Cross posted from sms_to_lj...
I'm going to be closing down the sms_to_lj service soon, but read on because this isn't actually bad news :)
The sms_to_lj service I created has been constantly (apart from a few outages) posting your text messages to LiveJournal since 2003. In that time it's taken over 100,000 of your messages containing insightful thoughts, social commentary and general nonsense and converted them into LiveJournal posts.
Since last year, when I added Ping.fm support to the gateway, it has been doing the same for over 30 other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Last month the guys at Ping.fm (who have always been very supportive of my unofficial service) got in touch about creating an official international SMS gateway for Ping.fm and that's exactly what we did.
The Ping.fm gateway runs entirely on equipment hosted in datacentres and has an interconnect with a major UK mobile network while the sms_to_lj gateway runs entirely on an old server (an ancient MIPS Cobalt RAQ for those interested) in my apartment connected to an equally old Nokia handset. The new Ping.fm gateway won't go down when I move house or when the old Nokia handset decides to turn itself off for no reason.
With all that in mind I'm going to recommend that everyone switch to using the new Ping.fm gateway immediately, it's very simple to get things up and running so that text messages to Ping.fm go to your Livejournal and if you need any help they have an excellent support community on Get Satisfaction.
So in short, sms_to_lj will be closing down soon but it's all ok because Ping.fm have an international SMS service now (the SMS side of which is also run by me). I appreciate that not everyone who uses the service reads this journal. If you know someone like that, please tell them :)
Lastly, thanks to everyone who supported this service over the years by clicking the Paypal donate button on the Info page :)
One small footnote, since I hooked the Ping.fm guys up with a a proper mobile network interconnect all the networks consider it to be a UK number unlike Jersey or Manx telecom numbers, as used by Twitter, which some networks consider "international" and charge extra for.
The sms_to_lj service I created has been constantly (apart from a few outages) posting your text messages to LiveJournal since 2003. In that time it's taken over 100,000 of your messages containing insightful thoughts, social commentary and general nonsense and converted them into LiveJournal posts.
Since last year, when I added Ping.fm support to the gateway, it has been doing the same for over 30 other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
Last month the guys at Ping.fm (who have always been very supportive of my unofficial service) got in touch about creating an official international SMS gateway for Ping.fm and that's exactly what we did.
The Ping.fm gateway runs entirely on equipment hosted in datacentres and has an interconnect with a major UK mobile network while the sms_to_lj gateway runs entirely on an old server (an ancient MIPS Cobalt RAQ for those interested) in my apartment connected to an equally old Nokia handset. The new Ping.fm gateway won't go down when I move house or when the old Nokia handset decides to turn itself off for no reason.
With all that in mind I'm going to recommend that everyone switch to using the new Ping.fm gateway immediately, it's very simple to get things up and running so that text messages to Ping.fm go to your Livejournal and if you need any help they have an excellent support community on Get Satisfaction.
So in short, sms_to_lj will be closing down soon but it's all ok because Ping.fm have an international SMS service now (the SMS side of which is also run by me). I appreciate that not everyone who uses the service reads this journal. If you know someone like that, please tell them :)
Lastly, thanks to everyone who supported this service over the years by clicking the Paypal donate button on the Info page :)
One small footnote, since I hooked the Ping.fm guys up with a a proper mobile network interconnect all the networks consider it to be a UK number unlike Jersey or Manx telecom numbers, as used by Twitter, which some networks consider "international" and charge extra for.