Mar 2003 00:33:32 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from dedicated71-bos
(dedicated71-bos.wh.sprintip.net [10.228.166.22]) by
dedicated60-bos.wh.sprintip.net
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.03 (built Oct 1 2002))
with ESMTP id <0HB300BZP73X8H@dedicated60-bos.wh.sprintip.net> for
gonzalja__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com; Sat, 01 Mar 2003 20:19:10 +0000 (GMT)
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 20:19:09 +0000 (GMT)
From: jagonzales16@sprintpcs.com
Subject: Jagtpm
To: gonzalja__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com
Message-id: <5037321.1046549949887.JavaMail.root@dedicated71-bos>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Your message has been enqueued and undeliverable for 1 day
to the following recipients:

Recipient address: gonzalja__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com
Reason: unable to deliver this message after 1 day


Delivery attempt history for your mail:

Sun, 2 Mar 2003 22:58:38 +0000 (GMT)
gonzalja__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com: smtp;450 Client host rejected: cannot find your hostname, [::ffff:63.167.114.16]

Sun, 2 Mar 2003 14:57:46 +0000 (GMT)
gonzalja__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com: smtp;450 Client host rejected: cannot find your hostname, [::ffff:63.167.114.16]

Sun, 2 Mar 2003 06:48:21 +0000 (GMT)
gonzalja__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com: smtp;450 Client host rejected: cannot find your hostname, [::ffff:63.167.114.16]

Sun, 2 Mar 2003 02:47:10 +0000 (GMT)
gonzalja__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com: smtp;450 Client host rejected: cannot find your hostname, [::ffff:63.167.114.16]

Sat, 1 Mar 2003 22:42:48 +0000 (GMT)
; initial status response expected

Sat, 1 Mar 2003 20:31:23 +0000 (GMT)
; initial status response expected

The mail system will continue to try to deliver your message
for an additional 6 days.

Return-path:
Received: from dedicated60-bos.wh.sprintip.net by
dedicated60-bos.wh.sprintip.net
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.03 (built Oct 1 2002))
id <0HB500IMODJWI3@dedicated60-bos.wh.sprintip.net>; Mon,
3 Mar 2003 00:33:32 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from dedicated71-bos
(dedicated71-bos.wh.sprintip.net [10.228.166.22]) by
dedicated60-bos.wh.sprintip.net
(iPlanet Messaging Server 5.2 HotFix 1.03 (built Oct 1 2002))
with ESMTP id <0HB300BZP73X8H@dedicated60-bos.wh.sprintip.net> for
gonzalja__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com; Sat, 01 Mar 2003 20:19:10 +0000 (GMT)
Date: Sat, 01 Mar 2003 20:19:09 +0000 (GMT)
From: jagonzales16@sprintpcs.com
Subject: Jagtpm
To: gonzalja__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com
Message-id: <5037321.1046549949887.JavaMail.root@dedicated71-bos>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

Blah

[docman]

Originally posted by Snortimer
Ok, I emailed a picture from my phone to user__erau.edu@pcs.hoho.com and it went through just fine. I tried emailing regular mail but i get a stupid application error, blah. anyway... I went to my pcs email from the sprint website and found previous non-picture email that was sent from my phone to the above address. It was bounced email. The following is pasted from the bounced email. I find it odd that a picture goes through without a hitch yet normal text email never works.

Thanks for the help, much appreciated!


doh! i just looked at my logs. it turns out that the mail server's anti-spap settings are a bit too strict for sprint. sprint's mail servers lack full-qualified domain names, or at least _some_ of them. very strange. i've turned that off so you should be fine. silly sprint!

cheers..

[Snortimer]

Great! I'll try to send email as soon as I figure out this stupid application error message. blah.

Thanks again

James

[martianviking]

Wonderful tool.

Another excellent example of capable users giving us access to something that perhaps should have been available from Sprint in the first place.

All ranting aside, I'm very happy with this tool. Thank you very much, mike.

Any word on the ability to customize our "from" email address and/or our default subject line?

[docman]

Originally posted by martianviking
Any word on the ability to customize our "from" email address and/or our default subject line?

thanks for the kind words!

working on the customizing stuff; might be able to get it online tonight; failing that, thursday for sure. (stupid classes...) i'll drop an e-mail to those that wanted it, and post something here too.

take care...

[halo17x]

Once again, thanks docman for this great tool. It's even better that you are going the extra mile to put in more features. I'm pretty sure you haven't forgotten my request. Just out of curiosity, are there any developements, i.e. when do you expect to solve it.

Thanks in advance,

halo

[docman]

Originally posted by halo17x
Once again, thanks docman for this great tool. It's even better that you are going the extra mile to put in more features. I'm pretty sure you haven't forgotten my request. Just out of curiosity, are there any developements, i.e. when do you expect to solve it.

Thanks in advance,

halo

hi halo! thanks!

i havent forgotten, heh... basically, here's how i'm hoping your problem might be solved... the new features (tonight) will let you pretty much customize how you want images to go out, ie, you could send your message as a URL, or you could send the original url along, whatever... so basically, you mail them a URL to a simpler viewer on my site, which just shows them the bigger picture.. i'm still not sure how this would mesh with sprint's web browser on the 5300 -- it does some image resizing in the way, tho over at the sprint developers forum i read a while back a way to disable this.

and anyway, at least for your car dealer pals, the usual disclaimers apply (in particular, there's always the chance that sprint will cripple the way in which i snag the images)... so long as your friends know that, we can prolly make something work ;)

take care..

[docman]

hey all...

alright! i finally got those preferences working. now you can set:
- default message title
- default reply-to address (if you so desire)
- default message format (attachment, link, or your own layout)

check it out, it will make sense when you see it, i hope, heh... also, there's a new url: http://pcs.hoho.com/. i cleaned up the web site a bit.. it was a bit chaotic earlier.

to set your prefs, click on the prefs tab. you have to log in to do it..

if you forgot your username or password, just mail pcs@hoho.com -- i can reset the password for ya... (there should probably be a reset-my-password email dealy but i'll save that for another day.. heh..)

take care for now!
docman

[Snortimer]

Hmm.. my email messages still don't go through. I got a bounce which had a reference to spamcop in it. doh! oh well.

[docman]

Originally posted by Snortimer
Hmm.. my email messages still don't go through. I got a bounce which had a reference to spamcop in it. doh! oh well.

hi snortimer,

can you forward that bounce message to pcs@hoho.com? i'd like to see just who this server is that causes all these anti-spam problems.

also i've disabled the anti-spam stuff for the pcs.hoho.com domain, so you should have no troubles now... sorry bout that again.

cheers..

