Missing appliances
John Goerzen comments on his quest for a good alarm clock. You want a good, geeky alarm. Whenever I am away from home, I always count on
echo $LOUD_NOISE_CMD | at $WAKEUP_TIME
It always works. Be it at a hotel room with my trusty old laptop, be it at home with your powerful server connected to the stereo system with your favorite punk rock music, it is guaranteed to work - and, as you request, with a nice form-factor for your computer, it is as geeky as it gets.
…But you got me thinking into this: I am quite frustrated. I wanted to buy a telephone answering machine. Nothing fancy, I just needed to replace the one I had for many years and which died some months ago. I cannot believe this: I went to at least five different stores which carry an electronics department. I went also to Radio Shack and Steren. I just cannot get any answering machine without a wireless phone built in. Why don’t I want a wireless phone? Because I need a ~US$30 thing, not a ~US$100 one. And, sadly, I need a bit more equipment (and work) to get my computer to function as such machine than what I need for it to become an alarm clock.
Comments
Blaine Cook 2005-01-12 10:55:37
RE: Missing appliances
Check out Asterisk. Combined with an X100P card (available on ebay for very cheap), you get a very well done voicemail system that emails you your messages (also retrievable over the phone), a complete VoIP system ($0.015c/m calls to US, Canada, and Europe), and it’s all open source and runs nicely on debian (there’s a package).
check out http://voip-info.org/ for more info. :-)
Gunnar 2005-01-19 07:44:21
RE: Missing appliances
…There is just the slight exception that this slow server you are using to read my blog was chosen because of its form-factor and power consumption: It is an old (P120) laptop… So, even if I got a PCMCIA X100P, it would not work very well on this machine :) But thanks.
John Goerzen 2005-01-12 18:02:15
RE: Missing appliances
I was wrong… we have the GE 29869GE2, which is available at amazon for about $30. GE’s product site for it is:
http://www.home-electronics.net/Products/ViewDetail/0,7333,SI5-CNUS-LNUE-LI25-CI100835-PI100036-PGMTAwMDAw-LCUE-PC100817,00.html
John Goerzen 2005-01-12 07:44:23
RE: Missing appliances
(Liking Debian Planet a lot…)
We have an inexpensive digital answering machine we’re happy with. It has decent sound quality, and more importantly, a <b>battery backup</b>. (Digital answering machines without a battery backup annoy me almost as much as alarm clocks without one.) I think it’s a Lucent, but when I get home tonight, I can check for sure and get you the exact model number.
Another nice feature is remote touch-tone access. When you’re traveling, you can call your home and check on your messages using a standard touch-tone phone. Very handy.
John Goerzen 2005-01-12 07:45:00
RE: Missing appliances
(Liking Debian Planet a lot…)
We have an inexpensive digital answering machine we’re happy with. It has decent sound quality, and more importantly, a <b>battery backup</b>. (Digital answering machines without a battery backup annoy me almost as much as alarm clocks without one.) I think it’s a Lucent, but when I get home tonight, I can check for sure and get you the exact model number.
Another nice feature is remote touch-tone access. When you’re traveling, you can call your home and check on your messages using a standard touch-tone phone. Very handy.
luciano bello 2005-01-12 05:10:54
RE: Missing appliances
If you prefer a metalic voice enumerating the ToDo day… you can use festibal. :P
luciano bello 2005-01-12 09:01:56
RE: Missing appliances
OMG! festiVVVal…:P . Sometimes I’m more stupid than i use to.
or just feti<tab> .. easier :D