Script to calculate remaining minutes

[hupjack]

I finally joined the millions of cell phone users out there. I'm the 2nd
phone on what is now a family share plan. (Our two cell phones use minutes
from a central 400 minute peak time pool.)
Looking at the verizon wireless website, minutes used are displayed only as
two different totals for our 2 phones. Dialing in from a phones to check
remaining minutes, the minutes are presented the same way, broken down by
each phone but not available as a combined total. I would like to see the
combined total of our minutes displayed so we can at-a-glance see our
month's remaining minutes without doing any math. I wrote verizon a letter
and told them as much, but rather than hold my breath, I want to take
matters into my own hands and write a script that does the job.

I assume with relative ease, I should be able to write a script that goes to
https://www.verizonwireless.com/vzwapp/vzserve/loginform authorizes it's way
into the website, copies the number of peak minutes for each phone (it's
just two text fields), take them offline, add them together, and displays my
used minutes out of 400 (i.e. 245/400) on my desktop at my request.

I doubt I'm the only one around that would like such a script to cure their
family share plan remaining minute confusion. I've taken a course in C and
can probably stumble my way through writing a script with a few pointers.
One thing I was wondering was whether there were any generic data capture
scripts available that I could tweak. Like a script for which I could just
sub in the website, login, password, and point to the data I wanted it to
grab. I had asked a friend with more coding background than me, and he said
what I wanted was totally doable with a Perl script. He also said I could
go to rentacoder.com. I had never heard of that before.. Pretty cool
website.. neat idea.. Contracting out a coding job.. Getting bids.. I
suppose I could post a request and see how much people want for the script.
But I'd like to do it myself though, take pride in a job well done, and not
pay anything I'm sure there are plenty of scripts out there that do the
same thing I'm after.

I certainly appreciate all the help I can get

Thanks,
-Ethan

 

[Steve Johnson]

Sounds like a great idea. I'm in the same situation you are in and would
love to have the script if you get one written. Don't have any help at
the moment, but keep this thread going and I may help if you get it started.

Steve

 

[Paul]

I finally joined the millions of cell phone users out there. I'm the 2nd
phone on what is now a family share plan. (Our two cell phones use minutes
from a central 400 minute peak time pool.)
Looking at the verizon wireless website, minutes used are displayed only as
two different totals for our 2 phones. Dialing in from a phones to check
remaining minutes, the minutes are presented the same way, broken down by
each phone but not available as a combined total. I would like to see the
combined total of our minutes displayed so we can at-a-glance see our
month's remaining minutes without doing any math. I wrote verizon a letter
and told them as much, but rather than hold my breath, I want to take
matters into my own hands and write a script that does the job.

I assume with relative ease, I should be able to write a script that goes to
https://www.verizonwireless.com/vzwapp/vzserve/loginform authorizes it's way
into the website, copies the number of peak minutes for each phone (it's
just two text fields), take them offline, add them together, and displays my
used minutes out of 400 (i.e. 245/400) on my desktop at my request.

I doubt I'm the only one around that would like such a script to cure their
family share plan remaining minute confusion. I've taken a course in C and
can probably stumble my way through writing a script with a few pointers.
One thing I was wondering was whether there were any generic data capture
scripts available that I could tweak. Like a script for which I could just
sub in the website, login, password, and point to the data I wanted it to
grab. I had asked a friend with more coding background than me, and he said
what I wanted was totally doable with a Perl script. He also said I could
go to rentacoder.com. I had never heard of that before.. Pretty cool
website.. neat idea.. Contracting out a coding job.. Getting bids.. I
suppose I could post a request and see how much people want for the script.
But I'd like to do it myself though, take pride in a job well done, and not
pay anything I'm sure there are plenty of scripts out there that do the
same thing I'm after.

I certainly appreciate all the help I can get

Note: I am reading this from comp.lang.perl.

I see two options.

1.If you are trying to do it on your desktop pc then write a desktop
program which sends an http request to the login script through your
internet connection.
This is probably better done in C.

2. If you are trying to do it from a server.
This is better as you can view the data on desktop, internet or even
WAP.
This is the option where you would use perl.

If you want to try option2 then I advise you to firstly get a server
with CGI/Perl support if you haven't already done so. Common
alternatives to CGI/Perl are javaee or dotnet.

Whatever option you choose when you call the login program(by http
request),you'll need to use the POST method to send your username and
PIN in the http request header, with the appropriate information for
your username and PIN.
Then the login program will probably return a whole page load of html
from which you will need to extract your information. But I don't know
what this login program returns or if there are alternative login
programs.

Note: You are jeapordising the security of your PIN number if you do
this.
I cannot see a way to do this securely without having some kind of
decryptor on verizons server.

HTH.
Paul

 

[hupjack]

Paul,

your post certainly did help. I'd probably have to do a fair amount of
reading and exploration before I was able to tackle this project on my own.
I threw a post up on rent-a-coder since I was curious what might come of
that. I also wonder if there is a way to submit this idea to the open
source community. If there are people in that camp that would likely be
interested in making the app (of course I'd want to be a major contributor
if I could). If written flexibly such that it took username and password
input, and # of minutes in your plan input, such an app could become popular
among those verizon customers with family plans.

If the program is done as a desktop PC tool, would the password still be
exposed? Or is it secure after it leaves my computer assuming it's being
submitted through the secure website?

-Ethan

 

[hupjack]

I'm actually having the application created on rentacoder.com. Once it's
set, I'd like to share the app and spread the cost around a larger
userbase. A coder offered to write the program for $50, so we shall see what
we get in return. Steve was the only one that responded to my post as a
user also interested in using such an application, but I'm sure there are
many more out there that would like the convenience of this app. The only
question is, how do I bring the application to the awareness of the average
family share plan users?

Hopefully I can find more interested folk. I don't know of any other
community to post to besides
alt.cellular.verizon and
http://www.howardforums.com/forumdisplay.php?s=6c85dc3426f8f279047caea2cf9d2e76&forumid=51
any other suggestions for spreading the word?

Just thought I'd update the thread and announce that progress is being made
regarding that peak minutes application.
-Ethan

Sounds like a great idea. I'm in the same situation you are in and would
love to have the script if you get one written. Don't have any help at
the moment, but keep this thread going and I may help if you get it

started.