VBScript Send Information to a Pager 1

[ramidon]

Okay, I am having problems with some of my mainframe storage devices falling offline at very inopportune times. What I have done was write a program that runs on the mainframe that will FTP a file that contains a count of storage devices that are online and "healthy" to one of my Windows 2003 Servers.

Now that I have FTPed this file to the 2003 Server I would now like to be able to use VBScript to read this .txt file that came from the mainframe, determine the number of online volumes and send me a page if the number is below a specified limit. This would allow me to respond quickly if there is a problem with volumes falling offline for no good reason.

I am not needing to send or capture any data, but rather just dial a phone number and press a few more buttons after the number has been dialed.

I am primarily a mainframe programmer with very little experience in VBS, so I'm really not sure how to begin accessing the modem controls from VBS.

Thanks for any help which might get me started in the right direction!!

Amidon

 

[markdmac]

Does your pager support text messages? IE can it get email? If so this is easy. But if you are looking to control a TAPI device, well, probably not going to happen unless you specifically have a TAPI application that you can script.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[ramidon]

Actually, the pager that I'm going to be using doesn't support e-mail in any way. I know that pagers are a little antiquated when cell phones are so common, but the pager is VERY cheap and can easily be transferred from one on-call person to the next.

Kinda weird that this can't be done with VBScript though, the mainframe actually has the functionality to send the page using AF/Operator, but the auditors won't allow me to run a phone line to the mainframe for security reasons (stinking auditors). Score: IBM 1/Microsoft 0.

I wonder if anyone else has any suggestions?

Thanks,

Amidon

 

[markdmac]

it is not really a Microsof tissua as it is a hardware issue. Do you even have ATAPI support on your server.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[ramidon]

How can I tell if I have ATAPI Support? I can create a dial-up account and dial a phone number, does that mean anything?

By the way, thanks for your responces, I'm an IBM mainframe guy and have long forgotten most of the stuff I knew about Windows. If you don't use it, you truly do lose it! In about 5 or 10 years, I won't even know what Windows is if it doesn't fit on a fishhook!

Thanks,

Amidon

 

[ramidon]

Okay, I did some google searches and now I see that I DO have TAPI support. I have a data/voice/fax modem installed in this machine and TAPI drivers installed.

Thanks again!

Amidon

 

[markdmac]

OK, so your next step is to see if the software you have for the fax modem offers any built in automation. If not then you can look at automating it if you record the key strokes you need to manually do the action. from there you can use VBScript SendKeys and AppActivate to send out your message.

SendKeys is not the greatest solution in the world, but it does help solve some problems like this when software doesn't support automation.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

 

[ramidon]

The software for the el-cheapo fax modem I bought is not supprisingly pretty much useless, so I am going to have to figure out how to program with the TAPI controls. The only problem is that I don't have a developers license for the stinking controls, which makes this task very much impossible.

I don't know how I am going to pull this off, buying a liscense for VB just to get this done completely defeats the purpose of doing this cheaply. I might as well just buy a cell phone and e-mail the message!

Thanks again for all your help! Especially since I'm a pretty difficult case! You definately get a star!

Thanks,

Amidon

 

[markdmac]

Free version of Visual Basic from Microsoft can be obtained here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/vb/download/default.aspx

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark