Free SMS alerts

Fernand

Hello
I hope someone can help me with my problem since I can't find a solution for it.
The idea is simple, I want to be able to do what people living in the States, France etc can do i.e. forwarding Twitter's tweets via SMS so that wherever I am, without being able to get connected to the internet, I can receive the latest in sports, a tennis match score for instance, on the phone.
I have an iPhone if that helps.
I have HeyWire though its option HeyTweets only serves for SMS to tweets.
I have both Windows and Linux.
What do I need to achieve that?

I hope I was clear enough
Let me know if you can help
Thanks
Merry Christmas
Fernand

m0ei

mmm, if you have an iPhone, that means you can receive Push Notifications of the Tweets but still the problem is the internet in Lebanon( sadly we don't have 3g ). I didn't try if the push notifications work with WAP.

About the FREE SMS, i doubt you can find a free way. But you can still check those websites: http://www.tweetsms.com/ or http://www.smstweet.com/

Oh about HeyWire ( didn't pay attention first ), It doesn't cover Lebanon ( sad :( ).
Check it out: http://www.heywire.com/global-coverage/middle-east
It support Palestine and Iraq but not Lebanon.

Anyway i'll check for another solution.

Fernand

It does not support Lebanon blah blah but I am sending tons of SMSes to Lebanese phone numbers using this format "+96170/3XXXXXX" with a signature including my name for people to know who I am.

The idea is that one needs a free SMS gateway? a 24/7 server? I doubt some website offers these options for free. (Some offer trials of Tweet-to-SMS but then again you have to pay once the trial ends)
Let's say the gateway is there, one needs to route the twitter tweets at a certain pace through the gateway to the phone.
I don't think I have enough knowledge to do all this.
Please help me, maybe we can all enjoy some free Weather/News/Sports/Jokes alerts on our mobiles in Lebanon.
Cheers

Fernand

oh and by the way, using HeyWire's HeyTweet's service (i.e. the 40404 number which is Twitter's number for Tweets-to-SMS) I am able to "follow" some Twitter user and I am able to receive the tweets to my virtual USA number +1 XXXXXXXXXXX. Is there a way to forward the messages to the local number?
Still, in this case, the phone must be linked to the net.
:(

m0ei

Well no idea other than this, never tried to make it work. Anyway I'll search for a solution, maybe i can find something.
Well this is Lebanon.

Fernand

I found this:
http://www.jinny.com.lb/directly_email_on_gsm.asp

Anyone ever heard about it or tried it?

Fernand

Seems like this jinny thing is old and does not work.
I found though that E-mail to SMS is still possible.
Alfa for instance offers a "MessageBox" service for 1.5$ a month which has got an option in its settings menu called "Email to SMS" which can be enabled.
Is anyone subscribed to this service? Does it really work?
I'm thinking of the following:
program gmail let's say to forward emails to 9613XXXXXX@ums.alfa.com.lb every 15 minutes
and whatever one wants to receive via sms isn't hard to forward to his email

so here is my idea, simplified:
CONTENT (sports scores, news, personal emails)---> email (Gmail can be programmed to send all this check here: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/how-to-setup-free-sms-alerts-for-urgent-emails-in-gmail/) ----> SMS via the Alfa MessageBox gateway?

Is this possible?
Please help
Thank you

Kassem

Why do you really need to do all this? Can't you wait to get back home, go online and check everything you need in like 10 minutes?

I'm sorry I do not mean to be rude but I just do not get the point of going through all this mess. It's not really worth it, at least not to me.

Fernand

Dude it's the era of omnipresence, everyone connected to everyone/thing everywhere.
I don't see why we, Lebanese people, cannot at least TRY to get a taste of what others get elsewhere in the world.
Do you know for instance that there are unlimited SMS plans in the whole of Europe provided by their very phone operators? unlimited phone calls in the weekends? 3G/HSDPA plans for reasonable prices? Twitter to SMS working by default without workarounds. If you do, then your question is pointless. If you don't please make sure you know what others enjoy before we utter we should ACCEPT the limitations we're being put into.
Yes, life is hard and I am a perfectionist. Any problem?
:)

PS: I hope further replies would be more fruitful and directed towards the topic. No offence.
Fernand

Ayman

I am not sure what you really want but maybe telephone.com can be helpful. Have a good day and good luck.