[samskudd]

Ya know, I was just thinking of something. Since there is no SMS on our phones maybe we could use this picture share as a type of SMS.

This is what I was thinking:

When you want to send an SMS, you go to camera-review-share phonebook and send the picture to the #+messaging.sprintpcs@pcs.hoho.com. You type in the SMS message you want to send and send it.

Then there would be an option where no picture was attached and the "You have received a picture from......" message could be stripped leaving only the message you entered. The message would be delivered to the notifications directly on your phone. You would never have to deal with sms servers again!

This is all of course based on if Docman would do it or not.

Does it make sense?

SS

[Jtoast]

thats a VERY interesting idea...gonna set up a mail server myself this week for some testing.

[docman]

hey guys...

i dont think i get it.. how do you send a message from the phone without attaching a pic? i don't see how on the 5300.

also this would be fine for sending sms to other sprint users, but i don't think the messaging.sprintpcs.com gateway will go to other networks. (or DOES it? if it does, that's a very very nice free service... someone tell me <verizonnumber>@messaging.sprintpcs.com does do this.. i doubt it..)

though i havent used them, there are some midlets out there that claim to do this, and i believe they go through an sms server directly (it has some different protocol name). some guy on the sprint dev forums claimed he wrote a tool that was a java app that could send to any network.. he never showed it tho..

cheers..
docman (who cant stand "shortmail"...)

[docman]

<replying to himself>

oh, i think i get it.. strip off the picture at the gateway, and send just the comments onward.

actually, you could do this right now if you wanted to... using the prefs page (http://pcs.hoho.com/prefs.php), set up your prefs to do a template, and then in the template put %c (for comments). if you don't attach the message, then it would work.

this presuming you're mailing a message to the huge address <numer>_messaging.sprintpcs.com@pcs.hoho.com

i dunno, seems just as kludgey as the dressed-up 'shortmail', but i'm happy to help you try it if you want :)

cheers..

[halo17x]

I tried that #__messaging.sprintpcs.com@pcs.hoho.com thing and tried to send myself a txt with a link. It works, almost....

unfortunately, the resulting picture is way too big for the 5300 browser and almost immediately you get an insufficient memory error. nonetheless, i do believe this project is getting good progress.

here's a suggestion: when you send someone a pic using the normal way, the reciepents get a scaled down version vs the full 640 by 480 pic. Maybe you can do an option for which picture you can send. I know doing this is making it more complicated and I'm sorry if we're overworking you :D.

[lmtuxinc]

Originally posted by halo17x
I tried that #__messaging.sprintpcs.com@pcs.hoho.com thing and tried to send myself a txt with a link. It works, almost....

unfortunately, the resulting picture is way too big for the 5300 browser and almost immediately you get an insufficient memory error. nonetheless, i do believe this project is getting good progress.


its not for sending pictures to your phone, its for sending them to other peoples email addresses so that they get the picture on their computer.

[halo17x]

actually, i set my preferences that when i get the notification, it comes with the link vs having the picture as part of the message. I would then click go and my phone starts loading the page. i even could see the box for the picture, but that's where it freezes. try it yourself if you don't believe me.

[docman]

hi all,

i am going to be on vacation (and off email) until the the 22nd or so, just in case...

cheers..

[eilanna0825]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by docman
hey all...



check it out, it will make sense when you see it, i hope, heh... also, there's a new url: [b]http://pcs.hoho.com/. i cleaned up the web site a bit.. it was a bit chaotic earlier[QUOTE/]


How come everybody is getting your link and not me? The link doesn't work for me,all of them! I wonder why? Is there an alternative way?I reall wanted to try your trick on my phone.

[eilanna0825]

Originally posted by docman
url: http://pcs.hoho.com/
docman

I really couldn't make the link work!

[Snortimer]

I think his site is down. I can't ping it or anything. Guess we'll have to wait until he gets back from vacation. Blah, what i would give for a static IP. :(

[cosmic]

Docman,

I don't have a 5300, so I can't really use your relay, but regardless, I wholeheartedly applaud your efforts! You have clearly dedicated valuable time to getting this going.

It sounds like it is working great, and bypasses Sprint's needless propaganda. Something none of us signed up for I am sure.

Kudos to you!!! :-D

[halo17x]

Weird....

I set my setting so that i will recieve a URL instead a pic when i get the message and i sent one to ##########__messaging.sprintpcs.com@pcs.hoho.com and i did get the notification, although with several minutes of delay. regardless, i did it 3 times and twice it worked, sorta. i went to the site and the picture was there, loaded pretty fast, but is also smaller than i hoped for but still bigger than when displayed after download. still, i did scroll to see the whole thing so i know the picture was enlarged. the 3rd time it sent me the full 640x480 pic and immediately i got a out of memory error. hmm.... i'm gonna keep trying it to see what's going on, but i guess what i asked for works. THANKS DOCMAN!!!

[docman]

hiya all!

sorry about that -- the line did go down for some amount of time... ironic that i was away, my uptime is usually very good...

anyway halo i'll check out your thing in a few, probably just related to the line going down...

cheers...

[Snortimer]

I haven't been able to send anything via the relay in a couple of days. Is it me?


James

[docman]

Originally posted by Snortimer
I haven't been able to send anything via the relay in a couple of days. Is it me?

it's not you. something has changed.

however, i've added an extra safety check.. so that while the relay is unable to fetch the image, it will still forward on the original invitation if that is the case... duh, should have had that before, just hadn't had a real problem. sorry about that.

so, if you use the relay, you may or may not be sending the original format or the cleaned up one.. depending on when i can get the image fetching problem fixed.. should work for now, until i get a few minutes to figure out why the image isn't being fetched. (looks like more sprint tomfoolery..)

(sbono points out that, curiously, there is now an 'enlarge' link that provides a full-sized, borderless image on the image page. still far too cluttered for me... and now a pop-up window in the mess too!)

cheers...

[Snortimer]

Sprint needs to find a clue and learn from your generous service. Thanks Docman

[docman]

well, it looks like all is once again well... happy picturing!

docman

[TimO]

Docman! I have not been able to get this to work. Are there still problems?

[docman]

Originally posted by TimO
Docman! I have not been able to get this to work. Are there still problems?


not that i can see in the logs. have you tried recently? do you get an error, or does the message just never make it thru?

take care..

[Snortimer]

It works again, yay!! wooo!!! what was the problem if you don't mind me asking?


Thanks again Docman!

[TimO]

Docman,
The message nevers appears. It shows up on the Sprint Shared photos page but not at my Email address. I just tried it this morning, by sending a picture to my address.

