Tweet2SMS

Some users are experiencing multiple SMS messages when using the User Name track feature.

This is due to a bug with the file format we are receiving from http://search.twitter.com. While I wait for a fix from Twitter I have introduced a workaround so you should no longer receive multiple messages. This does mean that there might be a delay in your receiving your tracking messages. I apologise for any issues this might cause but the solution is out of our hands.

If you are interested this is the bug.

Just a quick post to let you know that Tweet2SMS has moved servers over the weekend. At this stage I am still working through some of the issues and getting everything back up and running.

The service is now running on a VPS provided by Slicehost so I expect that performance will also improve.

Over the last week we have been having a small disagreement with our web hosting provider. This resulted in some very weird processing of messages in the last week and in the end we have parted ways. This is good news for users of Tweet2SMS as we are no on our own dedicated server!

Over the weekend the service will be re-established on the new server and we should be back up and running for the working week.

Please bear with us as we get everything done.

Over the last couple of days we have had a few SMS delivery issues, they should be now resolved. The issue was a couple of things, partly on the Tweet2SMS side and partly the SMS gateway & some carriers in Australia were having issues. This meant that I was not crediting accounts correctly for the outgoing messages. Now the issue is resolved I have credited everyone an extra 10% of messages just in case you were impacted by the miscounting.

I pushed out a small update this morning, so hopefully nothing will break.

The update included a couple of modifications to the DM syntax and added a new command. You can now request your account status by DM’ing @tweet2sms the word ‘account status’. I also added a time parameter to the ‘account on’ and ‘track on’ commands to set these on for a specific period of time. For example:

account on 4 - sets your account on for the next 4 hours

track on 4 - sets tracking of your user name for the next hours

There is a special parameter ‘today’ which sets notifications on for the rest of the day (until 3am), example:

account on today - leaves your account on until 3am tomorrow morning (based on your time zone)

track on today - leaves tracking of your user name on until 3am tomorrow morning (based on your time zone)

I hope you enjoy the new features.

Today I cleaned up some of the original code and released a requested feature. The ability to control your account remotely.

Want to turn tracking on, while you are away from your computer? No problem from today you can now to that!

Basically you send @tweet2sms a Direct Message via Twitter.

The currently implemented commands are:-

• Account On - Turns your account on
• Account Off - Turns your account off, which means you will no longer receive any messages
• Track On - Turns tracking of @Replies to your user name on, a word of warning if you are popular you will run out of SMS credits quickly.
• Track Off - Turns tracking off, you get the idea.
• Sleep 30 - Sleeps all SMS notices for 30 minutes
• Sleep 60 - Sleeps all SMS notices for 60 minutes
• Sleep 90 - Sleeps all SMS notices for 90 minutes
• Sleep 120 - Sleeps all SMS notices for 120 minutes
• Sleep Off - Cancels a previously requested sleep command
• Help - Lets you know what you can do

The best bit is at this stage messages sent and received while using these commands will no count on your credit.

Finally I have set up a blog for this service. It has taken a while but finally it is here!

Welcome to Tweet2SMS, currently in beta, a service designed to send Direct Messages and Track mentions of your User Name from Twitter to your mobile phone via SMS.
The service also allows separate times for when you want tracking enabled versus direct messages.