Years ago, I had some software to implement an answering machine with a PC (and modem). When a call arrived, it could be configured to email a notification *or* WAV file of the incoming message to an email address. This was handy when I was traveling as I didn't have to tell people I was traveling, where I was, etc. And, didn't have to keep checking the machine to see if anyone had called since the last check!
It's a very useful thing to have. Yes, junk callers do spoof the number you see on caller ID, but the seldom take the time to find one of the few that could really fool you. CID is still useful.
BTW, answering machines may not have CID. That appears to be a phone function.
I'm about to do that (turn off the ringer). There's just too many of those annoying calls.
BTW, I also never answer calls from charities. If I did I feel like saying "I'm not your ATM" and hanging up.
There's also cell phones. AFAIK, most allow you to assign a different ringtone to a specific number. You may even be able to make others silent. Then you know which calls to ignore.
Hopefully ignoring those unknown callers that left a "blank" message (just enough noise to trigger the machine, but no meaningful content).
Yes. But for most folks, CID means you have to interact with the phone when it is ringing -- to see *who* is calling ("Do I want to answer this?") As I don't want to have to acknowledge the "interruption" (that the ringing phone represents), my only solution is to silence the ringer and defer interaction until some time when it is more convenient for me.
This is where email excels -- I can overnight -- rearrange who has access to me via email. Not so with the phone (I can't change my phone number without involving TPC!)
So, I can monitor particular email accounts based on the sorts of people with which I might want to interact at any given time (e.g., don't watch the email account that friends use if I'm busy working but *do* watch the one associated with business contacts).
My goal has been to come up with a scheme whereby the "watching" can be done by something intelligent -- the equivalent of a "secretary" -- so I need only specify the criteria that are important to me at any given time (e.g., I'm asleep! I sure as hell don't want to be disturbed by a friend calling to chat!)
Yup. There are some times when we are waiting a "call back" from a friend, provider, etc. In even those narrow windows (where we have to actively be prepared to interact with the phone) it is amazing how many "hang up" calls come in (folks who encountered the outgoing message and aborted the call).
SWMBO is slowly beginning to understand my preference for "anonymous giving"; cut a cashier's check for the amount you want to give, save the receipt and then mail the check with no return address. Worst case, the check gets lost in the mail (but never cashed by anyone other than the intended recipient).
Regardless, there's no trail BACk to you from the charity. No way they can spend THAT money trying to get MORE MONEY from you!
I.e., think of it as doing them a FAVOR by cutting that potential expenditure! :>
I refuse to carry a cell phone (other than one with no service for a "911 phone" -- or, one to use solely as a portable WiFi terminal!) If I need to make a call, I can *find* a phone. Somewhere. If someone needs to get in touch with me, they can leave me a voice message or an email and I'll get back to them. Rarely is anything THAT important that it needs to be addressed IMMEDIATELY.
"Your failure to plan ahead does not obligate me to respond immediately"
It's relatively easy to detect "no message" as most folks drop the connection before the OGM has completed.
The problem with this solution was that it was too much of a "toy"; having to set aside an entire PC (tower, keyboard, display) -- big, power hungry, noisey (fan), etc. -- for the functionality of an "answering machine".
An answering machine is "worth" ~20 cubic inches, ~4 oz and ~2 Watts. Anything beyond that is "waste". In the timeframe when I was using this, that was closer to a cubic foot (or two), 10 pounds and 100+ watts.
Today, an answering machine with those capabilities is "worth" considerably less (size/power). But, getting to that point with a flexible solution is tricky...
My answering system is part of my cordless phone "network" - one base connected to my VOIP box, with hadsets scattered around the house in different rooms - CID is on the base and the handsets courtesy my VOIP provider.
Automatic blacklist/whitelist management on the VOIP means I can get the rings from those I want to hear from, and not from thespammers.
How do you deal with the local library calling to tell you a book is overdue?
Or, the store that you had back-order a pair of slacks calling to tell you they've arrived?
Or, a friend calling from someone else's phone?
Or...
Black/white-lists don't work, in practice. There are too many exceptions.
An organization can have many telephone numbers; how do I know which one will be placing the call to me?
What you want/need is something that is tied intimately to individuals, not their phones or phone numbers. And, something that allows the system to adapt to new conditions as they arise without having to be "reprogrammed" (adding/removing numbers from black/white lists is considered programming)
You use the basic blacklist - whitelist basically not required. The library or store won't be on the "universal" blacklist.. Nor will your friends' friend's phone your friend borrowed. If you get a call from a caller you don't want to hear from a gain you add it to the "personal" blacklist.
You don't have to. As I said, the whiltelist is only for "bad guys" you want to hear from.
Perfect it and be the "Next American Billionaire"
Goal is not to "perfect" anything but, rather, put a framework in place (hardware and software) that allows others (who typically can't do BOTH hardware and software NOR "design from scratch) to "enhance it" to more easily address these needs. I.e., speech recognizer, voice recognizer, expert system, TELCO interface, subscriber set interface, etc. and *they* figure out how to exploit each of these mechanisms!
Like providing basic tools to some "craftsman" so he can perfect his craft -- instead of having to first figure out how to make the tools that he will need!
IIRC, I've never seen a CID device that doesn't store the info.
Yes. Of course, I'm now dealing with someone who takes months to read email.
[snip]
Most drop the connection. That's been true until recently. I've been getting a lot (I think those CID shows as "TOLL FREE CALL") where there's just a grunt or vague mumble.
It doesn't take an "entire PC" if the software runs in the background, or in a virtual machine. It could be the same PC you're using anyway.