[docman]

Originally posted by TimO
Docman,
The message nevers appears. It shows up on the Sprint Shared photos page but not at my Email address. I just tried it this morning, by sending a picture to my address.

hi TimO,

hmm... no idea. if this is still happening, mail me privately at pcs at hoho.com with the e-mail address the messages should be coming from. i can look in to the mail queue / mail logs a bit deeper that way and see what is going wrong..

take care..

[docman]

hi all!

i updated the mail server tonight, so please let me know if there are any problems. you wouldn't believe how many people register for spam things with fake addresses @hoho.com...

in particular, if you ever get a bounced message, let me know and i will track it down right away. there were some problems earlier with the anti-spam stuff getting eager to block some sprint mail sites, so i'm curious if that is even an issue now. (hard to tell, everything working fine for me!)

take care..

[NeonElixir]

docman... do you think that this little tool you've created will work on the soon to be released 8100? Great work by the way!

Brett

[docman]

Originally posted by NeonElixir
docman... do you think that this little tool you've created will work on the soon to be released 8100? Great work by the way!

hmmm... most likely! i doubt the process would change much... should be just fine!

take care..

[sbono13]

Hey docman,

Just to let you know, sprint has changed the picture invitation email to some html junk (now including the picture embedded). SInce then, the pictures I've sent through your relay have not been getting delivered. Can you check it out when you have the chance?

http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14044&highlight=pictures+html


Thanks!

sbono13

[docman]

Originally posted by sbono13
Hey docman,

Just to let you know, sprint has changed the picture invitation email to some html junk (now including the picture embedded). SInce then, the pictures I've sent through your relay have not been getting delivered. Can you check it out when you have the chance?

http://www.sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14044&highlight=pictures+html


Thanks!

sbono13

interesting! i'm taking a look right now... they're now sending a multipart message; the text part is the original invite-style, and the other part is that html junk.

[docman]

okay, back to normal now, problem fixed. thanks as always for your alertness, sbono.

it's nice to see sprint changing their setup a bit. more people should be happy with this, but i personally remain picky! (plus i like to be able to rotate my pictures from my phone.)

fwiw they're still not attaching the images; the HTML just makes it look like that.

cheers...

[eilanna0825]

Good news! Sprint no longer sends a link when you send a picture to a regular email. So the person who receives doesn't need to go to Sprint's website just to see the picture, it's embedded in the email itself.

[docman]

Originally posted by eilanna0825
Good news! Sprint no longer sends a link when you send a picture to a regular email. So the person who receives doesn't need to go to Sprint's website just to see the picture, it's embedded in the email itself.

not quite; see previous message -- it's just HTML that makes it look like you've gotten the message. try viewing one offline. there's still no attachment.

personally i am not satisified because i never read HTML messages - no one i know sends them. HTML in e-mail is used exclusively by marketeers, in my experience, and sprint's formatting is not that great.

cheers.

[eilanna0825]

Yeah, you're right docman. Oh by the way, I don't know what's wrong but I couldn't make the relay work. It worked for me before a few times and last week all the ones I sent were never received.

[docman]

Originally posted by eilanna0825
Yeah, you're right docman. Oh by the way, I don't know what's wrong but I couldn't make the relay work. It worked for me before a few times and last week all the ones I sent were never received.

hi eilanna!

hmm... maybe give it a try again if you want? earlier this week i saw one of lightwave's e-mail servers was being blocked because it didn't/doesn't have a proper domain name -- ie, at least one of sprint's image-mailing servers isn't configured properly.

take care...

[docman]

hi all...

as per a suggestion, if there is a 'voice tag' available with the shared image, it will be attached and sent onward! (previously it was just ignored by the relay.)

note that this adds about ~200k to the message, in addition to the cost of the image, so use accordingly i guess =)

let me know if you have problems with this -- i've only been talking with one 8100 user about this..

take care...
docman

[Adam F]

How long does it take to receive the picture in your email, from the time you send it to the phone, to the time its actually in my inbox? It's been a few minutes, just wondering how long it will take. Thanks!

[Adam F]

OK, I received the email, but I was unable to view the picture on my Treo 300 using "Snappermail". I can send myself a jpeg from home by attaching it directly to my email, and then download it on my Treo. But when I tried to get the picture from the hoho email, it showed the data downloading but the picture was nowhere to be found. Is the picture somehow imbedded within the email, or is it truely sent as an attachment? I tried it twice. Thanks!

[docman]

Originally posted by Adam F
OK, I received the email, but I was unable to view the picture on my Treo 300 using "Snappermail". I can send myself a jpeg from home by attaching it directly to my email, and then download it on my Treo. But when I tried to get the picture from the hoho email, it showed the data downloading but the picture was nowhere to be found. Is the picture somehow imbedded within the email, or is it truely sent as an attachment? I tried it twice. Thanks!

hi adam f,

hmm... i'm guessing it's just a picky mail client; the image is attached in a standard fashion, a full-fledged attachment. if you'd like, can you forward the message to me (pcs at hoho.com) and i'll take a look? maybe also forwarding a message with an image that the treo does like would be helpful, if possible.

(if you have a 'redirect' button in your mail client, that would work better than forwarding.)

also if you've ever messed around with the preferences section at the web site (pcs.hoho.com), make sure your prefs are still set to inline the image.

as for the message delivery time... generally, i've found sprint's outgoing servers to be VERY fast. i test this periodically. when i upload an image, by the time the 5300 closes the 'uploading..' window, the message is already at the relay. then, it can take anywhere from 2-20 seconds for the relay to process the message, fetch the invite and the image, and send it onward. i'm pretty sure the average is very close to 10 seconds in all.

though several hours does seem a bit long -- what, did you attach an essay as comments?? <wink> i can look in to that further if it's still taking forever and you don't think the delay is on your end.

take care..
docman

[Adam F]

I got the message, but i still cant download the image with my treo. works fine for other images I email myself, but not this one for some odd reason. oh well.

[docman]

Originally posted by Adam F
I got the message, but i still cant download the image with my treo. works fine for other images I email myself, but not this one for some odd reason. oh well.

heya adam f,

ya gotta forward me some examples of both cases, otherwise i don't really have much to go on (as i have no treo to test with.)

cheers..

[BlueCrxNC]

Thanks so much Doc for doing the relay thing. This helps me out a lot.

