TMobile Minutes Used Firefox Extension

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 2.1

2009-07-22T12:33:00.002-04:00

the new version fixed a bug from the previous version. it also dumps error messages to the "error console" in firefox which hopefully will help debug any issues.

it doesn't work with prepaid plan yet because i am not sure what kind of data the extension is getting prepaid plan. but the error log might help.

You can download it here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 2.0

2009-07-21T17:16:00.000-04:00

the new version fixed a bug from the previous version.

You can download it here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 1.9

2009-07-15T14:54:00.000-04:00

the new version fixed a bug from the previous version.

You can download it here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 1.8

2009-07-10T15:16:00.000-04:00

the new version should work with the latest tmobile web site with a few more pieces of data displayed.

You can download it here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 1.7

2008-08-20T10:17:00.002-04:00

the new version fixed the usage in red bug and the wrong display when minute usage exceeds the limit. it should also support firefox 3.0. it took me a while to do it because i cannot get firefox 3.0 installed on my linux machine.

You can download it here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 1.6

2008-05-29T08:24:00.000-04:00

The new version fixed a problem of calculating projected usage in version 1.5.

You can download it here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 1.5

2008-05-28T13:31:00.000-04:00

The new version now works with the new TMobile web site.

You can download it here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 1.4

2008-02-24T14:55:00.001-05:00

The new version fixed a problem of calculating projected usage.

You can download it here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 1.3

2007-02-19T15:40:00.000-05:00

The new version fixed a weird javascript regexp parsing error for some accounts.

You can download it here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 1.2

2006-12-02T23:11:00.000-05:00

The new version saves minutes usage information so that restarting Firefox won't result in checking TMobile's web site for minute usage.

You can download it here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 1.1 for Firefox 2.x

2006-10-13T16:13:00.000-04:00

The new version now supports Firefox 2.0. There is also a few bug fixes for displaying last statement date and displaying the last date the data is colelcted by the extension.

You can download it here.

Extension to Check Cingular Minutes Used

2006-08-05T23:25:00.000-04:00

For those who are interested in a Cingular extension, I know of two versions:

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 1.0 (for prepaid account)

2006-07-27T17:05:00.000-04:00

The new version now supports prepaid TMobile account. Here is a screen shot of it.

You can download the version 1.0 here.
(save the file locally and then open it from Firefox: File->Open File...)

Next on my list is to support displaying multiple accounts, which seems to be a popular request. I am swamped by other things for now. So it has to wait a while. Stay tuned...

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 0.9

2006-07-21T14:10:00.000-04:00

The new version has the feature to disable the extension from the status tray. This is demanded by many users to avoid hitting the TMobile web site too often when opening new Firefox instances.

You can download the version 0.9 here.
(save the file locally and then open it from Firefox: File->Open File...)

Other popular demands are to support prepaid account or show data usage. Since I don't have either capability with my TMobile service, my account page doesn't show it. I need someone to send my a screen shot (html file) and I will be happy to enhance the extension.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 0.8

2006-07-14T23:31:00.000-04:00

I finally got the extension to work again with the new TMobile web site. The default interval to refresh is set to 120 minutes. Please set the value using your own discretion. Nobody wants to bring down TMobile's web site.

You can download the version 0.8 here.
(save the file locally and then open it from Firefox: File->Open File...)

Note: If you have never logged in to TMobile's web site before from your browser (the firefox on the current machine), you need to login once for the extension to work.

Yahoo Finance and Google Finance Interchange

2006-03-21T12:21:00.000-05:00

Google Finanace is released today. It has quite a few nice features, among them the highly interactive charting capability. But I still like Yahoo's portfolio management feature. I wrote for myself a Greasemonkey script to add a link to Google's site from Yahoo Finance page when using Firefox. Here is a screen shot. You can get the script here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 0.7

2006-02-01T15:27:00.000-05:00

Version 0.7 has the following new features:

support firefox 1.5.0.1
show billing date
show projected usage number and utilization rate for the current month
show usage in red if the projection exceeds the monthly limit (there is an option to disable it)
added the option "Show usage in red if it exceeds" to show the usage in red when it exceeds a given threshold.
added the option to check the usage now to the status bar context menu
fixed the issue of temporarily freezing the browser after updating the option

This is a screen shot of what the new tooltip looks like:

The extension is currently unavailable due to a change to TMobile's web site. When I figure out a new working version, it will be posted here.

