This page will cover the basic steps to use
ICQSMS Companion. You can find out more information about setting up ICQSMS
Companion here. If you have more questions about
this product then please visit the FAQ page to get more
information. A very useful review about SMS can also be found
here.
Before we begin, you need to have an ICQ number
and password. If you don't ten do so now by registering at the
ICQ Website Registration Form.
I hope you enjoy using ICQSMS Companion. If you
have more Questions, suggestions or you want to report a bug then please
contact me on My Email.
Sending an
SMS
Sending an SMS from ICQSMS Companion is easy.
First enter your Contact's phone number, or
if he/she is already in your address book, click on his/her name and the
phone number will be entered automatically. If you enter a number directly
into the Phone Number field, ICQSMS Companion will search the address book
for this number, if it finds the number, it will show you the contact's name
and will try to complete the number for you. If the number is not found in
the address book, ICQSMS Companion will tell you that it is an
UnKnown Contact. After sending the SMS, ICQSMS
Companion will ask you if you want to add this new
UnKnown contact to your Address Book.
If you have categorized your contact's in the
Address book, you will be able to choose the group you want from the drop
down box above the Contact's list. This will make it easier to find the
person you want.
You may notice a check mark next to a
person's name in your contact's list, this means that you have asked ICQSMS
Companion to remind you to send an SMS to this person every
X days, and
that the time has come. This check mark will remain until you send that
person an SMS. If you want to remove the checkmark without sending, you can
press the Dismiss button. This will remove the
checkmark and will tell ICQSMS Companion to remind you to send an SMS to
that person after the X days you have
specified in the Address Book.
Next enter the message you want to send. The
counter will show you how many characters you
have remaining.
Then enter your name in the
From field, so that the recipient will know who
the SMS is coming from. ICQSMS Companion can save a default signature for
you, so you won't have to enter your name every time you want to send an
SMS. Just click on the image next to the From
field and your name will be entered automatically. You can change the
default signature from the program settings.
Finally choose the ICQ Account you want
ICQSMS Companion to use for sending your SMS. You will need to have setup
the ICQ number and password in the settings. If you don't have an ICQ
account click here to do so now.
Now you have 2 options, if you are connected
to the internet, You can send the SMS immediately, but if you are offline
you can send the SMS to the Outbox, where it
will be stored for you until you connect to the internet.
In order to put more text in one SMS, I have
added 2 new functions to the Send dialog.
The Strip function is simple, it
removes all the spaces from you SMS and capitalizes the first character of
each word. That way the beginning of each word will be marked by the capital
letter.
The Squeeze function is more
complex, it replaces some words or characters from your SMS to make it even
smaller. These replacements have been used a lot in chatting and SMSing to
the degree that some of them have become standards.
For Example:-
The Original
"How are you? Please call me as soon as possible, it is urgent. This can't
wait until tomorrow." >>>
94 characters
Squeezed
"HRU?PleaseCallMeASAP,ItIsUrgent.ThisCan'tWaitUntil2morrow."
>>> 59 characters You can refine the way ICQSMS Companion squeezes
the messages from the program settings.
ICQSMS Companion also enables you to send the
same SMS to many contacts easily. First click on the
Group Messaging button on the top of the Send
dialog, the one with 3 figures.
You will be shown the list of contacts in the selected group. Double click a
contact's name, a mark will appear next to the contact's name. Choose all
the names you want and then press the Send Selected
button. The SMS will be sent to the outbox with all of the names you
have selected.
Now all you have to do, is go to the outbox and press the
Send All button.
Address Book
ICQSMS Companion has a small address book
integrated in it. The address book allows you to store the phone numbers of
your contacts.
To add a new contact, enter the contact's
name and then press the Add New Contact button.
To remove a Contact's number from your
address book, select the contact's name from the list on the left and then
press the Remove button.
To edit a contact's phone number, select the
contact's name from the list to the left, then edit the details you want.
Finally press the Edit
button.
You can also categorize your contacts into
groups, for easier access. This is especially important for those of you
who have a huge list of contacts. ICQSMS Companion has 4 predefined groups,
and allows you to specify another 5 custom groups. In the Send dialog, you
will be able to show each group separately. If you want to subgroup the
contacts in each group, or if you want a certain name to be on top of the
list, you can add a number before the contacts name e.g.. "1.
Hazem El-Oraby".
The whole idea of SMS is to keep in touch
with people, and ICQSMS Companion helps you do this. You can tell ICQSMS
Companion to remind you to send an SMS to a certain person every
X days.
When it is time to send the SMS, you will find a check mark next to that
person's name in the Send dialog.
Outbox
The Outbox feature in ICQSMS Companion is
extremely useful for those of you who don't have a permanent connection to
the internet.
You can compose your SMS while you are
offline and then send the SMS when you get connected to the internet. You
can also use it if you want to send an SMS at a later time.
When there are SMS's in your outbox, the
outbox icon in the Quick Menu will keep flashing, and it will also show you
how many SMS's are waiting to be sent.
To send the SMS, just choose it from the list
and press the Send Button.
If there is more than one SMS in the Outbox,
you can press the Send All Button to send them all automatically. ICQSMS
Companion will show you a progress bar to show you its progress.
If you have the Autosend feature enabled,
ICQSMS will show you the time left for the next scheduled autosend, and when
the time comes, ICQSMS Companion will try to send all of the SMS stored in
your outbox.
You can reset the autosend timer by pressing
the timer button.
Please note that the SMS will be sent using
the ICQ account number that was selected when the SMS was created and not
the server currently selected in the Send dialog.
If the "Use Smart
Account Switching" option is enabled, ICQSMS Companion will
ignore the selected ICQ account and will try to send using any account that
is available and that has not reached its daily limits yet.
If you need to edit the SMS or you need to
make a duplicate to another contact, just press the
Copy button and the SMS will be copied to the Send dialog.
Note that the
original SMS stored previously by ICQSMS Companion will
NOT be changed.
To remove an SMS from the list without
sending it, press the Delete button.
History
ICQSMS Companion will save the last 10 SMS's
you send to each person in your address book.
The History Archive will show you the names
of the people you sent SMS's to. Click on the contact's name, and you will
be presented with a list of the last 10 SMS's sent. Click on an SMS to see
its details.
You will be shown the date and time the SMS
was sent on, and it will also show you the full message, the signature used
for that SMS and the account used to send the SMS.
ICQSMS Companion allows you to delete a
certain SMS sent to a contact or delete all of
the SMS's sent to a certain contact.
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