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Does anyone here dial their telephone using their computer modem?

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superboyac:
I know most people don't do this, but I know we're all somewhat of computer geeks here, so I was wondering if anyone else did this besides me.  Let me first explain why this is a weird thing to do:
--Modems are less and less common on computers now.
--A lot of people now use their cell phones as their primary means of communication.

So, what I do is this.  I only use my cell phone for those times people need to get hold of me right then and there, and the conversations are usually pretty quick.  For business, I have a business phone, and when I really need to talk for a while, I wait until I'm at home and use the house phone in comfort and in privacy.  Therefore, I've realized I can use the modem to dial my numbers through the computer, it's really cool.  It's much better than any memory features on a phone and saves me loads of time (I barely ever touch my keypad).

I just wanted to know if anyone else does this, and if so, we can get into a fairly detailed discussion about software and related issues.  Of course, this is also related to my obsession with addressbook software (or lack of!), but that's a sidenote right now.

PS. mouser, I know I bailed out of the addressbook review earlier this year, but I was thinking of resuming something like that.  Except it won't strictly be a review, but something a little more creative that might incorporate a light discussion about PIM's.  I'll discuss it more later.

f0dder:
Almost 10 years ago, I found some pascal source code for generating dial tones - I hacked up some user interface for it, and could then hold my phone against my speaker, select a person from the list, and have it dial for me. Used it for a month or so, I guess.

These days I don't even have a landline phone, only a cell.

superboyac:
Yeah, I remember those days, a couple of my friends made some telephone hacking devices like that.  It was supposed to get them free calls from a payphone, and I think it actually worked a couple of times.

I guess I'm not going to find too many people who use their computer to dial, if any.  I just can't stand cellphones, I only use them when necessary.  I hate their small little size.  I got a house phone (corded) so that there is no keypad on the headset, so I can grab the thing with my hand.  Plus, I don't like talking too long unless I'm comfy and not a lot of people around, since I'm kind of loud (and I don't want normal people hearing all the weird stuff I say).

So, I'm thinking that nobody uses their computer to dial their phone.  Okay, I'm a loner.  I thought there would be more people, because all those PIM applications and addressbooks come with this dialer, and Windows XP even comes with a built-in phone dialer.  However, I've never met anyone that uses it besides me.  I can understand why, it's a little annoying to set up on the phone anyway...you have to use a splitter and do some stuff with the line going to the modem and the phone simultaneously.

Oh well...

Chris:
I use the PC  to dial the phone both at home & work. I do not  mis-dial and it is very fast. I dial from a contact data base that I find very useful. It is PSA Cards. I have a registered version and I believe that it  is the best. I researched for a very long time. Unfortunately development has now ceased and the registered version is no longer available.

Setting up the modem is not hard at all.

I would also like a small application, which when started, dials the phone number in the clipboard and then close. This would help when I meed to dial a number from an email or from a web page. I have not found such a program yet!

Chris

TPReal:
Hi guys!
Here you have a little program (C++Builder) that just dials numbers using speakers. If that's what you need, I can post a short description on how it's done.
TPReal.

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