[snip]
That blacklist won't include the 8 numbers junk callers use today, the
12 (different) ones they use tomorrow, the 9 new ones they use the next day, .... [snip]
There's also an issue of buffer depth...
One of our friends has a telco service that refuses to accept inbound calls from folks who've "blocked" CID's (i.e., us). "Press 1 to unblock your id for and be connected to the caller".
So, I've been dutifully pressing 1 to get through to him.
Recently, he mentioned (in passing) that we appear as "Tucson caller" when I do this. So, he's never had any indication as to *who* we are! He's just as likely to let our call go through to his voice mail (which is almost always "full")
I've now reprogrammed his number in the autodialer to preface it with *82 so our real names are conveyed through to him. He was surprised the first time he saw it in his CID display (which is apparently a voice display that often mangles the pronunciation of names!)
You have to hope they have an incentive for reading YOUR email. It took a while for me to "train" clients to avoid using the phone and, instead, use email. I simply took a week to return voice mail (often "after hours"/weekends so they had to call me *back* the next day -- getting routed to my voice mail, again) and PROMPTLY (less than 24 hours) to return email.
Wasn't long before folks "learned" that the best way to get an answer was to put it in writing! Which saved me the hassle of transcribing telephone calls so I had a record of what was said, agreed to, etc. in a "searchable" form! Goes a long way to keeping folks honest when you can send a copy of THEIR email back to them at a later date: "I thought THIS is what we agreed to? Do you have something more current that I've misplaced??" (knowing, of course, that there IS nothing more current!)
When we sort through our messages, we sometimes encounter "dumb" robodialers that just recite their "payload" without regard to whether or not there is anything listening. The local public library is like this. And, must know how stupid their approach is as the repeat the message several times -- in English and Spanish -- in the hope that ONE of them is caught by is "listening"
It means a PC needs to be on 24/7. And, to not be a "superfluous PC", needs to be the one you *want* to use for .
Nowadays, you can find small, low power machines (I have some that run on less than 10W that I have "up" 24/7/365). That wasn't the case decades ago.
I just rescued a pair of SFF PC's (Optiplex 745's) one of which will replace the tower that's been our HTPC/DVD player. They were chosen for their small size and (relatively) low power consumption. Plus the fact that I can swap out the DVD player easily if it fails, over time (this was a concern with the original tower -- I could replace the half-height optical drive with another far easier than buying a new "DVD player").
But, any PC based solution ties my hands with the approach I can take to the problem. What happens when that PC dies? Will the PC available 5 years hence support the same peripherals that I'm using for that feature? The same physical busses, etc.? And, what about the OS? If I have to code on bare iron, then the PC is the LEAST desirable hardware platform!
So, instead, I'm pursuing a VoIP gateway sort of approach: an appliance that has an FXO port on one side and an RJ45 on the other. Bury all the telco interface (hardware) in the device and just deliver network packets to my software.
This allows my software to run on anything that I choose -- as long as there is a way to "get to a network connection".
But, it adds other complexities that a PC-as-answering_machine doesn't have to address -- mainly latency. The gateway has to buffer audio content before delivering it to the network. It has to then compete with other network traffic and travel to my "machine" (whatever it may be), percolating up through the network stack before my software can "see" it. This all takes time. And, can vary from one instant to the next!
In an exaggerated example, imagine your phone buffered up entire sentences from the calling party before delivering them to your ear. You'd *hear* everything the caller said. But, while you are hearing them, the caller is wondering why you're not SAYING anything -- he/she stopped speaking moments ago and you've not yet replied (because you are only, just now!, hearing those statements).
"No free lunch." To gain some measure of independence/isolation, I have to assume some additional design complexities.
*UNLESS* I can get my code to run *in* the VoIP gateway! There, it could access the incoming analog audio as it arrives -- without having to buffer it and transfer it over the network...
You'd be surprized how quickly the "global" blacklist gets updated.
I get about 1 a month now instead of 5 or 6 a day!!!!
And, when you use an answering machine, they're too stupid to WAIT FOR THE BEEP. Some or all (depending on length) of the message isn't recorded.
BTW, I once tried one of those "challenge / response" systems, where the caller gets a "please press 1" message. Using it made the "dumb robodialer" problem worse (considering that the ring-ring-message-beep sequence becomes ring-ring-messsage-ring-ring-message-beep).
[snip]
The more amusing cases are the (real) folks who ramble on and on -- until the machine hangs up on them!
We had a friend who would call after having a few drinks. One time, she talked to the machine for so long that the *tape* (back when you had dual cassettes in the machine) ran out! (half an hour or more!)
Handling incoming calls -- wanted and unwanted -- is an amusingly difficult problem!
Historically, it's been such a ubiquitous medium that it was hard to impose any rules/constraints on callers; someone legitimate might call and be incapable of complying with whatever "system" you'd imposed!
[I had a scheme35 years ago where you had to key in a number. Worked great -- except for my folks (who had a dial-pulse telephone!]As a result, I've decided that *you* have to bear the responsibility for making it work; you can't just "impose" something on your callers because they're not accustomed to "having to comply" with a dictatorial phone system!
[How many folks lean on '0' when faced with endless voice menus?]OTOH, with email, I can "force" certain contacts to use PEM if they want to correspond with me -- without imposing that on other contacts!
I wonder if the pulse is somehow broken up. I used to have machine hooked up to listen to any response to my announced message. It's been off line, but most of my junk calls now have no response left on network center.
Greg
An answering machine gives you real time monitoring, and you can pick up if it seems important.
Greg
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