Guest chucky.egg Posted January 11, 2006 Report Share Posted January 11, 2006 I think I need convincing, I was never a big user of the Chats - I pretty much exclusively used the Email-to-SMS service (That sounds lame now, but back in the day that was pretty advanced) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mwright Posted January 11, 2006 Report Share Posted January 11, 2006 I remember the Locust! She did try GPRS for a time - but it didn't last. Most people wanted SMS and once Orange dropped support for Locust that was it. I certainly did use it for a bit via Jabber/MSN but it just seemed to lose any incentive to go on. Plus, Jon seemed to lose interest and concentrate on other projects. As far as I know it is dead now. The website seems to be there - although it does not seem to want to let me login! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mwright Posted January 11, 2006 Report Share Posted January 11, 2006 Yeah, ditto. I think I could give the concept a new lease of life tho... it's just finding the time :) I think it'd be great to be able to have a SMS like client on your phone that sent to/received from the service, if only so you could create your own groups of mates on it :D P I did have a play with a web based idea some time ago - it seemed to work but I never had the incentive to take it any further. Unfortunately I am no good at writing apps for phones (I hate Java!) so most of what I do tends to be web/wap based. I would be very interested in giving something a go - I seem to have time on my hands what with being unemployed and all!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest nedge2k Posted January 12, 2006 Report Share Posted January 12, 2006 Was this before Orange launched PAYG? I had one of O's first PAYG phones back when they didn't even have SMS but the other nets did. Then finally they gave us something like 3 free sms per day but wouldn't even let us pay for more so we could only txt three times a day! Was this a contract only thing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jay3gsm Posted January 12, 2006 Report Share Posted January 12, 2006 I remember the Locust! She did try GPRS for a time - but it didn't last. Most people wanted SMS and once Orange dropped support for Locust that was it. I certainly did use it for a bit via Jabber/MSN but it just seemed to lose any incentive to go on. Plus, Jon seemed to lose interest and concentrate on other projects. As far as I know it is dead now. The website seems to be there - although it does not seem to want to let me login! Mwright, hi. I remember you from Locust. Used to chat on the various phone channels, (I ran the 3G, Mobile chat and mobile news channels) I mentioned Locust in my post yesterday which seesm to have triggered a bit of interest! :) I would certainly be interested in getting another service like Locust up and running again over GPRS. Would be good, I miss Locust sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jay3gsm Posted January 12, 2006 Report Share Posted January 12, 2006 Keep us updated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zone-MR Posted January 12, 2006 Report Share Posted January 12, 2006 I never used Locus, but for the past few months I have been heading the development of a project which has many of the features Paul described. At this stage I don't want to publicly reveal too many details, but it's a client/server system which lets people communicate in teams using GPRS in entirely new ways. The server-side portion is now almost complete, and the client is in pre-alpha stage. More information and possibly an early release will start trickling out in the coming weeks - stay tuned :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jay3gsm Posted January 12, 2006 Report Share Posted January 12, 2006 ' date='Jan 12 2006, 16:29' post='163']I'm talking to Jon on e-mail now. Apparently if there were a 'front end', then plugging it in to the old Locust infrastructure (that still exists) would be possible. We'll see what happens... P Sounds good. Would be good to see Lcoust working again, just like welcoming back an old friend..... :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JamminJP Posted January 12, 2006 Report Share Posted January 12, 2006 Hi Guys, I was on locust for years, infact pretty much from day 1, well the early days well before O charged for SMS! my user name was Jasonp and I was a Locust Wizard, helping create channels and stuff like that :) I miss it, still speak to a couple of people from Locust now and again that I met. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PayableOnDeath Posted January 13, 2006 Report Share Posted January 13, 2006 i didnt know locust existed lol when your taking about Free SMS on O was that the 10 free a day on pay as you go? back in time when the O Motorola Brick phone ( C250/C500 cant remember what it was called know something like that lol) was the Must have phone lol I would like to help you guys get it goin again, I cant make apps for for it thou yet(still got to learn how to lol I would like to beable to write my own apps, its just finding time to learn lol) I could help with Alpha/beta Testing the software thou :D phones I have which it could be tested on Are Nokia 3100 Orange C500 and MDA Vario if that helps Good luck with the project :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest PayableOnDeath Posted January 13, 2006 Report Share Posted January 13, 2006 ' date='Jan 13 2006, 09:28' post='174']No, this was the REALLY early days when SMS was free full stop, before they started charging 2p a message (if I remember rightly). You were a locust wizard? I'd forgotten about those :) P oh before my time then lol :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ccsnet Posted January 13, 2006 Report Share Posted January 13, 2006 Blast from the past.... this is all around the time I discovered and started using for work the TAP protacol and even started looking at POSAG decoders lol. Terran Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pd.ryder Posted January 14, 2006 Report Share Posted January 14, 2006 Like a few here, I missed Locust completely :P Anything that makes communicating these days use less data (= money) then I'm game. I'll watch the thread :D As an aside, has anyone experience with the data compression system "OnSpeed" see here which is supposed to super-size GPRS by 8x. I wondered how stable/reliable it was for ?24.99 a year. (Maybe I should start a new thread? I don't mean to hijack this one :) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jay3gsm Posted January 23, 2006 Report Share Posted January 23, 2006 ' date='Jan 12 2006, 16:29' post='163']I'm talking to Jon on e-mail now. Apparently if there were a 'front end', then plugging it in to the old Locust infrastructure (that still exists) would be possible. We'll see what happens... P How are things developing? Is there an idea to actually get this up and running? Or haven't we got to that stage yet? