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Desktop As a Cellphone Extension?
spaceman375 writes "Like many slashdotters, I've given up on landlines and have only a cell account. The problem: when I am home I don't want to carry my phone on my person, AND I don't want to have to run (possibly up or down stairs) to answer a call. Landlines solved this with extensions. I could go buy an xlink or other Bluetooth-to-POTS solution, but that takes money for equipment. My desktop has Bluetooth, as do my laptop and cell. All I want is a program that can use my cell's Bluetooth to make and receive calls from my Linux PC. I can do this with asterisk or related programs, but that is like buying UPS when I just need a taxi ride. Yet all I can find are programs that either use 'presence' to shift other-sourced calls to my cell, or ways to use a Bluetooth headset when receiving a call on a PC. Has anyone found a way to use their desktop to make and receive calls through their cell via Bluetooth?"
Do you really want to imagine the general /. population naked?
I have a low-cost, public-domain solution I use. It's called "not answering my phone". If I'm working at home or anticipating a call, I keep my phone nearby. Otherwise, I feel no special obligation to answer it. If you have to worry about emergency work/family calls, assign special ringtones to potential callers-with-emergencies. If you are the sort of person that absolutely must answer it regardless, then simply smoke lots of pot until you're no longer that sort of person. Easy!
I also carry my wallet and cellular phone, a programmable calculator, as well as a passport and handgun (with extra clips) at all times in the house. I use a standard ziplock plastic bag and a lanyard around my neck when I'm in the shower. Sometimes, my wife gets angry because it pokes her in the eyes when we're having marital relations, and it did cause a bit of a problem for my late first wife (may she rest in peace) when I once left the safety off. You have to be prepared should local law enforcement demand to see your papers, or if the need should arise to make a cellular call, solve a differential equation, prove my status as a natural-born US citizen, stop a charging Kodiak bear or retrieve a phone number from one of the many slips of paper in my wallet.
You never know, and it's best to always be prepared.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Robert Heinlein is that you?
Isn't it obvious? He uses the handgun to prove he's a natural-born US citizen.
He uses the credit cards to stop a charging Kodiak bear, since they only maul tourists.
Besides, with a cellular phone, a programmable calculator, a phillips screwdriver, and a short piece of string (or the lanyard), even Macgyver could encourage the most obstinate of bears to charge his wife, instead of him.
---jstlook ---For that is the way of Elves, for they say both yes AND no, and mean every word of it. --- J.R.R.T.