Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has an XMPP client. JMP’s tagline, “Freedom For Your Phone Number”, captures the freedom that JMP gives you from traditional cell phone carriers, as well as the fully-free nature of all the software that powers JMP (licensed entirely under AGPLv3+).

The past few months have been busy and exciting for us! We’ve been implementing several new features, doing a ton of work on our payment system to make future additions like adding balance and checking expiry much easier, and also adding new payment methods, all with the help of two new employees! More on that below, but first, let’s talk about those new features:

First of all, thanks to our new full-time employee, Christopher, we now have fully bi-directional calling over XMPP! Previously we supported incoming calls over XMPP (per the XMPP/Jingle calling options in Q17 at https://jmp.chat/#bot), but outgoing calls is new! Using XMPP clients that support calling, such as Conversations, Movim, and Gajim, you can initiate a call by adding the contact you want to call just as you’d add a texting contact, then tapping the call icon to initiate the call. This feature is still in alpha, but many users have reported it works well, so we encourage you to give it a try! Note that most XMPP clients do not support punching in numbers mid-call (“DTMF”) - we’re actively exploring the best ways to get that added to popular clients. Now that we have both incoming and outgoing calls available through XMPP, many users will find they only need one app for JMP: the XMPP client they already have!

Secondly, also thanks to Christopher, we have a new command bot, which will eventually replace the JMP account bot. This bot lets us keep the ad-hoc commands that we continue to support for various account settings, while also letting people use the commands in XMPP clients that don’t support ad-hoc commands (such as Conversations). To get started with the new command bot send a message to xmpp:cheogram.com (that’s the Jabber ID “cheogram.com”) - “help” will list the commands, and you can type any unique command name or name prefix to run that command. Let us know what you think!

Another new feature we’ve added in the past few months is automated Bitcoin payments, so you can now add funds to your account using Bitcoin right from our website, without needing to ask support. If you prefer other cryptocurrencies, for now we recommend SimpleSwap, MorphToken, ChangeNOW, or Godex to do the conversion - we plan to add native support for Monero as our next cryptocurrency.

As mentioned earlier we have two new employees: Christopher (aka psycotica0), who has been working on the calling and bot features, and Stephen (aka singpolyma), who is making most of the new core payment system and other infrastructure updates. Christopher started at the beginning of January full-time, and Stephen started last month working part-time for JMP (after volunteering with us for several years). It’s awesome to have new people on board and we’re very excited for how quickly we’ll be able to make JMP even better! With our new employees fully onboarded now, Denver (ossguy) will be on sabbatical starting in the next few weeks, until approximately November this year. So if you are accustomed to asking your JMP questions directly to Denver, now is the time to switch to our usual support channels, per https://jmp.chat/#support - the others on the team will be happy to help! Also, note that our support reply window is now “within 8 business hours” - we may reply on the weekend, but it is not guaranteed.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to reply to this email or find us in the group chat per below. We’re happy to chat whenever we’re available!

To learn what’s happening with JMP between emails like this, here are some ways you can find out:

• find us in xmpp:discuss@conference.soprani.ca?join - a group chat accessible from most XMPP clients, and on the web
• signup for the 30-day free trial at https://jmp.chat/#signup and try it out!

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful rest of your week!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has an XMPP client. JMP’s tagline, “Freedom For Your Phone Number”, captures the freedom that JMP gives you from traditional cell phone carriers, as well as the fully-free nature of all the software that powers JMP (licensed entirely under AGPLv3+).

We have a couple big items to announce this month, so we’ll dive right in!

First of all, you can now receive phone calls directly in your XMPP client! We have tested this extensively with Conversations and Movim, and we believe other clients to work well too, including Gajim and Siskin. Any client that supports Jingle calling should work. To switch from using the JMP SIP account (the default) to using Jingle voice (XMPP calling) for incoming calls, use the ‘j’ command of the JMP account bot:

1. send ‘j’ to account@jmp.chat (if the link doesn’t open, add account@jmp.chat to your XMPP contact list)
2. if it shows you’re using the JMP SIP account, then send the text ‘j enable’ to turn on Jingle calls
3. all calls to your JMP number will now ring your XMPP client!

