[ale] Ring, ring, it's your computer calling. Your process has completed.

[Richard Bronosky]

For the ATT mobile hackathon on the 30th I made a project that uses call
management web APIs. (Because it increased the prize pool from $300 to
$500. This was a good choice as I ended up winning first prize.)

One of the gems was that I learned how to use a simple curl command to call
my phone. Now, doing something useful with that call (text to speech,
speech to text, or IVR menu tree) gets pretty complex, however making the
call can be pretty powerful alone. Let's say you put curl command in a
script named "callme". You can then go:
rsync /path server:/path || callme

Then, if that rsync command that you expected to take 4 hours fails, you
get a call and don't lose half your day. Or, you can use a semicolon
instead of the double pipe and it calls you no matter what. There will be
no one on the other end of the call, but in this most basic form it is
still pretty useful.

With a little bit more work I ought to be able to make it except an
argument that gets passed to the text to speech API. Then you could use it
for alerts of a less binary nature:
callme "I just met you and this is crazy"

(If you get that joke, I hope you have young girls at home.)

Would anyone be interested in seeing this? It'll take a little effort to
prepare.
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