[docman]

Originally posted by BlueCrxNC
Thanks so much Doc for doing the relay thing. This helps me out a lot.

no problemo!

incidentally, i am going to be moving the server in a month or two... and while pcs.hoho.com should still be up, i never really meant for mine to become the authoratative relay! maybe some other sprint-related sites will start their own with the source...? the more, the merrier!

and in other news sbono13 reports that phlog.net might be a better site for photo-blogging (it puts the message comments into the post as photo comments)... just fyi for those interested.

take care!
docman

[spacegrrl]

okeydoke, i've signed up for a relay account and it works beautifully (yay!!)

i've signed up for a phlog.net account, and that works beautifully-- IF i'm mailing in pics from my normal email account, not the relay.

so far, nothing i've sent to phlog.net via the relay has been posted successfully to my phlog blog.

there are no error messages or mail bounces that i'm receiving, so i pretty much have nothing to go on to troubleshoot this.

does anyone have this working for them?


as an alternate, i've attempted to get mail2entry (http://joi.ito.com/archives/2003/03/12/mail2entry_moblog_code_update.html) working with my moveable type blog, but i'm not a python programmer and i haven't been able to troubleshoot it successfully, so the phlog.net solution seemed really attractive.

[sbono13]

Originally posted by spacegrrl
i've signed up for a phlog.net account, and that works beautifully-- IF i'm mailing in pics from my normal email account, not the relay.

so far, nothing i've sent to phlog.net via the relay has been posted successfully to my phlog blog.

there are no error messages or mail bounces that i'm receiving, so i pretty much have nothing to go on to troubleshoot this.

does anyone have this working for them?


Yeah, i can upload to my phlog. you have to set up a new entry in your phonebook to have the email address username.secretword__phlog.net@pcs.hoho.com, where user name and secret word are the ones you'd set up initially with your phlog account. Docman's relay turns the sprint picture notification email into an email with a standard attachment that should not be any different than what you've been sending with your normal email account. if this still doesn't upload to the phlog, check your pictures.sprintpcs.com account and see if the picture you'd tried to send is shown in your shared pictures folder (you'll want to verify the email address used there too). it's been working fine for me...

[spacegrrl]

well, suddenly tonight it worked. once anyway, and now i can't get to phlog.net at all :)

but hey, it worked. i'm pretty excited. thank you :)

[NeonElixir]

How do you get this phlog site? It won't load at all when I try the URL posted.

[spacegrrl]

yeah, it seems to be down right now, but it does work, honest.

[NeonElixir]

Cool, I'll try tomorrow I guess. I set up camblog.com the other day but I'm having a little trouble with that one as well.

[Intysoft]

Try Moblogs by Textamerica.com, works great!

[akelley]

Is there a way to send the smaller image (320x240) instead of the original size (640x480) that the 5300 shoots? I find the smaller image looks much better on the computer screen.

[akelley]

Never mind. I can just set the camera settings to Medium and achieve the same result...and it's a little quicker to upload as well.

[SlackerBoy]

Argh... I forgot Sprint sends those screwey HTML pages. I can't get Textamerica to work, and using user.sercretword_phlog.net@pcs.hoho.com I couldn't get phlog to work either. Sending it the normal way (to phlog) worked, but the blog got the whole HTML thing with the link. Help!

SlackerBoy

[NeonElixir]

I use pcs.hoho.com for my TextAmerica all the time. I'm noticing that here: user.sercretword_phlog.net@pcs.hoho.com you only have one underscore after the secret word, you need 2 for it to work. Try that!

[NeonElixir]

Has pcs.hoho.com been working for anyone the past couple days? Today and yesterday I've been getting everything kicked back to my PCS Mail.

[docman]

Originally posted by NeonElixir
Has pcs.hoho.com been working for anyone the past couple days? Today and yesterday I've been getting everything kicked back to my PCS Mail.

got it fixed -- sorry about that!

[docman]

hello once again,

i am moving to a different place next week, and it looked like i might have to take the relay down. however, i moved the relay to a new server and it seems to be working well. messages may take a bit longer to arrive in the transition period, but if there are still problems tomorrow let me know.

though the new server is faster, there is one drawback: it is hosted on a pacbell business DSL account. some mailservers may zealously block mail coming from these IPs. i think roadrunner, and perhaps hotmail, block TONS of DSL ips. so, if this happens to you, let me know. send any bounced emssages to pcs@hoho.com

also, if some community site wants to step forward and provide an alternate server, i wouldn't mind ;)

take care..

[NeonElixir]

If I had some kind of server to offer, I would.

Is this drawback only during your transition. Basically, are you bringing your server back when you're settled? It's a great service you have going... THANKS!!

[docman]

Originally posted by NeonElixir
If I had some kind of server to offer, I would.

Is this drawback only during your transition. Basically, are you bringing your server back when you're settled? It's a great service you have going... THANKS!!

thanks for the offer ;)

actually my last message sounded kinda confusing. the new server is here to stay for the forseeable future.. i'm actually kinda curious as to when it will no longer be necessary. guess we will see how long we keep our 5300s!

cheers..

[Gecko]

Does this work for the A600?

[Chaos-ESP]

Doesn't hurt to try gecko, my man!

[NeonElixir]

Originally posted by Gecko
Does this work for the A600?

It should work for all Sprint camphones. As far as I know, they all send images in the same fashion.

[NeonElixir]

docman... I just tried sending 3 pix to my camblogs... none have made it there yet :(. I think I've been waiting about 10 minutes. No fun!

[Gecko]

So, do you use this to send to other phones as well or just to normal e-mail?

[Chaos-ESP]

I have my own webspace on a friends server...what does running a server relay involve?

[NeonElixir]

A friend of mine is actually about to get me some server space and a domain name for 3 years as a graduation/birthday gift... I might be able to host it there if I knew how.

My pictures never made it to my camblog :(.

[Chaos-ESP]

i can help ya sir brett.

I can try and run a server if someone tells me exactly what i need to do/set up.

[Gecko]

If I were to make an educated guess, based on the original posts, you need to have a Linux or Unix server running a SMTP mail server setup to relay. This is not something you want to do w/o really knowing what you're doing. Seting up a mail server to allow relay (and not doing it right) opens you up to being a SPAM forwarder.

BUT, if you are up to it and get that going, then you will need to get the script from his web page pcs.hoho.com.

From there, I'm not much help. I have installed and configured Exchange Server, but not a Linux or Unix SMTP server. Maybe I'll give it a try soon.

[Chaos-ESP]

Crap, I dont want to install linux...bleh

[docman]

Originally posted by NeonElixir
A friend of mine is actually about to get me some server space and a domain name for 3 years as a graduation/birthday gift... I might be able to host it there if I knew how.

My pictures never made it to my camblog :(.

yo neonelixir,

any luck now?? sorry, yesterday (saturday) the new server was bouncing a lot of mail even after my post. i just tested from my phone and it is working, but let me know if you have problems. (usually the mail would eventually make it through, but these were 'permanent' bounces, ie, wouldnt be tried again.)

take care..