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 0.5 and 0.6

2006-01-19T01:29:00.000-05:00

I have updated the extension with major code clean-up and a few new features as follows. You can get it from Mozilla Update

fixed TypeError: win.gTMobileMinutesUsed has no properties when accessing this extension's option from firefox's tools->extension menu.
added http timeout configuration
major code refactor with namespace
added more TMobile sites with which the password is saved

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 0.4

2005-12-01T10:08:00.000-05:00

I have updated the extension to support FireFox 1.5. You can get it from Mozilla Update

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used Firefox Extension Wish List

2005-11-03T14:26:00.000-05:00

Here is a wish list:

display billing cycle
option to disable the "go to tmobile billing site" link (double click and right click pop-up menu)
option to set the http timeout (for users with slower connection)
display text message usage. I need someone with text message service to confirm that it can be retrieved from TMobile's Web site and help me get account access temporarily.
Some users complained that they always got 0 minute used even though they could see minute usage on the "See minutes used details" site from the billing site. this problem is traced to the fact that TMobile's web site does not update their billing site https://my.t-mobile.com/Billing correctly. if you check the minute usage meter on the right, you will notice it shows 0. I could instead use the "See minutes used details" site to retrieve the minute usage information. However, I haven't figured out what the URL is. (As simple as it sounds, it's difficult to figure it out because it's a dynamic URL created by a bunch of Javascripts. Maybe someone can help me with this.)
I have also got many requests to write a similar extension for other cell phone carriers. I would be happy to do that except I myself only has TMobile account. It's impossible for me to write and test the extensions for other cell phone accounts. Sorry about this, unless someone wants to share his/her account information with me temporarily. If so, please leave a note here with your contact information. (Update: I have written a new extension for Verizon. It can be found here.)

TMobile (USA) Minutes Used version 0.3

2005-10-21T13:25:00.000-04:00

Thanks to help from "DevGuy", I think I have fixed the invalid GUID problem for firefox 1.5. My old GUID is one character too short. For some reason, Firefox pre-1.5 accepts GUID one character short.

I also fixed a problem with opening a new window. Now any new windows should display the same usage information.

I also fixed various performance and stability problems, given that TMobile's Web site is not stable and responds slowly intermittently. Timeouts were added to watch all the HTTP requests.

The new version is never officially published to the mozilla update site. You should download the latest version (0.4+) from Mozilla Update.

I have also got many requests to write a similar extension for other cell phone carriers. I would be happy to do that except I myself only has TMobile account. It's impossible for me to write and test the extensions for other cell phone accounts. Sorry about this, unless someone wants to share his/her account information with me temporarily.

For the same reason, I cannot figure out your TMobile text message usage because I currently don't subscribe to this service, unless someone with text message service wants to work with me.

Firefox extension to check TMobile phone minutes used

2005-10-19T14:38:00.000-04:00

I really love Firefox's open architecture. I have found so many useful extensions on the internet. Among my favorites are:

GreaseMonkey. here is a script I wrote for GreaseMonkey to skip the Yahoo! Mail session expired page.
Adblock
ScrapeBook
Web Developer
TabMix
ImageZoom
etc

I have finally published my first Firefox extension to check how many minutes you have used on your TMobile phone. Currently it can be downloaded from here

I am planning to improve it based on user feedback. Please leave me any comments.

my first blog

2005-08-09T15:29:00.000-04:00

well, this is my very first blog. i will see how well it goes.

i chose the title efficiency because i think there is a lot of room to improve any process that we have to go through every day, be it work, life, or whatever. it's felt even more strongly in the IT industry (where i am in). the purpose of IT is to improve and automate processes. however, surprisingly enough, most of IT internal processes are not efficient at all.

for example, we have been preaching for refactoring code as much as possible. this is one of the most fundamental principles and you can trace fancy ideas such as model driven architecture to it. however, within a medium/large sized project, it's next to impossible for any one (say an architect) to review thousands of lines of new code every day and find out if common pitfalls such as copy-paste is used. in comes the utility cpd to rescure, the detection process is automated, and efficiency is achieved.

there are many such code analyzers. you can also resort to code coverage tools to have a high level view of how much code coverage you have (great for project managers and powerpoints). if you use maven to build your project, you can get many of the reports for free by using the appropriate plugins.

the important point is that we can use software to improve the software engineering process.