[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/sho...&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