[NeonElixir]

It works!! Yay! Thanks!!

[Chaos-ESP]

I'm having trouble emailing my pics to my blog...It connects, uploads the pic to the sprint website...then gives me this error message : "Error 99: Service required" what am i doing wrong, or what happened?

[docman]

Originally posted by Chaos-ESP
I'm having trouble emailing my pics to my blog...It connects, uploads the pic to the sprint website...then gives me this error message : "Error 99: Service required" what am i doing wrong, or what happened?

hey, you had me worried there... it looks like a known issue & doesn't appear to matter whether or not you are using the relay. (i just experienced this error with 2 out of 2 attempts, using relay and one with a normal address.)

just look in the pcs vision forum -- a thread or two there about this error.

http://sprintusers.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=23517

[Chaos-ESP]

Yes, i was using the relay...but it wouldnt let me email anything...i hope they finish it.

[roc_face]

Chaos-ESP,

If you are using the textamerica.com moblog, you don't need to use the relay. You can just send it normally to your email at tamw.com and it should pick it up. They've figured out how to deal with the retarded sprint method of sending pics.

But if you have other moblogs like phlog.net you need to use the relay.

[Chaos-ESP]

Either way I try, I cant email pics...its getting on my nerves... :(

[MauiPCSdude]

Hi! well, first off, great little tool! Kudos! I can't really use it cause what I'm tryin to do is a little different. My prob is that I'm tryin to send picture mail (shyamail) to a freind in japan's phone. It works on one carrier with the regular PCS Vision service. But with another carrier it just don't work. Might be that my pictures on my 8100 are too big for the screen and just defaults with a undownloadable message. But thats just my prob! The real thing I wanted to talk about was...I have been trying to test this relay out my mailing myself but RoadRunner seems to be blocking the mail from my phone! It may think its spam. The return message includes the rr server which has "security" attached to it. Is this something that I just can't do? Or should I be able to send myself mail?

PS. Darn I miss my japan phone!:(

[MauiPCSdude]

Hi! By the looks of this thread this is probably the best place to ask this question. The tool is kool. Great way to take things into your own hands and not bend to the rules of commercialism. Anyways, I guess my biggest problem is this. I'm sure other here have the same prob and would like to hear your thoughts on the subject. In anycase, I have no friends with a Sprint Vision enabled phone. Some have picture "able" phones on different carriers. ie: My brother has a t-zone phone from t-moble net. He has a camera on there too. But..we can't seem to exchange picture mails. I've been trying to use the relay tool to do it but alas, no go. Do any of you have the same problem? If so, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject. One funny note, the only phone that i've been able to just send pictures to thru regular vision is a Japan NTT Docomo phone. Only bad thing is she couldn't send me back a picture. I have to access it from the vision users website and dowload to my PC.

PS. Re:docman, sorry for using this thread for this, if it inconvieniences you I'll take it to its own thread. thanks!

[kjm]

Originally posted by roc_face
Chaos-ESP,

If you are using the textamerica.com moblog, you don't need to use the relay. You can just send it normally to your email at tamw.com and it should pick it up. They've figured out how to deal with the retarded sprint method of sending pics.

But if you have other moblogs like phlog.net you need to use the relay.
I was able to successfully transfer my pictures to textamerica but they didn't show up on my site :confused:

[docman]

interesting about your japan phone -- most of us can only dream ;)

Originally posted by MauiPCSdude
The real thing I wanted to talk about was...I have been trying to test this relay out my mailing myself but RoadRunner seems to be blocking the mail from my phone! It may think its spam. The return message includes the rr server which has "security" attached to it. Is this something that I just can't do? Or should I be able to send myself mail?

PS. Darn I miss my japan phone!:(

yeah, i've heard of the problem before, and roadrunner is the only one that i've experienced it with / had reports of problems.

basically.. at the end of july i moved to a new place, and so the relay server moved to a different host. it's just on my home DSL line; pretty fast but it does go down ocasionally and happens to be a pacbell-serviced line. but it is the best i can do...

anyway, a lot of 'major' isps sometimes take lists of IP addresses belonging to DSL hosts, dialup networks, etc, and just refuse to accept any mail that comes from them. this is because, dialup and dsl users should be using the mail server of their isp -- not their own. at the moment, the relay uses its own mailserver.

i may be able to fix this, but it would mean all mail would be relayed through pacbell -- which might cause more of a problem, or might not. for now.. i'm not sure if there is a way to get 'whitelisted' at rr, but i'm not optimistic. another solution for those with a server is to set up the software there.

if i get some time i will look in to resolving this...

cheers..

[MauiPCSdude]

Thanks for the reply! Um please please don't change anything on my part. I don't need the function to work on RR. I'm really getting fed up with them anyways. I really really miss japan!! I had 12Mb DSL for 30 bucks! Wish all this whole hogging would stop and people would start improving things here! Oh well, loong live the relay and best of luck with things in the future. Oh! btw. Is there something in the works for the resizing of pictures? Some guys said they wanted the bigger pics but I want to make mine smaller. I think thats the prob going to AU in japan. Mayeb when my sister in law gets her new phone it'll be able to accept the bigger pics. bleh...haha. Thanks again!

[MauiPCSdude]

Um, docman!! wheres your site? Last night the Net was really weird and I'm wonderin if it got you? I heven't read of any Sobig attacks yet but was just a little concerned.

[tim.s]

Okay, I went through this thread and I don't think I missed it...

So can someone please tell me if you need any of the PCS picture services (Picture Mail, Picture Pack, etc...) to use docman's Picture Relay?

Or does it work with just Vision (i.e., no PSC picture transfer required)?

[brenfrox]

try to add a new name to your phone book... lets say: chaos-esp, on the email field, enter your regular email address, not the spcs. save it. take your pics, click share, and then select from the list the chaos-esp name that you save, and click ok, an x will apear, and then click done, to share. you will have your pics on your email address.

maybe you already know this, if you know it... sorry to repeat it again... trying to help.

let me know, any news...

b
---


Originally posted by Chaos-ESP
I'm having trouble emailing my pics to my blog...It connects, uploads the pic to the sprint website...then gives me this error message : "Error 99: Service required" what am i doing wrong, or what happened?

[brenfrox]

maybe a stupid question, but what is the relay thing...?

i have an sanyo 8100... thanks bro...

b
---


Originally posted by Chaos-ESP
Yes, i was using the relay...but it wouldnt let me email anything...i hope they finish it.

