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Suggestions for Computer Answering Systems?
{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?"
In the FreeBSD 3.something days I remember to have used isdn4bsd - a very fine software package. I am not sure if that still holds true today, but iirc it did just what you asked for.
&& aemula C. ab stirpe interiit
Vgetty 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.
Where i live, the state owned railroad company had a voice recognition system to take orders and such, it never really worked. Only 1/10 callers could get the system to recognize what they said. The company that delivered the voice recognition system had to pay aprox $800.000 for revenue to the NSB".
This was maybe a year ago, so has the technology improved?
GNU Bayonne, 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.
I have not tried it but here's one:
EzVoice 2.0
I tried VOCP. It looks good, but I was never able to get it working due to weird modem issues. I will reiterate what an above poster said: Be very careful about what modems you use! Also, read all of the documentation before you get deep into it. Before attempting this, I didn't realize that that the sounds (answering message, etc) had to be in a *very* specific format for the modem, and that simple *.wav's would not do. VOCP comes with utilities to help this convertion though. Again, just read through everything, and make sure you understand what's going on and that your modem will actually work! Good luck. Here are list of modems!
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. 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).Try one of these.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Vocp is basicaly a front end to vgetty, and the only hard part about vgetty is getting sounds in the proper format for your modem, i definatly agree with what the above poster said.
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
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.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
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.
Self-referential sigs do not a humourous poster make.
What does your post actually say? Other than market-speak, I find no actual content. Curious that you post AC...
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Someone answered your question in the very next story.
No comment.
... Linux Toys: recently reviewed on /. 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 too.
The 5686's I've seen do not list voice capability among their features.
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
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 ...
Unknown host pong.
One of the better projects in Linux Toys is a Linux based telephone answering system.
Quod scripsi, scripsi.
Since POTS is obsolete, one should also handle calls initiated from the internet. Via GnomeMeeting/NetMeeting for example using OpenAM (http://www.openh323.org/code.html).
www.vanheusden.com - home of Multitail, HTTPing, CoffeeSaint, EntropyBroker, rsstail, bsod, listener, nagcon, nagi
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 :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
On the following page, there are some suggested voice modems. http://www.internetsoftsolution.com/pages/support. htm
Great... another way to depersonalize life. Hey, I love computers, but the only people who'd think this was a good idea are people who've never had to navigate a computer-aided idiot line.
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.
for great justice
get a QUALITY external fax/voice modem.
You'll thank yourself daily.
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:
- voice recordings incoming and outgoing were in a proprietary format. Tools to convert to/from that format existed and were relatively straightforward to use/script but made editing sound clips more difficult.
- greetings needed to be recorded in the propriety format. Phoning myself from my cell phone and copying my recorded message avoided having to do audio conversions.
- WAV files after conversion were 100s of KB for even short messages. Converting messages to MP3 (LAME encoder with voice settings) made them small
- checking messages remotely was easy once the MP3 files were exported to my web server in a password protected directory. The same browser could also check faxes.
Good points too:
- I was receiving an annoying number of junk faxes. At least now they did not use paper and could be easily deleted
- being able to attach a received fax to an email message and forward it on without using a scanner was neat
Didn't try:
- checking messages remotely with voice commands or touchtones, but I only got as far as the documentation. I used a browser to check messages/faxes.
- I think it could also work with caller id to screen calls
However, after several months, I went back to an inexpensive, battery-backed, touchtone remote controlled, dedicated answering machine and connected it to the real fax machine. It was just easier to use and maintain.