We are working on outgoing Jingle call support as well, but it’s not quite ready yet. Stay tuned here (or in the group chat below) to learn when you can try it out! For more on how Jingle calling works and the other Jingle/SIP bridging features, check out https://sip.cheogram.com/

Secondly, there is now a way to use Cheogram (to do SMS over XMPP) with phone numbers from 46 more countries! This is provided by a new Soprani.ca project called the Vonage SGX, which we sponsor. You can find out more at https://wiki.soprani.ca/VonageSetup

While not part of JMP, we wanted to mention it here since many have asked about support for more countries. With the Vonage SGX you maintain your own account with Vonage, and Vonage answers any phone network questions you have. The Soprani.ca community can help with any questions related to the Vonage SGX itself, in the Soprani.ca group chat mentioned below.

There have been a bunch of new features added to JMP as well since our last email (mostly in the JMP account bot at xmpp:account@jmp.chat), including several related to group texting. If you’d like to try out our group texting support so far, please reply to this email or contact support via https://jmp.chat/#support

Stay tuned for our next update email to learn about even more new features and our plans to officially remove the “beta” flag!

To learn what’s happening with JMP between emails like this, here are some ways you can find out:

• find us in xmpp:discuss@conference.soprani.ca?join - a group chat accessible from most XMPP clients, and on the web
• signup for the 30-day free trial at https://jmp.chat/#signup and try it out!

Thanks for reading and have a wonderful week!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has an XMPP client. JMP’s tagline, “Freedom For Your Phone Number”, captures the freedom that JMP gives you from traditional cell phone carriers, as well as the fully-free nature of all the software that powers JMP (licensed entirely under AGPLv3+).

Today is JMP’s 3 year anniversary! That’s right, we launched JMP exactly 3 years ago, and have been chipping away at Big Telecom ever since. 😉 We’ve got a fair bit planned for the next 3 years, and are excited to bring it all to you as it’s ready.

Before we go into those details, we wanted to let you know about a couple of excellent events coming up next month that JMP is involved in. Here they are:

• LibrePlanet Canada Satellite Edition! This is a new conference in 2020, which will be happening concurrently with the US LibrePlanet conference in Boston, May 14-15. From the website: “For the first time ever, all the great presentations of LibrePlanet are coming to Canada! Bringing in the main talks via live stream, with space for local hallway track and more, LibrePlanet Canada Satellite Edition is your chance to meet with like-minded participants and take in the event from Canada.” It’s happening at the Delta Hotel in Waterloo, Ontario. JMP is an official sponsor of LibrePlanet Canada Satellite Edition - more on that in a bit. Also, you’ll be able to chat with some JMP people in person, including core contributor Stephen Paul Weber!
• LibrePlanet in Boston! The original LibrePlanet continues for its 12th year, this time at the Back Bay Events Center. Check out some wonderful speakers and booths at this excellent conference devoted to software freedom. JMP is very likely to be included in LibrePlanet’s raffle and/or door prizes so be sure to keep an eye out for those!

As for development work, we’ve got a number of projects on the go. Behind the scenes we’ve been updating our code to use a completely new API from our carrier, which will be mostly invisible to users, but does have some cool new features we hope to be alpha testing with some of you soon. In particular, we’re excited to be rolling out group texting (both sending and receiving) in the coming months! If you’d like to alpha test, please just reply to this email and let us know - we’ll set you up in the next month or so.

And along the lines of new features, we’ve also been improving our payment system at the same time. As part of our sponsorship agreement with them, we’re currently running payments for LibrePlanet Canada Satellite Edition through our new payment provider, which will let us do credit card subscriptions directly without needing PayPal (still some development work to do there, but let us know if you’d like to alpha test the new provider for your next payment). And we’re also automating the currently-manual process we have for accepting Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Stay tuned!

If you’d like to know what’s happening with JMP between emails like this, here are some ways you can find out:

• find us in xmpp:discuss@conference.soprani.ca?join - a group chat accessible from most XMPP clients, and on the web
• signup for the 30-day free trial at https://jmp.chat/#signup and try it out!

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! We’re looking forward to many more years of JMP and hope that you are too!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has an XMPP client. JMP’s tagline, “Freedom For Your Phone Number”, captures the freedom that JMP gives you from traditional cell phone carriers, as well as the fully-free nature of all the software that powers JMP (licensed entirely under AGPLv3+).

As mentioned last month, we’ll have a booth at LinuxFest Northwest, which is happening this weekend! If you’re in or near northwest Washington state (specifically Bellingham Technical College), it’s a great chance to meet people in free and open source software and learn about a variety of amazing topics - the talks and exhibit hall are free of charge. At the JMP booth we’ll have pamphlets and JMP stickers, and you can pay for JMP anonymously in cash at the booth if you like. Also, feel free to just stop by and say hi!

