Methodology

Besides expanding the range of applications in wireless technology, this development also focusing on
alert system that provide a new application of SMS in order to quickly provide urgent information to the user.
A mobile phone used to connect with the computer and act as GSM modems to replace a common modem
that requires a higher cost. Fig. 1 shows the process involved in monitoring the oil palm tissue culture which
is begin with hardware development to collect the data, data monitoring and acquisition and finally, an alert
system. In addition to the SMS service, the user also will receive an email notification about the parameter
data that can be kept as the track record.

This alert system is connected with database that contains data of temperature and humidity in the tissue
culture vessel or in growth room. It begins with comparison of the current data and the parameters range. In
condition of current data is within normal range, the alert system will be in idle stage. Nevertheless, if the
current data is beyond the parameters range, the alert system will be activated where notification will be send
to user’s mobile phone via SMS and email to user’s email address. 
The intention of this implementation alert system into the technology of oil palm tissue culture is to
provide efficient monitoring methods. The combination between Apache, PHP and MySQL is the most
important tools to develop the alert system. Apache is used as a web server that is connected with MySQL
database and PHP scripting language.
SMS alert system is developed by using SMS Gateway software called NowSMS. NowSMS is a scalable
solution that is affordable for development and testing, with scalability to support mobile operator systems.
The configurations for email and SMS are including the recipient’s address, sender’s address, present date
and time, parameters range and also current value of temperature and humidity that triggered the alert system.
Fig. 2 shows a diagram on how SMS and emails are sent from PHP scripting command through the MySQL
database manager.