In order to use this component, your PHP installation needs to support cURL and you need to have a Panacea Mobile username/password (can be obtained at http://www.panaceamobile.com).

You may download the component from:

www.panaceamobile.com/panacea_sms_component.zip

Once done, save panacea_sms.php in your components directory (usually under app/controllers/components).

Then place the following code in your controller where you wish to use the component.


var $components = array('PanaceaSms');


This will include the component into your controller.

Now, in your controller functions, when you wish to send an SMS/text message, your code should look something like this:


$this->PanaceaSms->username = "myusername"; /* This is your Panacea Mobile username */
$this->PanaceaSms->password = "mypassword"; /* This is your Panacea Mobile password */
if($this->PanaceaSms->send("44881234567", "Hello there!")) {
/* SMS Sent */
}


Easy as that!

Advanced features (optional)

There are some ‘advanced’ features available if you wish to change the from number (the number which the message appears to be from) as well as receive delivery reports. This can be done as below:


$fromNumber = "44881234569";
$this->PanaceaSms->username = "myusername"; /* This is your Panacea Mobile username */
$this->PanaceaSms->password = "mypassword"; /* This is your Panacea Mobile password */
$this->PanaceaSms->delivery_report_mask = 31; /* This is for all statuses */
$this->PanaceaSms->delivery_report_url = Router::url(array('action' => 'receive_delivery_report'), true);
if($this->PanaceaSms->send("44881234567", "Hello there!", $fromNumber)) {
/* SMS Sent */
}


Now, when a delivery report comes in for your message, it will hit the URL specified under delivery_report_url. I have included an example of how to deal with this in your controller.


function receive_delivery_report() {
$details = $this->PanaceaSms->getDeliveryReport();
if($details !== FALSE) {
/* original to, from, message and status returned in an array */
}
}


The following question then occurred to me: “How does one motivate software developers to do the right thing while they are developing?” As we all know, there is an ‘easy’ way to do things and a ‘hard’ way. At this point it may be useful to use the analogy of building a house to explain my point. The first (easy) option of building a house would be to build it out of wood, with merely satisfactory foundations. The second (harder) option would be to build it out of cement and concrete, with deep foundations. Both options would serve their purpose; however, under extreme weather conditions, (and, in fact, inevitably over time), the first house would start to creak and no longer be able to perform its task, while the second would remain strong.

The same principle applies to software development. The question is thus raised regarding how to motivate the developers in a company (or on a project) to make the right choices; to lay the right foundations; and stick to these principles over time. Importantly, the issue is not simply how to motivate them to work, but rather, how to motivate them to do their job to the best of their ability.

I would argue that there are two major categories of developers. The first kind of developer is a developer who may have needed to make a career choice after school, and who chose IT because it was the option people suggested (s)he decide on. The choice to become a developer was, as such, essentially reducible to the choice to pursue a seemingly “good” job. The second kind of developer, however, is passionate about technology and would most likely be involved in IT regardless of any career potentials offered by the field.

I would not know how to motivate the first kind of developer in this example- I believe that these types rarely elevate themselves to the heights that are truly needed in the industry (unless they transition to the second type). I suppose that the pay-check at the end of each month would probably be enough motivation in most cases, although this is only likely to be motivation to simply show up at work; not to go the extra mile. If a company’s developers are of the first type only, the company or project would almost certainly need a strong architect to set policies and expectations in place, and to make sure that these are carried out.

The real question I would like to address here concerns the issue of motivating the second type of developer- the passionate one. (I believe that I am personally passionate about technology and software development so forgive me if I have related this question to myself too readily). Luckily, I work for myself now, so my motivation to offer excellent client service is certainly present. However, since I have begun to outsource more work, I have also been urged to think back to a time during which I worked for companies, and not for myself. In retrospect, a pressing question for me concerns what these companies did to make me lose interest. What would have kept me motivated? And more importantly, how do I keep my people motivated now? I have identified four issues that may help add clarity to this issue, and these are what I would like to share with you here.