There are some opening events on Friday (April 26) with the main conference and booths open Saturday and Sunday (April 27-28). There will be a raffle happening on both main conference days after the talks - we’ve submitted our usual prizes (JMP subscriptions) so you may be able to win one of those! For a complete event and talk list, see https://www.linuxfestnorthwest.org/conferences/2019/schedule/events

In other news, we had a wonderful time at LibrePlanet last month and we’re looking forward to future LibrePlanet events. Our raffle prizes were a big hit and it was great to meet so many JMP users and enthusiasts there!

If you’d like to know what’s happening with JMP between emails like this, here are some ways you can find out:

• follow us on Twitter
• find us in xmpp:discuss@conference.soprani.ca?join - a group chat accessible from most XMPP clients, and on the web
• signup for the 30-day free trial at https://jmp.chat/#signup and try it out!

Thanks for reading and have a great day! We’re looking forward to seeing some of you at LinuxFest Northwest!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has an XMPP client. JMP’s tagline, “Freedom For Your Phone Number”, captures the freedom that JMP gives you from traditional cell phone carriers, as well as the fully-free nature of all the software that powers JMP (licensed entirely under AGPLv3+).

As promised, we have some more details about upcoming conferences we’ll be at: We’re very excited to announce that we’ll be at LinuxFest Northwest this year - our booth has been confirmed and we’re preparing our booth materials now. As usual, we will have pamphlets and JMP stickers, and you can pay for JMP anonymously in cash at the booth if you like. Or just stop by and say hi! LinuxFest Northwest is happening April 26-28 at Bellingham Technical College in Bellingham, Washington, just an hour or two from both Vancouver (BC) and Seattle. There is an excellent lineup of speakers, and an extensive exhibition area with lots of great organizations. Also, admission to the exhibition area and talks is free! For full details, and to register, see https://www.linuxfestnorthwest.org/conferences/2019

We’ll also be at LibrePlanet, which is happening this weekend (March 23-24) at MIT! While JMP will not have a booth this year, we’re participating in the raffle again, where you can win a JMP subscription. As with FOSDEM, a few people from JMP will be at LibrePlanet, including our founder - we’ll be wearing T-shirts with a large JMP logo on the back. We’re very happy to talk about JMP if you happen to run into us; don’t be afraid to say hi!

In other news, we are getting closer to offering additional international messaging and calling options. In particular, we are now in the testing phase for iNum, which means we will soon be able to offer new phone numbers from the iNum calling code, which are reachable from most carriers worldwide. If you’ve been waiting for a JMP number outside Canada and the US, this will be your chance! For more on iNum, see https://www.inum.net/ or reply to this email - we’re happy to discuss how iNum might work for you.

If you’d like to know what’s happening with JMP between emails like this, here are some ways you can find out:

• follow us on Twitter
• find us in xmpp:discuss@conference.soprani.ca?join - a group chat accessible from most XMPP clients, and on the web
• signup for the 30-day free trial at https://jmp.chat/#signup and try it out!

Thanks for reading and have a great day! We’re looking forward to seeing some of you at LibrePlanet this weekend and LinuxFest Northwest next month!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has an XMPP client. JMP’s tagline, “Freedom For Your Phone Number”, captures the freedom that JMP gives you from traditional cell phone carriers, as well as the fully-free nature of all the software that powers JMP (licensed entirely under AGPLv3+).

If you’re in or around Brussels next weekend (February 2-3), we highly recommend checking out FOSDEM, one of the biggest free/libre software conferences out there, and entirely community-run (see https://fosdem.org/2019/practical/ for details - no registration is required, just show up!). A few people from JMP will be there, including our founder (who will also be at https://wiki.xmpp.org/web/Summit_23 , which you can join as well) - we’ll be wearing T-shirts with a large JMP logo on the back. While we won’t have a booth at FOSDEM this year, we’re very happy to talk about JMP if you happen to run into us; don’t be afraid to say hi!

We had a great time at SeaGL in Seattle this past November - thanks to everyone who stopped by our booth! It was wonderful to chat and learn more about what people like in JMP and how they’re using it. Stay tuned for more on which conferences we’ll be exhibiting at in the near future!

If you’d like to know what’s happening with JMP between emails like this, here are some ways you can find out:

• follow us on Twitter
• find us in xmpp:discuss@conference.soprani.ca?join - a group chat accessible from most XMPP clients, and on the web
• signup for the 30-day free trial at https://jmp.chat/#signup and try it out!

