angryquaker Posted October 26, 2008 Posted October 26, 2008 OK, so I've done some searching, and found various contribs that will send my cell phone a text message when an order is placed. Nice, altho I could just send extra email to my phone from admin. What I would really like to do is to add a feature on my site that would allow customers to receive messages and updates to THEIR cell via txt msg. It seems that in the past month or so of looking at others' sites I came across something like this, but I can't recall where, and haven't found anything in contribs or in the forum that will do this. Wouldn't it be awesome to give customers the option to get messages and notifications by email, txt msg, or both? I don't think I've quite gotten a good enough grasp of the PHP/MySQL stuff to code that myself, but I'm guessing it would be fairly simple for someone who really knows what they're doing. Add a field to the customer info table (or use the obsolete fax field), and make an infobox to take their phone# with a drop-down to select their provider, then output that info to the database in the proper format, e.g. [email protected]. Seems to me that this would be a great way to keep one's store on people's minds, maybe send out weekly or bi-weekly tips & tricks related to your store's products, special sales, and all that sort of thing. Email has been used to do this for many years, but mobile devices are the way of the future. I know I could just use an email list and do this manually, but having it integrated in the store would be excellent, and as the subscriber base grows, the manual option becomes less and less appealing. Also, having a simple way to subscribe to it on the site would just look cool, and we all know "coolness factor" is important. I'll keep looking around and thinking about it, just thougt I'd toss the idea out there, kinda run 'er up the old flagpole and see if anyone salutes. Anyone who could code this up and make it available would be held in high esteem by their peers and colleagues, I'm sure, and I'd bet I wouldn't be the only one to jump on it. Oh, and if there's already something available to do this, I'd appreciate a nudge in the right direction to find it, and apologize for going on and on about it. :huh: Namasté, Russ One: people are not wearing enough hats. Two: matter is energy. In the universe, there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist ab initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved, owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.
angryquaker Posted October 26, 2008 Author Posted October 26, 2008 After doing more searching, I did find this contrib to integrate PHPList into osC. Sounds great, and I had actually checked my cPanel to see what kind of mailing lists are available, that I might be able to use. PHPList is there, BUT, on this dedicated IP hosting account, they only gave me ONE MySQL database to use! I have another hosting account with more DBs open and available, on the same hosting service, but I'm not sure it would work with the PHPList contrib, as that states that both DBs (PHPL & osC) must reside on the same host. I'm pretty sure my osC domain is on a different server from my fuller-featured account. Dagnabbit. I'll keep looking and thinking. Namasté, Russ One: people are not wearing enough hats. Two: matter is energy. In the universe, there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist ab initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved, owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.
angryquaker Posted October 27, 2008 Author Posted October 27, 2008 Wow. I'd have thought someone would have joined me in this discussion by now. LOL I dunno, maybe I'm just chasing shadows. <_< Anyway, I have sent a message to my hosting guy, asking nicely if I can please have another DB to use for PHPMail. I'm setting it up on my other domain now, just to see if it will work for what I want to do. I still think it would be better to have everything contained in the same DB for the cart, but with my limited knowledge of things in this area, I could easily be dead wrong. Maybe I should spend a little time today looking under the hood of the osC newsletter feature, see if I can duplicate it. I looked in the documentation, not much there regarding the newsletter. I still can't believe nobody has said, "That sounds like a neat idea," or "You'd have to pay someone to code that," or "Shut up, Russ," or SOMEthing heheheh Namasté, Russ One: people are not wearing enough hats. Two: matter is energy. In the universe, there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist ab initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved, owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.
angryquaker Posted October 28, 2008 Author Posted October 28, 2008 Alrighty, then. This isn't working. The PHPMail contrib replaces the standard osC newsletter, which is not what I want to do. I just want to add a different newsletter, with a different list of "addresses" to be sent to. Anyone? Maybe just a nudge in the right direction for a nice tutorial on bending this PHP and MySQL to my will? LOL I'm getting frustrated at this point, but I have this idea stuck in my head now, and I'm not giving up without a good fight. I'm pretty sure I can add the fields I need to the "customer" table in the DB, I think I can even manage a form to collect the info and populate the fields. I just need some help on learning how to work with the data once I have it. Or something. I dunno, I'm frustrated and confused now. And I'm talking to myself in this thread. :lol: Somebody throw me a rope, already. Please. Namasté, Russ One: people are not wearing enough hats. Two: matter is energy. In the universe, there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist ab initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved, owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.
shadow007 Posted October 28, 2008 Posted October 28, 2008 I integrated phplist with osc ago, just created a default mailing list in phplist and modified some files in osc. phplist can store customers' email addresses automatically when they sign up, and customer can unsubscribe at anytime. note: phplist and osc use the same DB. Everyone is changing the world. Everyone is a world. For everyone needs my help, PM or email if I amn't online.
angryquaker Posted October 29, 2008 Author Posted October 29, 2008 Still plugging away at this. Thought you guys might get a kick out of this, tho... I had set up my PHPList, got Notepad++ (awesome, just tried it today for the first time) and was opening some files to attack this from a new angle. I got a text message on my phone, from the show "Ghost Hunters," of which I am a fan. It occurred to me, they have a slick little number that anyone can send a message to, and receive periodic updates, news, trivia, and so forth. For the Sci-Fi channel, it's 72434, you send a message with the proper text input for your favorite show, and it signs you up automatically. I thought, "Man, wouldn't it be totally awesome to have a number like that?!" So I set about researching it. Long story short, the code I would love to have is available. It's UTOPIA, or 886742. I was thinking, "Yeah! I'll go a couple bucks on that, see how it works!" Turns out the registration fee is $1000 per MONTH for a "select" code, where you choose your own digits from the pool of available codes. A random code is only $500 a month. They have 3-, 6-, and 12-month packages. :lol: And it looks like that's just to register the numbers, after that, you'd need a Service Provider to actually USE the damn thing. Like registering a domain is completely separate from hosting said domain. I dunno about any of you, but my marketing budget won't quite support that kind of thing at this point. I just thought it was pretty funny, and thought some of you might enjoy having a laugh, too. Sorry, I'll go back to my corner now, and work more on doing this thing I'm obsessed with. ;) Namasté, Russ One: people are not wearing enough hats. Two: matter is energy. In the universe, there are many energy fields which we cannot normally perceive. Some energies have a spiritual source which act upon a person's soul. However, this soul does not exist ab initio, as orthodox Christianity teaches. It has to be brought into existence by a process of guided self-observation. However, this is rarely achieved, owing to man's unique ability to be distracted from spiritual matters by everyday trivia.
ssnb Posted September 11, 2009 Posted September 11, 2009 Still plugging away at this. Thought you guys might get a kick out of this, tho... Sorry, I'll go back to my corner now, and work more on doing this thing I'm obsessed with. ;) Namasté, Russ Hi Russ, I hope you are still alive and well out there somewhere - I read your posts with increasing interest (and humour!). You certainly have a way with words! For what it is worth, I use a solution from Clickatel - it's not free, but it is relatively easy to send out 1 message to my 1,900 customers on their cellphone number. I believe they also do a variety of other services. Maybe it is possible to add sometning to OSC for customers to track orders? It's a good idea - but not something I am willing to look at for the time being... http://www.clickatell.com/products/messenger_pro.php
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