I maintain a hidden blog that receives pictures and texts (MMS, SMS) from my cell phone and posts them chronologically with WordPress. It is like a picture journal, but for times when writing is not particularly convenient, since all I need is my phone.
This tutorial requires a cell phone with a messaging plan, a spare gmail account, and web hosting. No data plan is required.
- Create a gmail account that is dedicated to this project specifically. Add the address as a contact in your cell phone.
- Most carriers allow you to send text messages and multimedia messages to email addresses. Verify that yours does.
- Set up a WordPress blog dedicated to this project.
- Install two plugins: Password Protected and Postie.
- Configure Password Protected with a password.
- Enable POP support by going to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab of Gmail settings for your gmail account and enable POP for all mail.
- Configure postie with POP3-SSL (make sure your web server has this extension installed), port 995, a correct time zone, mail server pop.gmail.com, your gmail username, your gmail password, and look through the rest of the tabs for more specific settings.
- Send text messages or picture messages to the gmail address you set up. This wordpress blog will now periodically check the gmail inbox for new messages and post them onto itself. You can check your blog regularly to revisit your updates.