Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Software

Suggestions for Computer Answering Systems? 54

Posted by Cliff from the next-generation-answering-machines dept.
{e}N0S asks: "Just got done watching the movie Brainscan and it got me wanting my computer to handle my telephone again. Features like: menu systems, custom greetings based on caller id, remote access, voice recognition ("igor hold" "holding") and such would be ideal. Have you Slashdot readers implemented something like this, and do you have tips on good software?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Suggestions for Computer Answering Systems? More

Suggestions for Computer Answering Systems?

Comments Filter:

  • isdn4bsd (Score:3, Informative)

    by prisonernumber7 ( 540579 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @03:19PM (#7868168) Homepage

    In the FreeBSD 3.something days I remember to have used isdn4bsd [freebsd.org] - a very fine software package. I am not sure if that still holds true today, but iirc it did just what you asked for.

  • Vgetty (Score:5, Informative)

    by lubeboy ( 669348 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @03:25PM (#7868208)
    Vgetty [greenie.net] From the web page: Vgetty turns your voice modem into an answering machine. It adds voice capabilities to mgetty. This means, that you can handle data, fax and voice calls on one telephone line. How good all this works depends strongly on the modem you have. There are many modems with bad voice implementations and quite a few more expensive ones with a good hardware and firmware.

    • Re:Vgetty (Score:3, Insightful)

      by The Vulture ( 248871 )
      I used vgetty about five years ago with a U.S. Robotics ISA 56K VoiceModem, and it worked great, although it was a little flakey at times.

      The one thing that I loved about it, which most typical answering machines don't allow for, is that I could call in and check my messages, and it could even tell me whether or not I had messages waiting by changing the number of rings before picking up.

      Of course, I don't have a land line anymore, I don't keep any machines on 24/7 anymore (except the MythTV machine), and
      • I haven't had an answering machine in years that WOULDN'T do both those features. Read the manual.
        • Changing the number of rings before picking up based on message presence isn't anything I've seen on a modern "store-bought" answering machine. Name one that does. :)

          • Re:Vgetty (Score:2, Informative)

            by jesboat ( 64736 )
            Any that has a toll-saver mode, like a Lucent 1715.
            • Oh. I've seen the toll-saver thing on the machines, but never really understood what it did (the last couple of machines I've purchased had *very* poorly translated manuals). That's far more useful than I expected...

          • Re:Vgetty (Score:1, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward
            Uniden PowerMAX 2.4GHz--it was their cheapest model a year ago that offered multiple handsets with charging stations.

            It replaced my 5 year old Sony(I forget the model number) that *ALSO* provided the feature of changing the number of rings based on whether there were waiting messages.

            The Sony replaced some 1 year old POS that did the same thing.

            Contrary to your experience, I have yet to purchase an answering machine the doesn't offer this feature which I've never even used!

          • Re:Vgetty (Score:2, Interesting)

            by NateTech ( 50881 )
            It's called "toll-saver" and I haven't seen an answering machine without it for ten years.

            My GE Phone/Digital Answering-Machine/900 MHz cordless base (model: 26958GE1-A) is four years old and has it. There's a switch on the back that causes it to answer on the fourth ring if no messages and the second ring if there are messages in memory.

            • Agreed. My family first got an answering machine when I was about 8 years old. We've had 4 or 5 since then, and I have personally had 4 or 5 myself, osme of which I got for free to play around/use for parts. Every one had a Toll Saver feature. 2 ring pickup if you had mesages, 4 rings if you didn't.
          • All AT&T machines have it. All Panasonic machines have it (the Panasonic tape model I had in College in '88 had this feature). All V-tech machines have it. Every single one radio shack sells has it (yes, I'm there right now, and yes, I'm bored, so bored that I'm going to now walk around the mall and TRY to find one that DOESN'T have this feature)

  • GNU Bayonne (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 03, 2004 @03:34PM (#7868262)
    GNU Bayonne [gnu.org], the telecommunications application server of the GNU project, offers free, scalable, media independent software environment for development and deployment of telephony solutions for use with current and next generation telephone networks.

