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Tarrif and Call viewing software? -request- |
roskelld
Joined: Dec 01, 2001
Posts: 98
From: UK - Orange P990i
PM |
Hey Julian,
It's great to here that you're still beavering away on this project. You know when I started this topic, I thought it could a simple app that would be knocked up in a few days... I never have been too good with my scheduling 
You sound like you've got the fundamentals for the design down, ( I still love the buckets  ) which is ace. I hope you get help with reading the call register. I've been trying to get the coders that I work with interested in developing for the p800, but they seem far too busy.
If I can be any help to you in the progress of this software, maybe generating some tarrif config files to test etc... then give us a shout. I feel responcible for putting you into this nightmare and I feel as tho I should put something in.
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julianmclean
Joined: Mar 11, 2003
Posts: 118
PM |
Cheers for the support roskelld. I'll publish the format for Tariff config files soon with some instructions and anyone who wants to try putting one together can do so. I really hope I can make this work - I know I'm gonn have big problems with getting the call records - any good programmers out there know how to do this? Someone was talking about porting SMS Counter to the P800 - presumably this accesses this phone records in a similar way? |
Rumik
Joined: Apr 17, 2003
Posts: 117
PM, WWW
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When you say accesses the phone's SMS records, would this mean if you delete a sent SMS (cause the P800 has a SENT box) then you'll lose the record of how many SMSs you've sent?
Hope not. |
julianmclean
Joined: Mar 11, 2003
Posts: 118
PM |
Hmm, good question Rumik....
I was planning on having the program operate an incremental sync meaning that once you have synched to a certain date and time, the proggie stores that you have sent 34 texts or whatever and so if you delete anything from before that it won't matter, but obviosuly if you delete the text before you've given the prog chance to "see" it and register it then it will most likely be lost! This will work, but if for some reason you have to go back and sync the whole month (Tariff change or whatever) then it will fail.
I may have to copy the necessary call record information locally into a file which can be maintained even when things are deleted from the phone records. This way it will just be a case of adding the new ones from the phone to the file at every sync and then reading the local file.
Cheers for the input anyway, a very good point and one that certainly needs addressing...I'll get my thinking cap on! |
Rumik
Joined: Apr 17, 2003
Posts: 117
PM, WWW
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Glad I could help |
Eva-m00
Joined: Jun 08, 2002
Posts: 364
From: Liverpool, UK
PM |
Keep up the good work, really it comes to fruition! I too work for a mobile company and work with Vodalink on technical issues, so if I can offer and help (unlikely i know!) or even sexual favours.. You know where to find me! lol.. ^_^ ~Eva
This message was posted from a P800 |
ole1973
Joined: Jun 08, 2002
Posts: 140
From: London
PM |
Julian you are a savious if you manage this .... and anyway gd luck trying too. |
MGaule
Joined: Jun 06, 2003
Posts: 1
PM |
Firstly just like to say I think this program would have great potential. I would definatly pay money for an app like this. I have experience in programming in C, but not smybian/Java.
I have been considering the problem of maintaining a list of tarrif plans, etc, and this could be solved, in part, by a series of on screen wizards, similar to the p800's built in customisation wizard which appears when you first get / hard reset the phone.
The wizard could ask the following questions:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Welcome to .... etc.........Please take a few moments to tell this program your tarrif details .....etc.........
CALLS Page (1)
1) How many inclusive minutes are included in your price plan?
2) Are they Anytime minutes or Peak/Offpeak?
- If Anytime goto 4 -
3) How many of the minutes are peak minutes?
4) Are they anynetwork minutes, or same network minutes?
- NEXT PAGE -
TEXT/MMS Page (2)
5) Does your plan include free text / mms messages? (Yes/No)
- If NO GOTO next page -
5) Number of free texts
6) Number of free MMS
DATA Page (3)
7) Does your plan include GPRS bundles?
 Number in KB of GPRS allowance:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Obviously this is just an idea and needs polish. Questions about charges per minutes, per txt, and per MB need to be asked at some point. By using a wizard, the program would not need a database of tarrifs, and could be updated by the user at any time.
Opinions? |
ole1973
Joined: Jun 08, 2002
Posts: 140
From: London
PM |
rollover minutes too .... the month befores UNUSED minutes from 200 are roled over to the next month. IF for example the first month i DO NOT use the 200 minutes AT ALL then I will have 200 minutes next month WITH 200 of the rollover minutes making a total of 400 minutes. THEN if I ONLY use 200 minutes from THAT then the remaining 200 ARE rolled over as they are THE LAST MONTH'S ROLLOVER IS USED UP BEFORE THE NEW MONTHS 200 MINUTES!!
BUT if I USE ONLY 100 minutes from the 400 (inc rollover) then ONLY 200 minutes are rolledover AS 100 of the 300 unused minues are the 100 minutes rolledover from the month before and will not be roledover more than once!!
So that would be neede to be taken into account too! |
julianmclean
Joined: Mar 11, 2003
Posts: 118
PM |
@mGaule and ole 1973
(BTW, Cheers for the PM mGaule)
Good suggestions all round guys, the wizard idea is a good one, and is probably something that I would like to implement eventually. Currently, the method of storing tariffs is in a configuration file which can either be written manually by the user (not too difficult, there will be some instructions) or by using the program to add new buckets (calls, sms, etc) and call types until your tariff is defined.
However, as discussed before in this thread, the problem can be with the complexity of tariffs: even with a simple plan like Orange Your Plan where all calls are in the same "bucket", there are still alot of exceptions. e.g. for uk, there are 0345,0845,0800,0808,0870,etc not even starting to get invloved with 0898 numbers, and international. This therefore lends itself to a system where the file can be made once by one person and distributed to avoid wasted effort by many people. The wizard is still good though, but it may need to be fairly complex to handle all eventuallities. As pointed out by ole1973, there are many ifs and buts such as rollover minutes, which in itself is complex: does this bucket rollover, if so, for how many months, if I change tariff, from YP400 to YP700, do my free minutes map over to the new tariff, etc. I've thought about alot of these variations and the tariff object should support all of these, but I'm willing to bet there will be more I haven't thought of yet, especially with international differences.
What would be good evnetually would be to have a number of installable tariff packs (e.g. All current UK tariffs, or just for one network) so that users can download only what they need.
Anyway, keep the suggestions coming, they're all appreciated and very useful.
mGaule, I will PM you about coding and stuff - I would appreciate some help with some of the stuff. If you or your friends have experience with programming mobile devices, JNI, etc then we could definitely work together. | |
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Posted: 2003-06-05 16:47