[docman]

hi all,

sometime last month, sprint started sending all of the pictures message with a different from address. instead of being sent from <youraccount>@sprintpcs.com, picturemail now comes from <yourphonenumber>@messaging.sprintpcs.com

i'm not sure why they did this or if it is well known.. but it kinda messed up the way the relay would determine who you are.

so, there are choices to make.. at the moment the relay has no knowlege of phone numbers. without knowing who the message is coming from.. the relay can't apply any custom preferences you had.. so... i'm going to add a preference box this week so you can add your @messaging.sprintpcs.com address, IF you want to. that way, any custom style you have defined in the relay will be used, as it formerly had be.

anyway, i mainly wanted to give a heads up to anyone who was confused with this crappy sprint notifications that kept popping up, as mine have.

cheers...

ps: i want a t608, i just got a mac with bluetooth =)

[Chaos-ESP]

Yeah, i was wondering why i couldnt send my pics...

Thanks for informing us, I'll continue to use your relay.

[upperking]

Sprint spies are looking at this as a bug and fixes it as changes are made to your script hehe..

[gilberto5]

Finaly today Sprint implemented a feature to change your "reply to", when you share a picture, to what ever you like. Login to pictures.sprintpcs.com and go to acct info tab.

[docman]

Originally posted by gilberto5
Finaly today Sprint implemented a feature to change your "reply to", when you share a picture, to what ever you like. Login to pictures.sprintpcs.com and go to acct info tab.

excellent! getting there...

[jsk1535]

page wont download.."Server busy ir experiencing technicasl problems"...was up?

[docman]

Originally posted by jsk1535
page wont download.."Server busy ir experiencing technicasl problems"...was up?

there was a power outage this weekend, and the machine had to be restarted. doh!

in other news, it looks like someone at sprint goofed; the text version of the invitation now gives you this as the link to the picture:


http://pictures.sprintpcs.com/?sivt={invite}


heh, oops! looks like someone forgot to, uh, make that do anything...

i updated the script to just fetch the image from the html part if it doesn't have any luck with the text part.

[cchiles]

For some reason, even though I change my preferences, I am getting the same format e-mail with an attachment.

[NeonElixir]

Is this the reason why my blog posts on TextAmerica show up without text?

[docman]

Originally posted by cchiles
For some reason, even though I change my preferences, I am getting the same format e-mail with an attachment.

because sprint recently changed the from address of messages to <yourphonenumber>@messaging.sprintpcs.com, instead of <loginname>@sprintpcs.com, it's quite likely that the relay doesn't have any idea what your new address is. (only ever asked for the loginname address..)

i'll fix this tonight, by adding options in the preferences pane to change these addresses.

NeonElixer: can you mail a picture to a normal e-mail address and see if it is in the format you expect? could also be the above problem...?

cheers...

[docman]

hi guys,

okay, i should have just waited to post my last post :)

if you are using the relay, please update your info with your 'messaging' address. there is now a box on the prefs page (http://pcs.hoho.com/prefs.php) for setting the messaging e-mail address.

this will make the relay recognize you once again.

i'll try to send an e-mail to everyone that has requested it in the prefs, but currently i have no good way of mass-mailing. i guess that means its pretty unlikely there will be a lot of announcements via email :)

cheers...

[NeonElixir]

Hooray! It works!

[sprinthausted]

Sending through relay gets me:

You have received a Picture Share from xxxxxxxxxx@messaging.sprintpcs.com.



To view it, click the link below:

................................


http://pictures.sprintpcs.com/?sivt={invite}

I've updated my prefs, to no avail...

[docman]

Originally posted by sprinthausted
Sending through relay gets me:

You have received a Picture Share from xxxxxxxxxx@messaging.sprintpcs.com.



To view it, click the link below:

................................


http://pictures.sprintpcs.com/?sivt={invite}

I've updated my prefs, to no avail...

hi there,

sprint changed the system yet again. now when you click on "view" in a normal mail, you get sent to an intermediate page. it is a javascript page that detects some plugins, sets a cookie for lightspeed (the pictures host), and the redirects you on to the image page. yuck!!

i added some code to detect this just now, after someone told me it was behaving this way.

in situations where the relay can't detect the image from the sprint email, it sends the text version of the original message.. but since the text portion of that message has been useless for the past week or so, this is why you got these {invite} messages..

give it a try now :)

cheers...

[sprinthausted]

YAY! It worked.

Dude, you're providing an awesome service to this community, singlehandedly saving Sprint from complete suckiness.

Kudos.

[jsk1535]

upload your pics to above...download them to your pc...clean them up with Adobe...upload to site..and download pic to your phone...works like a charm

[jsk1535]

correct the url...left out the e in phone

[Adam F]

I tried to use the system, and I got a replay message error, twice. I have updated my prefs. on the page. Whats up?

[docman]

Originally posted by Adam F
I tried to use the system, and I got a replay message error, twice. I have updated my prefs. on the page. Whats up?

hi adam,

hmm, not sure. can you try again and tell me if there is still a problem?

(i was out of town on vacation for the last week and a half and may have missed something..)

cheers...

[VoXPCS]

Whats the correct addy to try this relay out? I don't seem to be getting anywhere with it..

[s0ber]

just tried didn't work out.. maybe sprint changed something else again :\

[gobbawee]

Check out:

http://www.randomcomments.com/wap/

[JB47]

Thanx, gobbawee. I like the site.

[Hank3rd]

If I send a share to my email address, the text shows up. But when I send one to Textamerica it does not. I cannot decipher f an answer to this was given? Does the relay help with this?

[NeonElixir]

Sprint somehow prevent TA from getting the comments, they used to block the pictures as well but TA found a way around. I talk to a guy who works for 'em and he told me it's all on Sprint's end and it's on purpose.

[Lee]

I don't understand what you mean by y.com x.com. could you use an email example. I tried it is best as I could figure out and it did not work.

[Chaos-ESP]

Originally posted by NeonElixir
Sprint somehow prevent TA from getting the comments, they used to block the pictures as well but TA found a way around. I talk to a guy who works for 'em and he told me it's all on Sprint's end and it's on purpose.

This is true, Sprint has repeatedly tried to block images from getting to Textamerica. TA has fixed this, but the comment issue remains. Oh well.

[paulz]

Originally posted by Lee
I don't understand what you mean by y.com x.com. could you use an email example. I tried it is best as I could figure out and it did not work.
username__domain.com@pcs.hoho.com

thanks for this relay man, this is excellent!!!

[Adam F]

I'm still getting the same error.


psc.hoho.com relay: message error

this is an automated response from the clean picture relay.
there was an erorr sending your image

[Adam F]

Got a new phone, Vm4500, tried it again, same error.


Whats up?

