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

[Richard Bronosky]

Just to clarify, my solution isn't the only way to do this. It is simply
unique in that it requires no hardware, uses free (I get them free I think
you can too) web services, and is pretty easy script for someone with the
most modest skills. There are lots of things that the web services can do.
I'm just willing to take it as far as "send a number and a string of text
and either call and speak the text or send an SMS with it." It's close to
that vtext thing that was mentioned, but is not specific to a network.

I'll whip it up this week.


On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 4:18 PM, Vernard Martin <vernard at venger.net> wrote:

> On 12/10/2012 09:15 AM, Richard Bronosky wrote:
>
>>
>> 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"
>>
>>
>>  Take a look at qpage (http://www.qpage.org) This plus any analog modem
> plus a few TAP to SMS gateways and you can have your computer send you text
> messages. And since this uses a honest to goodness phone line that is "out
> of band" for most systems, i'll work when your network is down. I set this
> up originally at the Emory School of Public Health about 6 years ago and
> they are still using it to this day (new server and such but same basic
> design).
>
> V
>



-- 
.!# RichardBronosky #!.
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