Using E-mail and Web Access for Text Paging and Messaging

Are you using a utility to to send messages to pagers indicating system status reports by dialing a DTC connected modem? Or are you running an offline PC based utility to send messages to text pagers? There are more modern techniques available now that you may be able to take advantage of. Most text pager and mobile phone providers offer the option of sending messages through either a web browser interface or via email.

There are several free mail clients available that allow you to send email messages to an SMTP mail server from your 3000. My favorite is MAILNM from Telamon  By sending a message to an address that typically is comprised of the pager phone number and the domain of the pager company the text of the Email message will be displayed on the recipients pager. Here is simple example of mailing a small message where the mail server has an IP address of 192.168.1.54 and the users pager number is (513) 555-1212.

:echo Your compile job has aborted  >MSGTEXT
:run mailnm;info="-s 'Job Aborted' -h 192.168.1.54  &
-f hp3000@beechglen.com -t 5135551212@airtouch.com &
-m MSGTEXT"

For those mobile communication companies offer a Web based interface, WGET is the utility to obtain. This is a small program that retrieves web pages as text files using the same protocol and methods that a web browser does, but WGET saves the file rather than formatting and displaying it. Here is an example of sending a message using the interface provided by Airtouch (www.airtouch.com) that sends the message “Compile Job Completed Successfully” and saves the resulting web page to the file myfile.html.

shell/iX> wget http://webmsg.airtouch.com/cgi-bin/smspowerband_parse_genmail?NUM=5133124883 &
MSG=Compile+Job+Completed+Successfully&Send=Send

Even if you don’t have direct Internet access from your system WGET can utilize a proxy server by entering this command.

shell/iX> export http_proxy="192.168.48.15:8080"

Another use for WGET might be accessing the Federal Express Tracking database website. Here is an example of retrieving tracking information:

shell/iX> wget -O fedex.output http://www.fedex.com/cgi-bin
/track_it?airbill_list=792591511672&kurrent_airbill=792591411677&
language=english&cntry_code=us&state=0

The key to using WGET to automate retrieving dynamic (CGI program) based web pages is to know the URL that the web server is processing. You can eaily obtain the URL by running the online version of the web site in your browser which will place the URL into address bar.

WGET can be downloaded from: http://www.editcorp.com/personal/lars_appel/wget/ MAILNM can be downloaded from: Telamon Both utilities come as ready to run executables and run immediately. No porting, compiling, or even configuring is needed. With a little programming effort both MAILNM and WGET can be automated.