[mangoz1129]

question : what are the "addresses" for users...like..

if im mailing a sprint phone wuld i make it

1234567890__messaging.sprint.com@pcs.hoho.net

the messaging.sprint.com is the part im wondering about

and what baout other carriers

if i wanna send to t-mobile...att...verizon?

[Mastec]

for me its 1234567890@messaging.sprintpcs.com

Hope that helps ya :)

[mangoz1129]

thanks, ne clue about other carriers?

[Mastec]

Sorry, can't help ya with other carriers ...

[lmtuxinc]

Originally posted by mangoz1129
question : what are the "addresses" for users...like..

if im mailing a sprint phone wuld i make it

1234567890__messaging.sprint.com@pcs.hoho.net

the messaging.sprint.com is the part im wondering about

and what baout other carriers

if i wanna send to t-mobile...att...verizon?

my brother has verizon and to send pictures to him i had to sign up at pixtopix.com bacuse they can translate the pictures from one carrier to another.

[Mastec]

I found these, I don't know how up to date they are but it's a start

Nextel - 1234567890@messaging.nextel.com
Verizon - 1234567890@vtext.com
Qwest - 1234567890@qwestp.com
AT&T - 1234567890@mobile.att.net
T-Mobile - 1234567890@tmomail.net
Cingular - 1234567890@mobile.mycingular.com

[mangoz1129]

thanks! ill try em out!

[Dingo]

Hey Mike!!! Great tool..just started using it.

Quick question....is it a limitation imposed by Sprint that when I send multiple pics in a single email from my phone using your relay that I still get the Sprint Album share email with just the URL to download the pics isntead of actual attachments?

Cuz when i send individual pics they get received fine both on my TA moblog and my email....its only when I try to do multiple things get horked up :-)

Thx

[Great-One-]

Hey,your program is a great idea,but i got a question,,,i'm using a sprint phone,my friend is using verizon,do i gotta use the number 123456789 then ("user)%x.com@y.com".(The 10 digit number is the user right???) or should i stick to the vtext.com add on??Or is there another,better,easier way...please help???

[steveymacjr]

Wirelessly posted (A500: VM4050/132.037 UP.Browser/6.2.2.4.e.1.100 (GUI) MMP/2.0)

Hey not sure if verizon changed but i got a pic from a friend on verizon and it was from an @vzwpix.com address. Did they change?

[JRider]

I just tried out the tool. I'm getting the relay message bounced back. Is anyone else able to send right now?

[docman]

I just tried out the tool. I'm getting the relay message bounced back. Is anyone else able to send right now?

it works -- log in and set your @messaging address; still havent gotten around to putting that in the signup form :huh:

also a while back the message comments dropped out of the atachment. thats fixed now too, so it should be back to normal.

seeya..

[JRider]

I've logged in and all my info seems to be set correctly. It's still not working. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? :(

[docman]

I've logged in and all my info seems to be set correctly. It's still not working. Maybe I'm doing something wrong? :(

ah, found the problem. your account just wasn't confirmed. its a 2-step signup :)

try again?

[JRider]

Okay, I'm not getting the message anymore. But now the recipient is still not receiving the email. Here's what I'm sending to: ~email~__msn.com@pcs.hoho.com. Is this not right?

[docman]

Okay, I'm not getting the message anymore. But now the recipient is still not receiving the email. Here's what I'm sending to: ~email~__msn.com@pcs.hoho.com. Is this not right?

hmm; i see to successful sends to msn.com within the last two hours. could msn be dropping the message? have you tried sending to another address? drop me a line at pcs (at) hoho.com if you're still having probs and ill look into it more.

cheers..

[JRider]

You know what... I was wrong... they went through. :) I guess I was a little too impatient. So let me ask you this though, is this only for sending to emails? Can you not send directly to a phone by using the @messaging.sprintpcs.com? Also, can you actually see the images that are sent?

[docman]

You know what... I was wrong... they went through. :) I guess I was a little too impatient. So let me ask you this though, is this only for sending to emails? Can you not send directly to a phone by using the @messaging.sprintpcs.com? Also, can you actually see the images that are sent?

yeah; it is mainly for emails. i've never really sent a picture to another phone. sprint makes it seem like a quick and easy thing, and really, it should be. but the phone integration on sprint's network is so unimpressive (text messages require login, web email, etc..) that i don't even bother.

errr, hope that answered it :)

[Nugo]

Not working for me at cox.net or yahoo.com :(

[murphyrulez]

This is working good for me, thanks!

[docman]

Not working for me at cox.net or yahoo.com :(

hmm...

problem may be cox/yahoo anti-spam systems. a lot of isps block mail coming from certain IP subnets: commonly, china, known spam-friendly isps, and dialup/dsl blocks. my server (hoho.com) sits on a pacbell business dsl connection, so while they *shouldn't* block the mail, it's kinda hard to convince the blocking ISP to open up my IP.

i know someone had a problem with roadrunner before and i verified this was the case. not sure about cox/yahoo, tho. i know i e-mail friends at yahoo, though, and my mail isn't blocked, so i'm not so sure this is the problem.

a solution would be for someone with a colocated server or bigger/better connection to host the relay. (someone here @sprintusers offered to do so way, way back, but to my knowledge never did anything). the source is available and i'm happy to help with config questions for personal/alternate relays :)

cheers,
docman (who may soon move to a bluetooth-friendly provider, now in no-contract freedom!)

[Beam00]

Since we can't specify the Subject title through Sprint is there a way to customize it for each e-mail? I know you can change it in Prefs but then its still the same for each e-mail.

What I'm doing is sending my e-mails to this parser (http://ben.milleare.com/archives/000133.html) which then posts them to an MT moblog. What I'd like to do is be able to type somthing like this into the message and have the relay set the subject and message accordingly.

S: This is the subject.

M: This is the message.

That way when it goes to the parser it sets the subject as the blog post title and the message as the photo description.

Is this possible or in the planning for a future release?

[docman]

Since we can't specify the Subject title through Sprint is there a way to customize it for each e-mail? I know you can change it in Prefs but then its still the same for each e-mail.

okay :)

good idea. now you can optionally seperate the message body and message title. you can do this with the '#' sign. for example:

"here is my title#these are the comments"

i selected the '#' sign because it is on my '1' key (and so i dont have to jump into symbol mode). but other suggestions are welcome, as naturally this may screw up any message with the # sign.

note the new settings in preferences: %s for the subject, %c for the comments, and %o for the original message string -- ignores the # sign completely. so set your message subject to %s and text to %c..

that seems to do the trick for me, let me know how it works for you. cheers..
mike

[preswest]

I spent today setting up my own moblog on my own server (http://www.tapoi.com/mob/) using MovableType. I have the stripped email sent to my server where the parser Beam00 mentioned posts the image.