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mwright Posted March 24, 2006 Report Share Posted March 24, 2006 ' date='Jan 27 2006, 09:42' post='241']We're not at that stage yet, but things are still happening :) P ANy more news Paul? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest xspyda Posted March 24, 2006 Report Share Posted March 24, 2006 Great news! There was a time when users could interact with the Locust server via AIM / Jabber / ICQ and the like - not sure what happended though, it seemed to die off. Would be good to get something similar going again, not quite sure how it would work though. Anyone trying to guess my lcs name ... the clue is over on the left :-) < -------- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mwright Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 ' date='Mar 24 2006, 17:34' post='1387']I working with an as-yet unnamed party on getting this in place. The flate rate GPRS announcement has definitely made things rosier! :) P Bump? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paul (MVP) Posted May 26, 2006 Report Share Posted May 26, 2006 Work is still going on behind the scenes to make this happen :) P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sp00k Posted May 27, 2006 Report Share Posted May 27, 2006 ...........You were a locust wizard? I'd forgotten about those :) P You had? Humph! No sweat, I'd forgotten about "Paulsphone" until you mentioned it! :D Be good to see Locust or something similar running again though, there were some very interesting characters on it in its hey-day... P.S. Hi MWright... figured you'd be in an old folks home by now! hehe! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mwright Posted May 27, 2006 Report Share Posted May 27, 2006 You had? Humph! No sweat, I'd forgotten about "Paulsphone" until you mentioned it! :) Be good to see Locust or something similar running again though, there were some very interesting characters on it in its hey-day... P.S. Hi MWright... figured you'd be in an old folks home by now! hehe! Hmm - let me know which one you are in so that I can avoid it :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sp00k Posted June 1, 2006 Report Share Posted June 1, 2006 I drew Jon's attention to this thread, typically he'd forgotten about it but says that... "If people are now ready to use java+gprs then it can work again, how neat the system will be depends on the java app. so any smartphone/java/symbian developers who can code should contact me, [email protected] if they want to work on a simple app to drive it, it's always worked on gprs, msn etc, just no-one used it." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Jay3gsm Posted June 5, 2006 Report Share Posted June 5, 2006 Sp00k! Old timer, glad you are still with us! Good to see you here, too. So, what's new? And yes, someone please code this damn app so we can start with Locust 2.0! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mwright Posted June 5, 2006 Report Share Posted June 5, 2006 I drew Jon's attention to this thread, typically he'd forgotten about it but says that... "If people are now ready to use java+gprs then it can work again, how neat the system will be depends on the java app. so any smartphone/java/symbian developers who can code should contact me, [email protected] if they want to work on a simple app to drive it, it's always worked on gprs, msn etc, just no-one used it." To save everybody emailing Jon - could you ask if it is still working/can be made to work via IM (MSN/Jabber) etc? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest sp00k Posted June 6, 2006 Report Share Posted June 6, 2006 To save everybody emailing Jon - could you ask if it is still working/can be made to work via IM (MSN/Jabber) etc? Cheers I'll do my best to get the info, or better yet, I'll try and get him to come out of the woodwork! :) P.S. Hi Jay... You have a PM.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest JonAnderson Posted June 6, 2006 Report Share Posted June 6, 2006 Hi Everyone, Its nice to hear that people would like Locust to return. It is a real shame that Orange closed it down.. At the time GPRS was (and still is too expensive) but I hear there are now flat rate unlimited options which really would open some doors for what could be possible. Also, most phones these days are much more advanced with decent JAVA etc which all helps. Those who've been following what I've been doing will know about LocustWorld and how busy it is keeping me! The concept with that is basically that you can build your own wireless network. More info in this ZDnet article about LocustWorld or see the main site at LocustWorld.com All my work these days is really with LocustWorld as it is what pays the rent, but if Locust Cellular were possible, then it is something I might consider restarting given sufficient motivation. All the old mail forwarding is still up and running, but I disabled the aim/msn bots as there was virtually no usage and I didn't want to have to worry about getting my ip's blacklisted by aol/msn and maintaining the database servers that ran them. I've never really learnt to program MIDP JAVA or Symbian C++ or Windows Mobile C++, or .NET CF c# so it isn't really something I can do to knock up a custom bit of handset client software. I also haven't seen a reliable messaging client that could work on a phone as a substitute for text messaging (eg with the nice push notifications) - mine kept signing off when I went out of coverage or just said I was online when I wasn't. I also notice that even the "push email" upgrade for the Orange smartphones basically involves rapid server polling, rather than push technology. This would get expensive unless you have unlimited GPRS, perhaps someone can give me more info on these talk plans. I find it difficult to get to speak to anyone at Orange customer services these days (they seem to have removed all those menu options) and 151 is also discontinued. Their on hold message says to visit the website but I can't get Orange.net working most of the time and it helpfully disables text alerts at random and doesn't appear to text you when you're out of coverage. None of this is very helpful. Overall Orange seems to be totally dying. I've been an Orange customer for 12 years and the service appears to get worse and more expensive by the day. Sorry rant over. If people want to get Locust up and running again. What we need is a bullet-proof instant messaging client. Ideally Jabber based, as then I can run my own messaging server and not have to ab(use) AIM or MSN, also I've got a gigabit of bandwidth and fleets of servers these days, so really the sky is the limit for what the service could do. Someone find me a jabber handset messaging client that works properly and I'll set up a test server but beyond that I can't make any promises. Best Regards, Jon Anderson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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