You know that WordPress allows you to update your blog by simply sending an e-mail to a secret address. Well, how about adding a blog post by sms?
Updating your WordPress blog by sending a text message is very easy, you just have to tweak your blog’s settings a little. I will show you how to do it in just 3 easy steps.
So, let’s begin.
1. Create a new user.
Go to your WordPress admin panel and create a new user with administrator or author role. Assign to this user your mobile phones specific e-mail address i.e. 1234567890@messaging.sprintpcs.com. You can set this user to show up just like if you post the message with your original one.
2. Tweak settings.
Now that you have set up the new user go to Dashboard > Settings > Write and go down to “Post via e-mail” option. Set up your secret e-mail account and fill it in along with the servers settings, password and the category assigned to the post (I would suggest a new category named “Mobile”).
Note: be sure to check with your e-mail hosting provider for the correct incoming e-mail server settings.
3. Send test sms.
Send a test message to your secret e-mail address. If you successfully sent the sms you must tell WordPress to check the e-mail. Piece of cake. Just go to the address: http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-mail.php
Note: if you don’t have WordPress installed in the root folder, change the address according to your installation path i.e. http://www.yourdomain.com/wordpresspath/wp-mail.php
Now, go to your blog and hit refresh. If everything went well you should have a new blog post added by sms.
Note: If you don’t have an Internet connection or want to automate the WordPress e-mail check process add this code to your theme’s functions.php file:
add_action('shutdown', 'retrieve_post_via_mail');
function retrieve_post_via_mail() {
flush(); // Display the page before the mail fetching begins
if(get_transient('retrieve_post_via_mail')) {
return; // The mail has been checked recently; don't check again
} else { // The mail has not been checked in more than 15 minutes
$mail = wp_remote_get(get_bloginfo('wpurl').'/wp-mail.php');
if(!is_wp_error($mail)) { // If retrieve succeeded
set_transient('retrieve_post_via_mail', 1, 60 * 15); // check again in 15 minutes.
} else {
set_transient('retrieve_post_via_mail', 1, 60 * 5); // check again in 5 minutes; we don't want to overload the server
}
}
}
That’s it. You now have the ability to post by sms to your WordPress blog.
Source: Add a Blog Post by Sms
Anthony Smith
Very nice article. I like how you introduced creating the new account before doing anything else.
wparena
thanks for sharing this. hope i can put that widget on my site too!
dave adams
Why do you even need step 1? Don’t you just sms to the secret email address?
It is interesting because my blog is set to private and only registered members can post to the blog. My secret email address is not registered as a user but can still post to the blog. I wonder why.
dave adams
Oops. I take that back.
I did a bad test and just sent it from a computer. I did a second test from my cell phone and it pickuped my cell phone email address.
Thanks