Using the '%s' # '%c' system works great as I can now set the subject and comment fields from my phone, something that Textamerica can't do! We finally beat them at something.

So you all know, its possible for anyone to set up this arrangement as long as you can set cron jobs on your server so that the posting script can run constantly. Some virtual hosts have this and some don't.

Great work you are doing! Now I can post my own work on my own site on my own copyright terms!

-Kevin
-------------

One question: What would happen if I used the # symbol again or wanted it in the title? Perhaps add a function like scripting where /# would ignore it as a function and just print #.

[nonima12]

hey,
well this sounds very interesting id like to try it on my phone (samsung A500) if it will work i cant seem to open attachments through my sprintpcs email acct. so id like to somehow send pictures from my pc to my phone to send to others as well if you think your program will do me some good id love to get it...thank you Sheena

[pdx77]

Hmm, not working for me.

This is the message I'm getting back:

"relay: message error* this is an automated response from Mail

[Sarbar]

Docman I want to thank you for making this. It makes my moblogging alot easyer.

What ever happened to sprintusers.com hosting a version of this?

[Nugo]

Yeah it's not working for me either; I've tried over and over. Ugggghhh, time to go to sleep

[Askym]

docman thank you so much for this tool. it makes sending pics to my email so much easier to save. with kids growing up so fast its a nice way to take pics and save them without having to go to the picture page to download to my computer.

[BigK]

Hey,
Great idea by the way, but I am having a problem. I signed up for an account at pcs.hoho.com and it worked fine for the first picture I e-mailed through it, but has not worked since, even to that same address. Is there something wrong? My account is under the name "bigk". I am sending using the format "name__address.com@pcs.hoho.com", but I never get an e-mail.
Thanks,
BigK

[docman]

Hey,
Great idea by the way, but I am having a problem. I signed up for an account at pcs.hoho.com and it worked fine for the first picture I e-mailed through it, but has not worked since, even to that same address. Is there something wrong?

yo bigK,

i only see that one message has come in from you, so the problem is in the mail not getting to my server. hmm. try sending again..?

cheers.

[Kinetikx]

I just wanted to say that this tool F-ing rocks!

I just set up my account yesterday and screwed up my settings during signup and Mike came through after I shot an email to him in a very short time.

THIS is the way Sprint SHOULD have made their picture mail work when sending to regular e-mail addresses.

Thanks again to Mike. For once, a knowledgeable and NICE programmer who is willing to help out those of us with limited knowledge. :D

[Askym]

for 2 days now i have been trying to send pics to my email and nothing is showing up. i know i have been doing it right because i have been doing it for a while and it worked great...is there a prob with the mail server.

[Masterloc]

so is it
1234567890__messaging.sprintpcs.com@pcs.hoho.com
or
1234567890__messaging.sprint.com@pcs.hoho.com?
i can't seem to get it to work right

[spacegrrl]

is anyone using the relay successfully right now (as in for the last week, two weeks)?

i have been using it successfully (and gratefully) for quite some time now... just recently though i'm not receiving emails with the photo as an attachment, just a buncha html code with no attachment.

i've emailed mike directly in the past when there have been problems and have gotten quick responses when the problem is on his end. usually no response means the problem is on my end and i need to check more carefully.

anyway, i did mail mike, have not heard anything back (unless his mail got caught by a spam filter or something) and can't find a problem on my end... in fact i've not changed anything on my end in a few months.

so any confirmation that the relay is/is not still working for someone right now would help a lot in my troubleshooting.

[docman]

hi!

really sorry for the delay, it should be fixed now. sprint changes something and i was very very slow to respond. sorry for the delay, i really meant to get to it sooner and i know it sucks when it breaks!

cheers,
mike

is anyone using the relay successfully right now (as in for the last week, two weeks)?

[spacegrrl]

thanks mike for fixing it, no worries about the delay-- i am really grateful for the service and hey, life happens :)

[pbigwood]

I set up the service tonight. Every time I try to send something, I'm immediately getting a reply that there was an error sending the message. I've checked all my settings and everything looks to be correct, any ideas.

THANKS for the service, I can't wait to use it!

[docman]

I set up the service tonight. Every time I try to send something, I'm immediately getting a reply that there was an error sending the message.

i checked the errors, you aren't sending to a properly formatted address. check the docs on the site again :)

in other news: Nick P. e-mailed me about a way to change the picture URL in our sprint phones, provided you know the MSL. i didn't even know this was possible! this leads to a great thing: the picture upload protocol is really simple, and nick's already reversed it. so you can basically never use the sprint picture service, send directly to your own server (or a 3rd party), and do all sorts of cool stuff!

this is the 'right way' to do things, so i as i use it more, i will begin phasing out the relay. i'll post a seperate thread. i could picture sprintusers.com easily hosting their own mini image gateway that simply forwards the images as attachment (the main goal for me, anyway). this also means you don't have to muck around with reformatting email addresses and stuff :)

cheers..

[pbigwood]

I fixed my settings, and voila!

Thankyou, Thankyou, Thankyou!

This service is GREATLY appreciated.

[noshooz]

In addition to uploading to the Sprint Picture Mail site, I also sometimes send my camera pics to my photo storage space on Yahoo! For those with Yahoo IDs, just e-mail them from your camera phone to your Yahoo ID @photos.yahoo.com . Works like a charm.

[jaminmc]

Hey, It hasn't been working for a week. IS it dead? Or did sprint change something?
The Eimail is bounced back. Here is the bounce back
This is the Postfix program at host cuidado.hoho.com.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be
be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to <postmaster>

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can
delete your own text from the attached returned message.

The Postfix program

<edited@pcs.hoho.com>: Command died with status 1:
"/etc/postfix/scripts/picture-relay.py". Command output: Traceback (most
recent call last): File "/etc/postfix/scripts/picture-relay.py", line
148, in ? import ClientCookie ImportError: No module named ClientCookie


Final-Recipient: rfc822; edited@pcs.hoho.com
Action: failed
Status: 5.0.0
Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; Command died with status 1:
"/etc/postfix/scripts/picture-relay.py". Command output: Traceback (most
recent call last): File "/etc/postfix/scripts/picture-relay.py", line
148, in ? import ClientCookie ImportError: No module named ClientCookie

[Nazcar]

Hum, will this work for my phone?

RL-4920 Sanyo

[mospeed]

is this service still avaliable? I set up my g/f account to send pics to my tmobile phone and I never got anything.

when it asked for the confirmation code online, it set it didn't match but when she activated from her phone just fine. confused.... :eyebrow:

great service though if it works. I dropped sprint... seems sprint makes their customers happy within sprint... trying doing anything outside of sp