M4D - Mobile Phones 4 Development

This page is dedicated to posting information about a little group that I am a part of "Mobile Phones 4 Development" the Madang Cluster group.

This group came about during the M4D workshop held here in Madang by Dr. Amanda Watson and Catherine Highet from M4D New Zealand.

I volunteered to be the cluster leader for Madang.

Thus the creation of this group and page here on my blog. I will be posting about the happenings of the little projects that were planned and to be carried out by the workshop participants and also will post some tutorials, guides and infor on using FRONTLINE SMS.

The tool which we all were introduced to as a platform for mobile communication for small to medium business and NGOs.

You can download FrontlineSMS ver2.4 directly from this site here

Currently I'm using the following;

• FrontlineSMS desktop ver2.4
• Frontline Sync (for Android phones)
• Frontline Cloud (Cloud based version) 

You can also visit the FrontlineSMS website to register for the cloud service or download the desktop app from their website. Its a great tool! 


Here are some more resources you might want to have a look at:

• The GSMA Connected Women - M4D Workshop Madang Sept 23 PowerPoint (conv. pdf)
• Utilising Mobile Phones for Development in PNG: Lessons Learnt and Guiding Principles

Here are some of the pictures that were taken during the weeklong workshop. Photo courtesy Dr. Amanda Watson. 

Catherine and Amanda during tea break

Group photo1

Group photo2

Discussion and activity session

Discussions and activity session

Discussion and activity

Installing Frontline SMS (screen dumps)

 

You can try to get your phone working by using the Manually Connect button [4] which will allow you to manually choose different "handlers". You may wish to ask your computer support person to help you with this, since you may need some technical knowledge to complete these options

 

 

PortThis is the communications (COM) port which your computer assigns to your phone or modem when you plug it in (for example, COM1, COM2 and so on). FrontlineSMS automatically searches through all your COM ports, but if for some reason it does not find your phone there, and you know which port it is connected to, you can select it here

Baud RateThis is the speed at which FrontlineSMS communicates with your phone or modem. Again, during the scan of your computer, FrontlineSMS tries talking to your phone at different speeds. Once it ascertains the highest speed that your phone can work at, it fully connects with it at that speed. If for some reason FrontlineSMS is unable to communicate at the right speed, your phone may not work. If you know the speed at which your phone communicates, you can select it here

HandlerFrontlineSMS uses "handlers"to talk with your phone. If it is unable to figure out what kind of phone you have, it may assign the wrong handler. To help alleviate this, the Handler option allows you to manually select a handler, which you can then test and see if your phone works

 

 

Once you've finished click on Connect. If it still doesn't work, try other settings or use a different phone