Mobile Blogging Help Needed For Intermediate Skilled User

[cody]

Hi,

My limited skills allow me to be able to edit things like CSS as long as I know what to put in and where. I can find and do things if someone advises me correctly. I know where my Cronjob scheduler is for my Godaddy Hosting Account. I use CoffeeCup FTP to work with my website files along with PSPEditor and Microsoft FrontPage.

My issue is that I would certainly love to be able to post articles from my Samsung Blackjack II Smartphone which uses AT&T in the US. Since the phone has a QWERTY thumbkeyboard and a camera I would really like to do mobile article and picture entries. The article entries are more important to me than the picture entries.

I was going to go the POPFETCHER route, but I get the error, "ERROR: your upload directory is not writable. Go to your plugin settings and change it." I had left the field blank, and do not know what to do about this error since I am using GoDaddy as my hosting service on a shared server.

I would like to be able to do mobile blogging the easiest way from my phone. I suppose it would be through using the POPFETCHER and CRONJOB plugins. I can make a CRONJOB in GoDaddy and I know where to go to do it. I just need help on the specifics of setting up these PLUGINS. I already have my email account set up with an address for the Mobile Posts to go to so that they can be fetched. I used one of my available Godaddy email addresses for my domain.

Would someone be willing to hold my hand through this set-up? Or possibly tell me an easier way that I may not know about for mobile blogging on my existing Serendipity Blog? Pretty please with sugar on top.

Thank you,

Cody Alderson

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

I'm sure we'll be able to work things out.

First things first: Can you upload usual pictures to your s9y media database? If yes: Fine, we can continue. If not, we'll break here and set things up properly.

Asfor the pathconfig, you can enter a subdirectory where you posted images should be stored. Usually, s9y stores the uploaded files in a directory "uploads" where you can use FTP to make sure the permissions are 0777.Now if you leave the config field blank, popfetcher tries to store files there as well. If it tells you that it cannot write to the directory, you need to fix those permissions with FTP, as mentioned.

As for the cronjob setup: In the popfetcher plugin you need to set the "Plugin Type" to "External". Then enter some random string into the field for "External Launch NamE". Like "blackberry".

Then you can setup a cronjob to execute your URL: http://yourblog/yourpath/index.php?/plugin/blackberry

This will then "call" the popfetcher routine to fetch mails.

Feel free to ask for more instructions if you're struggling!

HTH,
Garvin

[cody]

Thank you for your help Sir. I appreciate it.

Okay, there wasn't an UPLOAD directory anywhere in my Serendipity installation that was automatically installed by GoDaddy. I made a directory and set the permissions as you indicated in the previous post. I indicated that directory within the Popfetcher plugin as thedirectory/ using the trailing forward slash as indicated in the instructions (Of course the actual directory name is different than indicated here).

When I set PopFetcher to run Internally, and when I click to run it from the ADMIN panel it still gives me the same error on the directory not being writable. I confirmed the permissions that it is writable. So now I'm still stuck.

Also do I need the Cronjob scheduler plugin? I have it installed. I set the Cronjob as you indicated on my GoDaddy hosting account to run twice an hour. I'll see what happens when PopFetcher runs externally instead of internally. I have a test post already sent to the email address it will be fetching from.

Can you think of what is going wrong?

Thanks.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

So you created an "uploads" directory, and inside that directory a "thedirectory" subdirectory? So that you now have "/uploads/thedirectory"?

You will only need to enter "thedirectory" into your popfetcher. This directory MUST be stored under "uploads", and you should never enter "uploads" into the input field, too.

You can go to your s9y configuration panel and look for the "upload directory" configuration. Check if it is set to "uploads", because maybe godaddy could have configured this directory to something else?

Did you make sure your FTP permissions are "777"?

The cronjob scheduler plugin for s9y is not needed if you setup a Godaddy cronjob. In fact, a "real" cronjob is always better than the s9y plugin, so you should go with that.

Best regards,
Garvin

[cody]

GoDaddy's auto setup of Serendipity does show that uploads/ is the default upload directory, but the directory was not made inside the directory where all of the serendipity files are stored when it was originally installed.

I did as you said and made an uploads/thedirectory/. Now I can run the Popfetcher internally , and it will fetch the email and post it as a blog entry. It will not post any pictures that I include inlign in the email message.

Also, I cannot restrict the email sender. I keep getting an error that the email that Popfetcher received does not match the restricted sender. Here is what is happening:

I put the restricted email address in this format -- me@emailaddress.net
Then when Popfetcher receives the email it gives me the mismatch telling me that
Me <me@emailaddress.net>
does not match so it ignores the email. How can I fix that?

I haven't even tried to run it externally yet. I know you are a busy person so maybe someone else could help me with the pictures not posting, and the restricted sender issue.

Thanks,
Cody

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

The inline posting of messages can be subject of the options you choose as well as the format of your email.

Every client and mobile gadget formats its mails differently, also often being messed with from your mobile service provider. So it could very well be, that your mail format is not supported.

Can you show the URL of an article you sent via mail? Then I could have a look. It might also help if you can simply mail me an image of yours to garvin at s9y dot org.

As for the sender: you must enter the complete string that occurs. So you must enter "Me <me@emailadress.net>" instead! Not only the mail adress.

Best regards,
Garvin

[cody]

Sent URL's of email posts to your email address. I will send a picture from my mobile device ASAP.

Thank you,

Cody

[cody]

Hey it's working when done Internally through Popfetcher with emails sent from my mobile device with only two glitches. The first glitch is the text of the email message displays twice in the post. If I write, "Hey I love Serendipity," It will place it twice with a few spaces between the sentence in the blog. The second time it is in the article the font is a little smaller.

The other glitch is that I can send a picture but any text in that email post along with the picture does not appear.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

This can happen because your mobile device sends your text twice: Once as Text and once as HTML. Can you instruct it to only send it once?

The only other way would be to play with the option "first text attachment is entry body", so that your HTML attachment does not get shown inside the entry body?

Regards,
Garvin

[cody]

Well at least this thread will be a great help to those, like me, in the future who want to set up mobile blogging.

I can't adjust how my cell provider sends the email. I am using a string to only capture what is between the "magic" string. That seems to work fine.

The last problem I am having is sending a photo along with the email. Whether I use the "magic" string to capture text or not I still can't send an email with the article along with a photo and have it post. I can send a photo and it posts fine. I can send an email and the text will post doubly without the "magic" string, and normallywith the string. (The word "magic" is in the instructions of the Popfetcher plugin for the special string. That's why I am referring to it as such).

Any hints on how I can get a photo to post in the article with the text portion of the email?

Thanks,

Cody

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

What is the mail adress you sent your mail to me? I have not yet sreceived it, but would need that for further info.

Regards,
Garvin

[cody]

I just got two mail delivery failures. I sent them to what you indicated in your post (garvin at s9y dot org) but obviously in a correct email address format.

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Then please try to send it to "gh at faktor-e dot de" as well. I'll try to see why the other mail adress might not work.

Regards,
Garvin

[cody]

Since I received your reply at my email address I replied back to you at the address you used to send email to me. I just want to condirm that you received the email with the screenshots of my Popfetcher settings.

Than you!

Cody

[garvinhicking]

Hi!

Thanks, I received that! WIll take care of it

Regards,
Garvin