1) Listen to the Senior Developers

At almost every company I have worked, there has been a power-struggle about delivery and priorities, between the top levels of management and development teams. The developers are desperate for time to update the architecture and design of  software, while management push only for new features to drive short term sales. In the long term, if these managers consistently win  this debate without making any compromises, the software will inevitably fall short, as developers are not able to see their proposals met and the architecture ultimately fails. Technology is ever-changing; and if you are still developing the same way you did five years ago, your competitors are getting ahead of you and your developers will remain frustrated.

2) Keep innovating

Nobody who is passionate about technology wants to do the same thing for three years. They want to do new things; use new tools; use new technology and generally-speaking, innovate. This is not always an easy goal to achieve, but if followed out, it will serve two purposes. Not only will the developers be more satisfied with and excited about their day-to-day work, but innovation will also open up new revenue streams within a business.

3) Give a sense of ownership

By this I don’t mean giving someone a “Team Leader” title and telling them to run with it. I mean genuine ownership. I would suggest that software or technology companies should have an optional staff share plan in place. This would encourage developers to make sure that the work they conduct is sustainable for years to come, since they will benefit directly from the company’s success. Giving staff ownership options will ensure that staff remains motivated on a second account, too: When they leave the company, their software will continue to generate income for them.

4) Financial reward

In most organizations the senior developers are well aware of the kind of money that they are generating for the business. Therefore, if for example, a developer makes your business $10 million in revenue, why not give them a $100,000 bonus? Don’t base rewards on a percentage of their salary- base it on the revenue they generate. This will ensure that developers keep pushing to make your systems perform better, as well as ensuring that they are always available to do so, etc. (This is partially related to my third point, but direct bonuses are also a good way to keep the developer enthused).

In closing, I feel that any business that can develop these principles will create a place of innovation and of performance. And inevitably, this cycle is reversible, too. If for example, I was a developer and the company interviewing me had no passion, I would certainly pick up on that fact, and would no longer be interested in joining the company. If, however, they were genuinely passionate about their jobs, their rewards and their systems, that fact would be obvious to me, too, and would immediately incite me to become involved. Indeed, for a company to portray passion in interviewing potential developers is an invaluable objective, and will ultimately ensure that the right kind of developers enter the business.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on this topic with me, please don’t hesitate to do so. I would love to hear from other passionate guys out there, and to gain insight into what they think may be the motivating factors for software developers in today’s ever-changing, technology-driven society.

Anyway, without further ado here is the presentation I gave on Kannel at GeekDinner on Monday the 28th of September 2009.

I hope it provides some insight into the gateway

Technorati Tags: Kannel, GeekDinner

Obviously it’s not the easiest thing in the world for non-developers so I thought I would make it easy for everyone to just simply download some binaries of Kannel and get going.

So with that said, I have built two installers for Kannel to run on windows. I have built against the stable release 1.4.3 and then I have done a CVS snapshot build against CVS dated 2009-04-07.

If you are interested in these, please navigate to my kannel for windows page which I will keep up to date as more stable releases get done.

Just a bit of background of how to build your own versions on Cygwin below:

1. Download latest version of Cygwin
2. Install, making sure you select the development packages (gcc, automake, libxml2-devel, openssl-devel, etc)
3. Download and extract the source of Kannel from www.kannel.org
4. Change directory to the extracted source
5. Run ./configure
6. Run make
7. Then if you wish, run make install to install (need privileges unless alternative –prefix was specified)

Easy !

Just as a final note, Kannel on windows should NOT be treated as a production ready piece of software, so this should be used strictly for convenience, testing, development, etc.

As always, if you have any questions, leave a comment or mail me via blog@ddj.co.za

Technorati Tags: Kannel, Windows, Cygwin

These are scheduled for the 1.5.0 stable release of Kannel, so for now you’ll need to do a CVS checkout of the main branch (as described in my previous posts).

I will be demonstrating how to set a test TLV and then extracting this data when a reply is received. Once you have setup your ‘smpp-tlv’ group, you simply need to specify an additional parameter in your smsbox request. This parameter is named ‘meta-data’. The format for this variable is ‘?<bind_type>?<dataset>’ currently the only supported bind type is ‘smpp’ but it was done this way to allow future support.

