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Home Phone System That Syncs To Computer?

An anonymous reader writes 'In comparison to the advanced technology in today's smart phones, the standard home phone is painfully backwards. My current setup is a Panasonic system that has 4 cordless phones over one base station. Setting the time on one phone changes the time on all the phones; however, this is not the case for the phone book. Each entry must be manually copied (pushed) to each handset. Is this as far as home phone technology has come? What I would like is a phone system that I could sync to my computer so I could update the phone book over all the units (if not sync with Address Book or Outlook), keep a log of caller IDs, or even forward me new voicemail notifications. Does anyone know if such a system exists?'

23 of 405 comments (clear)

  1. Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What's a "landline"? :-)

    1. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Never had a job where you mattered eh?

    2. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Landline? I live on the open sea you insensitive clod.

    3. Re:Huh? by digitalhermit · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have a landline in my house. It has an answering machine [1] attached to it. Attached to the answering machine is a telephone [2] with a spiral cord [3] connecting the handset to the base. No seriously. On the side of the handset there's a volume knob [4] and a switch that selects between "Pulse" and "Tone" [5].

      [1] An answering machine is an ancient device that records incoming messages onto a "cassette tape".

      [2] A telephone is a device that connects via a "landline" to the switching station or the operator or something like that.

      [3] A spiral cord is a strange cord that is perpetually tangled. Used to connect a telephone base to the handset.

      [4] A volume knob is an analog electric device that increase or decreases the volume of the earpiece speaker.

      [5] Pulse dialing used a series of pulses to generate the digits in a telephone number. Many phones had a place for a "label" where one could insert a written (or typed) phone number list.

      God. I feel old.

    4. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      It allowed my mom (female parental unit)

      Hey! Slashdotters know what a mom is. She's the one who owns the basement.

    5. Re:Huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      ...and Jeeze! I've been having problems with my 1947 Raytheon AN/PRC-6 hand sets... sun flares, jammers on the grassy knoll?

    6. Re:Huh? by FrigBot · · Score: 2, Funny

      We didn't get a touch-tone phone in the house til I was in about grade 10. That was maybe 13 years ago. In junior high school I had this flyer-delivery route and you were supposed to confirm that you did all the deliveries at the end of every day by going through this touch-tone menu they had set up. Well we had a pulse-dialing push-button phone, so that's what I used. I don't think it ever worked with their system. But nobody ever complained. Another wierd thing was how we often didn't get most of the flyers delivered somehow, and they ended up getting burned in the firepit in the backyard. Wierd how that happened. I think they kept sending me too many. The other funny thing was nobody ever complained about that either. I wonder why.

      Anyway, yeah I'd go for a cordless phone computer syncing thing. Then I could get a flyer route again to pay for it.

  2. Re:The overkill solution by 25thCenturyQuaker · · Score: 3, Funny

    But can an idiot grandma in a hurry figure out how to do that?

    --
    My Human Gets Me Blues.
  3. Re:The Tech That Oughtta Be by rcolbert · · Score: 2, Funny

    survived a drop in a toilet and kept on working

    Given the relatively low cost of a replacement handset, I can assure you that 99% of all phone owners who drop a handset into the toilet never find out one way or another if the handset survived the experience. But it brings up a question. Do you often talk on the phone at home while using the toilet, and if so do you flush mid-conversation, wait on the toilet until the conversation is over, or (hopefully remember to) come back later to flush?

  4. Re:The overkill solution by Rob+the+Bold · · Score: 3, Funny

    Time for overkill solution number 1:

    1) Buy a SIP to POTS adapter 2) Install asterisk on your Linux server (You do have a Linux server right?) 3) Create a web app, preferably Ruby on Rails, that connects to Asterisk over the management port and dials a phone number and rings it back to your home phone line 4) Profit until the system breaks and the wife wrings your neck because she can't call to make her beauty salon appointment!

    Enjoy!

    If you don't want to kill it that much, you could switch to a VOIP service for your home number. But your solution does have that cool Dr. Seuss/Rube Goldberg vibe, so don't let me discourage you.

    --
    I am not a crackpot.
  5. Re:The Tech That Oughtta Be by natehoy · · Score: 2, Funny

    Obviously, he drops his in the toilet, thus ending the conversation and solving the problem gracefully.

    --
    "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  6. Re:The Tech That Oughtta Be by Yvan256 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Doesn't matter, he was talking shit anyway.

  7. Re:The Tech That Oughtta Be by natehoy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Understandable. He was pissed off.

    --
    "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  8. Re:iPhone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I don't trust a phone that I don't have to manually crank.

  9. Re:The Tech That Oughtta Be by natehoy · · Score: 5, Funny

    Dang, I just noticed. I wasted post number 30 million on a bad pun. Sorry about that, folks.

    --
    "This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
  10. Re:Regular phones are so backwards... by ebh · · Score: 4, Funny

    More bonus points if the handset still smells like cigarettes even though no smoker has used it in 25 years.

  11. Re:no. it does not. by ciaohound · · Score: 2, Funny

    He has no horse sense.

    --
    Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
  12. Re:The overkill solution by monkeySauce · · Score: 2, Funny

    RTFM, Grandma!

  13. Re:no. it does not. by monkeySauce · · Score: 2, Funny

    it can always get me home from any bar in any area.

    Yeah, but if you get cited for too many RUI/RWI's they can impound your horse or at least issue you a pink saddle to publicly shame you.

  14. Re:no. it does not. by Hork_Monkey · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, he should have made a car analogy.

  15. Re:The Tech That Oughtta Be by Bai+jie · · Score: 4, Funny

    About 400.

  16. Re:no. it does not. by lastgoodnickname · · Score: 2, Funny

    an horse analogy is LIKE a car analogy

  17. Re: Really... by lastgoodnickname · · Score: 1, Funny

    Try the fish.

    "You can lead a fish to water, and you can make him (or her, I didn't check) sink." There, tried the fish.