Wireless Electronics/Cell Phones/GPS/Text Messaging

[eSolTec, Inc. 501(c)(3)]

Thank you for any and all assistance in finding information on this, it is
greatly appreciated.

I have a client that wishes to integrate into a desktop application three
things from an Access 2000 database and program created for their operations.

They would like to be able to text message from this program to
Wireless/Cellular phones: Can this be done? If so, where would one research
code to do this in VB.NET 2005?

They would also like to be able to capture the GPS data from the same phones
in a program again in VB.NET 2005, and plot this data to a mapping software,
either commercial or developed.

I know this can be done, but I need places to research it. They would like
to be able to port their data from the Access database into Quickbooks.

Finally all of this would be built into a new proprietary scheduling
software GUI, that would interface with Access db and allow them to pull the
data into the program in two locations, miles apart.

--
Michael Bragg, President
eSolTec, Inc.
a 501(C)(3) organization
MS Authorized MAR
looking for used laptops for developmentally disabled.

[Kevin Yu [MSFT]]

RE: Wireless Electronics/Cell Phones/GPS/Text Messaging

Hi Michael,

This depends on how you're going to send text message. Generally, there are
2 ways.

1. You can connect your cell phone to you PC and send message through that
phone. You need to get an SDK from the manufacture of this cellphone.
2. You can send text message through the mobile operator. You might need to
get an SDK from them. Connecting to their server and send message.

I don't think there will be code sample to do this, because each
manufacture of cellphone and each mobile operator will provide different
SDKs.

If you want to get GPS information from the cellphone, you need to open a
serial port to it. The data from the serial port is in NMEA standard.
You'll be able to parse it with the following reference.

http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/nmea.htm

Kevin Yu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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[Dick Grier]

Re: Wireless Electronics/Cell Phones/GPS/Text Messaging

Hi,

Kevin is on-target with SMS messaging. The answer is, "it depends."

As to GPS from the phones, that is more difficult. Most phones DO NOT
expose the GPS or other location information via an API in the deivce (there
are a couple of specific manufaturers that may, but in general, the NMEA
data from enbedded GPS simply is not accessable). For the to work with
today's phones, you need one of two things.

1. Subscribe to the location service that is provided by certain network
vendors (Microsoft Location Server:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...ppointloc.asp).

2. Add an external GPS and connect to the device using Bluetooth
(simplest). The GPS NMEA data then may be interpreted, and returned
(easiest is an return SMS message, perhaps) to your own server application.
For example, I provide a free DecodeGPS dll on my homepage that can be used
to extract this data.

This process would be fairly straight forward if you could specify Windows
Mobile 5 phones. You coulds use Visual Studio 2005 and the Compact
Framework 2 for coding. Sending and receiving SMS messages can be handled
pretty simple on that platform, and adding GPS capability also (I think
there is one HP iPAQ phone with built-in GPS that you might be able to use,
if you can specify the actual target hardware).

Dick

--
Richard Grier, MVP
Hard & Software
Author of Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to Serial Communications, Fourth
Edition,
ISBN 1-890422-28-2 (391 pages, includes CD-ROM). July 2004, Revised March
2006.
See www.hardandsoftware.net for details and contact information.