  • Here's one (Score:4, Informative)

    by $exyNerdie ( 683214 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @03:49PM (#7868358) Homepage Journal

    I have not tried it but here's one:
    EzVoice 2.0 [internetsoftsolution.com]

  • Asterisk (Score:5, Informative)

    by Halvard ( 102061 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @04:02PM (#7868432)

    Features like: menu systems, custom greetings based on caller id, remote access, voice recognition ("igor hold" "holding") and such would be ideal.

    Check out Asterisk [asterisk.org]. It's got all the features you ask about, supports POTS, ISDN, T-1, E-1, TDM, SIP, MGCP, etc., etc., ad naseum. You can easily setup a separate call queue based on the caller ID value, call-back, IVR, etc.I haven't been lurking in the list recently but you probably can do voice commands (roll your sleves up).

    • Re:Asterisk (Score:5, Informative)

      by veneficus ( 4718 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @04:59PM (#7868734) Journal
      I've been using Asterisk successfully for over 6 months at my house. It's like a media center for your telephone -- You can connect so many disparate telephony technologies together to make the mother of all frankensteined phone systems!

      Pound for pound, Asterisk is the best solution for computer telephony in the Linux arena. Bayonne is progressing, but it's not to the level yet that Asterisk has had for half a year now.

      Asterisk supports SIP, H323, MGCP, SCCP, ISDN, PSTN, PRI, just about anything you can throw at it that has an ominous sounding acronym.

      Besides that, the Asterisk people are helpful if you demonstrate that you're interested in learning, not just the quick fix.

      Come check out #asterisk on freenode(openprojects) or http://www.asterisk.org to see what Asterisk can do for you!
      • Pound for pound, Asterisk is the best solution for computer telephony in the Linux arena. Bayonne is progressing, but it's not to the level yet that Asterisk has had for half a year now.

        Shouldn't that read:

        # for #, * is the best solution for computer telephony in the Linux arena. Bayonne is progressing, but it's not to the level yet that * has had for half a year now.

    • Re:Asterisk (Score:2, Informative)

      by brc007 ( 603602 ) *
      I agree, Asterisk [asterisk.org] will do everything you want and much more (click to check out the extensive feature list) [asterisk.org].

      Drop by and say hi at #asterisk on freenode (try irc.debian.org) (if you need an irc client try mIRC [mirc.com] for windows).

      There's a good article by John Todd [oreillynet.com] at o'Reilly here [onlamp.com].

      Here's a Guide to Asterisk [automated.it].

      There's also a Wiki [voip-info.org]


      • Is it possible to have Asterisk to be situated between my incoming (analog) phone line and the (analog) phones in the house?
      • What kind of hardware would that require?
      • Does it have a power-failed pass-though mode?
      • Is it possible to have Asterisk gateway calls to a cell phone, so that if I unplug the local telco, the house phones will still work?


      • Re:Asterisk (Score:2, Informative)

        by qaggaz ( 148579 )
        Ok, here are the quick answers, check out the web sites for more info.
        1. Is it possible to have Asterisk to be situated between my incoming (analog) phone line and the (analog) phones in the house?
          • Yes
        2. What kind of hardware would that require?
          • For the scenario you describe above, you would need:
          • an FXO card for your analog phone line and
          • a 4 port FXS card for your analog phones in your house.

          You would need to connect each phone to a separate FSX port. Then setup extensions and a dialing plan and yo


        • Thanks for the reply. With #4, I'm trying to determine if I can connect one side of the PBX to a cell phone ("somehow").

          Is it possible to have all the house phones be "bridged together" like they are now? one circuit for all the existing analog phones, serviced by the PBX?

  • Try one of these. [slashdot.org]
  • Several years ago I had a PC answering system for my dad, but recently he upgraded his computer. Now I have tried several voice modems and none compare to the old ISA one I used in the original system. Tell me what would you say is the best modem (PCI) that I should use.
  • Many, many moons ago, we used our Acorn Archimedes computer (running RISC OS 3) as the answering machine.

