Does anybody know a way to programmatically send SMS messages over the Internet?

[errantember]

I've got a setup where I get chat messages on my work computer, and I need to be able to forward them to my phone. This normally easy task is complicated by the fact that the work machine is on a VPN network, and doesn't have direct access to the Internet. I need two-way communication for this to be worthwhile. Any ideas about how to make this work?

Comments

[errantember.livejournal.com]

Actually, I tried that technique earlier today, and it works both ways. Although it would be *great* to have a an app that does it all in one piece, I think I can kludge something with Outlook and Pandion.

[hcoyote.livejournal.com]

alternatively, you could build a jabber to aim bot and use AIM's ability to send SMS to phones via the +1*phonenumber* notation.

[errantember.livejournal.com]

That's an excellent suggestion. How do they handle the billing? It turns out the e-mail-to-SMS bridge already exists and is easy. The trick is getting the jabber->email bridge.

[hcoyote.livejournal.com]

AOL doesn't bill. I presume the recipient has to deal with the text charges just like the email-to-SMS gateways. The good thing about the AIM stuff is that you can respond back via SMS and AIM will do the right thing, treating it like a regular IM conversation.

[errantember.livejournal.com]

I've registered for the account, and except for the extra crap it sends along, it works perfectly. Any suggestions about the best way to bridge between jabber and AIM on Windows?

[hcoyote.livejournal.com]

That I don't have a clue on. I'd probably write something with perl, Net::AIM, and Net::Jabber. There's probably some windows-ish way to do this with VB.Net to control a client window or something.

[errantember.livejournal.com]

Ok. Thank you for the idea of using AIM. It may be just the quick-and-dirty solution I was looking for!