Can this be done on a Today Plugin? Does it exist?

[humayunl]

I have a PPC Phone device and I use a pre-paid connection i.e. i buy a card for X amount, enter the code and it recharges my account. If i want to know he balance on my card i have to call a number and an automaic message tells me my balance.

is it possible, and it would be GREAT, if a today plugin can somehow fetch the latest balance and update it on the today screen? There are phone related today plugins like Hudson Mobile's phone dashboard or DKToday but they don't have this feature. I understand that the operator also must have to support some kind of interface into their system for the app to fetch this info... but just wondering if this exists or can be done.

it would be a very useful utility..

What do you think guys/gals?

[Menneisyys]

I have a PPC Phone device and I use a pre-paid connection i.e. i buy a card for X amount, enter the code and it recharges my account. If i want to know he balance on my card i have to call a number and an automaic message tells me my balance.

is it possible, and it would be GREAT, if a today plugin can somehow fetch the latest balance and update it on the today screen? There are phone related today plugins like Hudson Mobile's phone dashboard or DKToday but they don't have this feature. I understand that the operator also must have to support some kind of interface into their system for the app to fetch this info... but just wondering if this exists or can be done.

it would be a very useful utility..

What do you think guys/gals?

Well, technically, it's not that hard. You most certainly can enquire for your balance via an SMS. Sending an SMS from your own program is very easy, even without specific API support (and the PE / SmartPhone op. systems must even have API calls that only require the target number and the mssage body). See e.g. http://poneill.ucd.ie/SMS/ for an app that makes the PDU's used in SMS sending/retrieving communication visible.

So, you send out an SMS to the mobile operator, and, sometimes later, process the SMS coming back.

Another option is via HTTP, if your mobile operator supports balance inquiries on the Web. (Incidentally, they're generally much cheaper than SMS-based iquiries; mostly even free). If no other server-side support (e.g., XML/RSS) is present, just send a HTTP request to the server, passing along some auth info (this all depends on the server - does it rquire cookie usage, or does it allow for on-the=fly authentication), and process the returned HTTP message to extract the balance. It's not very complicated either and can be coded/tested in a few hours/days.

[humayunl]

Thanks menneisyys...

So now that we've (well you've :) established that it can be done... why isn't it already being done? or more importantly, who can be contacted to see if they will be interested in doing something like this.

[Menneisyys]

Thanks menneisyys...

So now that we've (well you've :) established that it can be done... why isn't it already being done? or more importantly, who can be contacted to see if they will be interested in doing something like this.

The problem is that AFAIK there is still no generic, e.g., XML/Web Service-based, standardized interface for enquiries (I may be wrong though), so an app like this developed for one GSM provider will just not work with the others. This may be the main reason for the lack of these kinds of apps.