    It didn't have any features mentioned by the OP, but I'm willing to bet it was pretty darn good for the time.

    I can't remember when we started using it, but I know we stopped using it in '99, and it had been going for quite some time then.

  • Boy are you lucky (Score:3, Informative)

    by Phleg ( 523632 ) <stephen AT touset DOT org> on Saturday January 03, 2004 @06:55PM (#7869300)
    Someone answered your question in the very next story [slashdot.org].

  • This Book ... (Score:3, Informative)

    by doublesix ( 590400 ) on Saturday January 03, 2004 @07:26PM (#7869490)
    ... Linux Toys: recently reviewed on /. [slashdot.org] has a chapter devoted to exactly what you seem to want. I bought the book after reading the review ... havent tried the answering machine (busy w/the laptop picture frame) but it looks easy. There's a website: http://www.linuxtoys.net [linuxtoys.net] too.

  • Hello, thank you for calling the Penn Central Company's chemical spill emergency hotline. This is an automated system. Press 1 for English, Press 2 for Spanish.

    <2>

    You have chosen Spanish. This change requires a system restart. Press 1 to reboot the call server.

    <1>

    Please stand by.

    [Click]

    [Dialtone]

    [A few minutes pass]

    [Phone rings]

    Ole, gracious por ...

    • Actually, the only Microsoft Product I ever paid for (other than pre-installed OSes) was the Microsoft Phone... This short-market-lived 900mHz cordless phone was great! Voice activated and controlled, nice looking, even with plenty of features came with Microsoft Call Manager (a nice answering machine software that supported many functions including mapping by caller ID, it even sent notices by pager)... Too bad I didn't bring it with me when I moved to Europe...
      • We had one of those as well, great system, except the battery in the phone was (nearly) impossible to replace, and the software wouldn't work under 2000 or XP, ie. the installation program looked at the os version and if it wasn't one of the 3 it liked, it said it wouldn't work. It probably would have anyway.


  • One of the better projects in Linux Toys [barnesandnoble.com] is a Linux based telephone answering system.

  • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) *
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I fail to see how it's obsolete when coverage on ALL the other options is so far behind. There's federal laws requiring that all homes have a POTS line running to them, there's no such regulation for internet/IP lines. Maybe things are different on the west coast, but here in New England you can't even use cell phones at half the venues because reception is so terrible, let alone ubiquitous IP access. I can wardrive for MILES through the working-class areas and stores and not pick up a single signal. All th

  • ZyXEL (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Monkelectric ( 546685 ) <{slashdot} {at} {monkelectric.com}> on Sunday January 04, 2004 @02:18PM (#7874063)
    Back a long long time ago when porn was huge and modems were slow, a company called ZyXEL made *awesome* modems. I'm sure you could pick one up on ebay for nothing (this one [ebay.com] seems to be going for about 2$. IIRC the bit depth was an incredibly poor 4 bits, but what do you want for 2$? :)

    Long story short, it came with dos software to run a complete little voicemail system, even a 486 could handle it nicely (as long as it had a 16550a uart). If not, you could still use vgetty or role your own as other people have suggested and you still have a cool voice modem :)

  • I used this some versions back. It's a AWESOME program, users can be greeted by prerecorded stuff, text-to-speech, leave faxes or voicemessages for different users, holding calls,etc. I can heartily recommend it.
  • A couple of years ago, I was also looking for such a package. I had a physical fax machine, answering machine, and PC with a modem. I had to try...

    I tried vgetty and found it did what I wanted: automatically answer the phone (a) play back a greeting and record a message or (b) switch to receive a fax. It could also switch to become a data line but I never tried using that functionality. This worked fine under both Linux (RH) and FreeBSD with an ISA USR voice/fax/data modem.

    Some problems I encountered:

Slashdot Top Deals

He has not acquired a fortune; the fortune has acquired him. -- Bion

Close