The dataset argument, is a URL encoded key/value pair string. So for these tests I have configured a smpp-tlv group called ‘my-custom-var’. In order to set this, I need to build a string like this for meta-data purposes.


?smpp?my-custom-var=This+is+a+cool+var


As you can see my-custom-var is set as a URL encoded variable, this will still need to be URL-encoded for submission in the meta-data parameter sent to smsbox.

So just to demonstrate, using PHP how you would build this string, you would use.

So now, when you set this to smsbox, it will be sent via the smpp bind as a TLV. Easy!

Now on the converse, if your smpp bind returns a TLV in a deliver_sm or other PDU, this will also passed to your URL (if you have configured it. Here below is a basic function for parsing the meta data out of this string.

I hope this helps you with your SMPP TLV requirements. Good luck, don’t forget to email me if you need any assistance with Kannel/SMS, etc and I will do my best to help you as best I can.

Technorati Tags: Kannel, SMPP, TLV, Kannel Support

You’ll need a Clickatell HTTP API Account to do so, if you don’t already have one click here to get one.

I have posted the source code here or you can point your mobile device directly at:

http://www.ddj.co.za/s.jad

Alternatively, download the jar file directly (I had to do this to get it working on my Windows Mobile 6.1 phone) at http://www.ddj.co.za/s.jar

I wrote it using a Mac with Eclipse (with ME add-on’s) using mpowerplayer as the emulator. It is *just* a prototype and by no means uses best practice programming so don’t judge me on this quick hack
Enjoy! If you like this app and you want me to modify it for you please get in touch via midlet@ddj.co.za

Technorati Tags: SMS, J2ME, Midlet, Clickatell

Midlet running in mpowerplayer

I have ‘released’ version 0.1 of the Kannel Web Configuration tool. I have created somewhat of a home page for it here for those who are interested.

It is available as ‘donation-ware’ with full source code. Admittedly it was done in a hurry so hopefully later releases will see some code enhancements.

I am more than happy to provide assistance wherever necessary on this project.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Kannel, Web Configuration, SMS

Current features

• Edit existing configuration files
• Add new configuration groups (smsc’s, smsbox-route, sendsms-user, etc)
• Based on the cfg.def from Kannel CVS 1.4.2 as of 2008/12/18

Features in progress

• Live updates to Kannel without restart for SMPP/EMI and smsbox-route’s (patch of Kannel CVS required)

Coming soon

• User authentication
• Kannel analytics and monitoring
• Audit trails of changes
• Other live updates

I am looking for feedback on the tool and when I believe it is stable enough and usable enough I will release it. You can see the beta of this tool here: http://www.ddj.co.za/kannel-config/web/

Enjoy! Please comment on the blog or email me at kwc@ddj.co.za with feedback.

Technorati Tags: Kannel, Web, Configuration, SMPP

The problem as I see it is many of the Universities, Technikons and private learning institutions are still focused on teaching ASP, Visual Basic, Windows Servers, and so on, and the market is becoming more and more saturated with these skills. Where as on the other side of the spectrum there are gaping holes for competent staff.

With that said, if you are one of the few highly skilled PHP/MySQL (don’t be modest now!) developers, please get in touch with me, with your CV and/or some code you have written, so I can point you to some companies who desperately need your skills and are willing to pay for them! Specifically in Cape Town, South Africa!

Technorati Tags: PHP, MySQL, LAMP, Open Source, Developers

Then I thought about GMail, but more specifically the ‘Google Apps’ offering, which I now host the mail for my own domain (ddj.co.za) as well as phpusers.co.za, also free services, with no guarantees from Google, just leaves me feeling slightly insecure. I would almost feel more comfortable paying, if I wasn’t such a cheap skate :]

The thing that really bothers me about this is, not really the reliance on the servers as much, but just the information that these companies have about me. Google has all my mail, highly personal information (banking statements etc) and Facebook knows everything about me, and all the people I know, and all the people they know. Am I being watched, maybe if I was someone more important :]

All I know is, if I meet people that work for Google or Facebook I will surely be nice to them, or my mail, money and god knows what else will be at their mercy :]

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Google, Big Brother