The JSMS blog has been moved

We've just moved the JSMS blog over to wordpress.com. This is mainly due to it having better features than blogspot. Check it out in future:

JSMS Weblog

JSMS Wikipedia Entry

Keith has been busy promoting JSMS by creating a new Wikipedia entry. 

Check out the article here.

JSMS 4.0.8 released

JSMS version 4.0.8 has been released into the wild. 

Here's what we've added:

- Mac users will now have the toolbar on the top of the
screen giving the app a more native feel (restart JSMS AFTER upgrading to see this).

- Added 'Clear history...' function to the History menu.

- In the Phone Book you can now delete multiple contacts
at once.

- In the Phone Book you can now remove multiple contacts
from a group at once.

- When sending to a group, you will now not see the 'test'
dialog that previously was shown for each recipient.

- Fixed bug where history function was not functioning
correctly when sending to groups.

- Reverse history.

Get the new version now.

JSMS 4.0.7 released!

Hello again folks!

Keith has been busy updating JSMS. He noticed that the automatic update in JSMS was broken. We host the project on sourceforge.net and they are currently giving their website a much needed overhaul. Unfortunately they broke our update mechanism in the process, so you will need to download and install the latest version of JSMS manually from https://sourceforge.net/project/show...roup_id=196351.

Also, the feature to download contacts from the Meteor website was also broken.

These issues are both fixed in version 4.0.7.

We highly recommend that you update to version 4.0.7 to get all the latest fixes - particularly the automatic update fix.

Importing your GMail contacts to JSMS

One of the new features that was quietly sneaked into the latest release of JSMS is the ability to import from your GMail contact list. We use the official Google Data API to do this. It works very well because of this well defined API. This is very handy also if you travel a lot or use many PC's. Imagine you can have one central phone book (in GMail). Always use it to add / edit and delete new phone contacts, then when you sit down to use JSMS on any PC you can import your contacts knowing they are always up to date.

If you want to upload all your contacts from your phone to GMail, if you have a modern phone, you probably can.

With my Sony Ericsson W710i I can easily do this by

1. Go into my Sony Ericsson phonebook.
2. Go to Advanced settings
3. Click 'Backup phonebook to MS'.
4. Then use bluetooth (or use a data cable) to transfer the file PB_Backup.vcf from the System folder of your memory stick to your PC/Mac. 5. Then in you web browser, open Gmail contacts.
6. Click 'Import' at the bottom.
7. Select this PB_Backup.vcf file and Gmail should upload all your phone numbers (although sometimes Gmail upload doesn't work).
8. Open JSMS
9. Click 'Tools' -> 'Phone book...'
10. Click the 'Import' button.
11. Follow the steps for importing from GMail. Only Irish mobile numbers will be imported (and international numbers for O2 users).

Sorry I dont know about other phone models but take a look at your phone user guide to find out how you might do this for your particular make & model.

JSMS 4.0.3 released!

Meteor completely revamped the back end of their website yesterday. This change forced us to make a unscheduled release of JSMS...

Unfortunately, we haven't had a chance to test this release even remotely as thoroughly as we would like, so please forgive us if this release doesn't meet the normal quality standards that we usually try to aspire to; here's the deal - if you report bugs quickly, we'll try to fix them quickly!

One thing that I have noted is that the Meteor website still occasionally returns an error. JSMS will always tell you when it can't send a message and simply trying again seems to work...

We've been busy (well Finbarr has been busy!) since the last release, as the following list of features will highlight...

• Added a phone book manager and a button to launch it from the main screen. Multiple contacts can added to a group by drag and drop or multi-selection.
• Redesigned Login window.
• Added ability to export and import contacts (great for backing up your phone book).
• Contacts can be searched by typing their name.
• Updated message window and made background colours configurable, just like the fonts are.
• Added message log showing message history since JSMS was launched.
• Updated JSMS to work with Meteor's latest website update.
• Fixed bug where user could only enter a manual number up to 10 digits long (needed for O2 users).
• Updated installer and "About" box images and fixed bug where the installer crashed on certain Linux platforms.
• Temporarily removed broken "sendToGroups" functionality.

Enjoy - and please report any bugs to us at jsmsirl@gmail.com

Regards,
The JSMS Team.

Freeteor for iPhone

Check out this great new application called Freeteor for iPhone which works on the same principal as JSMS i.e. sending free web texts without having to use a browser. Freeteor uses some of the same backend code as JSMS.

Looks like a nice little program. I will be checking it out in a couple of months when I get back to Eire...