Thanks for reading and have a great day! We’re looking forward to seeing some of you at FOSDEM!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has an XMPP client. JMP’s tagline, “Freedom For Your Phone Number”, captures the freedom that JMP gives you from traditional cell phone carriers, as well as the fully-free nature of all the software that powers JMP (licensed entirely under AGPLv3+).

If you happen to be in Seattle over the next couple days, check out JMP’s booth at SeaGL! SeaGL, also known as the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference, is a grassroots technical conference that is being put on by some of the best organizers we know - it takes place tomorrow (Friday) and Saturday (November 9-10) at Seattle Central College (1701 Broadway), from 9am to 5:30pm, with a reception Saturday evening. Admission is free, and SeaGL also arranged free lunch and free childcare both days!

JMP’s booth will be in the Expo Hall (which is conveniently where lunch is being served), on the first floor in rooms 1110 and 1111. As usual, we will have pamphlets and JMP stickers, and you can pay for JMP anonymously in cash if you like. Or just stop by and say hi!

SeaGL has some great talks and other events scheduled, so be sure to check them out.

We hope to see you there!

If you’d like to know what’s happening with JMP between emails like this, here are some ways you can find out:

• follow us on Twitter
• find us in xmpp:discuss@conference.soprani.ca?join - a group chat accessible from most XMPP clients, and on the web
• signup for the 30-day free trial at https://jmp.chat/#signup and try it out!

Thanks for reading and have a great day! We’re looking forward to seeing some of you at SeaGL!

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the latest edition of your pseudo-monthly JMP update!

In case it’s been a while since you checked out JMP, here’s a refresher: JMP lets you send and receive text and picture messages (and calls) through a real phone number right from your computer, tablet, phone, or anything else that has an XMPP client. JMP’s tagline, “Freedom For Your Phone Number”, captures the freedom that JMP gives you from traditional cell phone carriers, as well as the fully-free nature of all the software that powers JMP (licensed entirely under AGPLv3+).

JMP users can now send international SMS (i.e. SMS to countries outside Canada and the US), as part of our alpha rollout! Thanks to the agreement we alluded to in last month’s email, we’ve been able to enable international SMS sending on all JMP numbers (receiving of international SMS has always been supported). The feature is currently in alpha while we do further testing and validation work, but it’s available to you now if you want to try it out (at no additional charge while in alpha).

If you don’t have an international number to test with, or if you run into any issues with the international texting functionality (i.e. messages are not delivered at all or only some countries work), let us know by replying to this email or contacting support: https://jmp.chat/#support. We can help you from there and/or provide an international number you can use to test the functionality.

International SMS are sent in the same way as other SMS, using the full E.164 number before @cheogram.com as described in https://jmp.chat/#sending. For example, to send a message to the Australian number +61 (0)448 008 003, you would use the JID +61448008003@cheogram.com.

You may recall from last month’s email that JMP will have a booth at SeaGL in Seattle this year. We are prepping all our materials now, and are excited to be joining them! SeaGL recently announced even more free stuff, which makes the decision to attend even easier. ;) Check out the details on free childcare and free lunch.

For more on how we’ll be involved in SeaGL this year and why you should attend, here’s what we sent out last month:

JMP will have a table at SeaGL this year! SeaGL is taking place November 9-10 at Seattle Central College (1701 Broadway, Seattle, WA), and we’re really looking forward to being there. As a grassroots technical conference that is being put on by some of the best organizers we know, SeaGL offers an amazing community of people and great talks that you should definitely check out. SeaGL is also free of charge and you don’t need to identify yourself in order to attend, so if you’re in the area or don’t mind travelling, you won’t want to miss it! Be sure to watch their website for all the details, and signup for the announcement list at the bottom of the page.

At SeaGL (as at HOPE), you’ll be able to meet some of us (including the founder) at our exhibit table, pay for JMP anonymously in cash if you like, and/or just hang out or chat with us! We’ll have pamphlets and JMP stickers if you’re interested, too. We hope to see you there!

If you’d like to know what’s happening with JMP between emails like this, here are some ways you can find out:

• follow us on Twitter
• find us in xmpp:discuss@conference.soprani.ca?join - a group chat accessible from most XMPP clients, and on the web
• signup for the 30-day free trial at https://jmp.chat/#signup and try it out!

Thanks for reading and have a great day! We’re looking forward to seeing some of you at SeaGL next month!