Check out the story by VoIPMonitor: Interactive Voice Dialing for PhoneGnome

“PhoneGnome is unique in its ability to support cutting-edge telephony applications,” said Don Jackson, Vice President of Advanced Telephony at Tellme. “With PhoneGnome, we can connect the user to our application

the moment they lift their telephone handset. Then the subscriber is connected using their preferred telephone service provider, regardless of whether it’s a traditional phone company or Internet-based.”

The service is called DialTone 2.0 and it’s free to try. Simply install the PhoneGnome box then click Activate on your My PhoneGnome Features page.

With the service activated, when you lift the handset of your phone, simply speak the name of a person in your PhoneGnome contact list (online Phonebook) to place call or simply dial the number you wish to call as usual.

The tool

displays an example in real-time, as shown above so you can adjust things to get everything just the way you want before you paste the code onto your blog. Check it out here!

For example, when you edit a post, your PhoneGnome public profile status gets updated with something like this:

Fiddling with my blog post: PhoneGnome Updater (a WordPress plugin)

Instructions

Download and unzip the PhoneGnome Updater folder Upload and copy the phonegnome_updater folder to your WordPress plugins folder (/wp-content/plugins/) Now you have to tell WordPress to activate the new plugin. You do this by going to your admin panel > Plugins. And click on ‘Activate’ next to “PhoneGnome Updater’. If you don’t see PhoneGnome Updater there, you may have copied the PhoneGnome Updater folder to the wrong directory. Go to your WordPress admin panel, select ‘Manage’ at the top menu, then select “PhoneGnome Updater’. Enter your preference and your PhoneGnome account details. Test by creating a new post!
Information from source: http://www.phonegnome.com/blog/?p=90
]]> http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/profile-updater-a-wordpress-plugin.html/feed 0 http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/phonegnome-sip-tricks.html http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/phonegnome-sip-tricks.html#comments Wed, 21 Feb 2007 03:58:11 +0000 Jana Williamson Continue reading →]]> PhoneGnome uses the industry standard SIP technology and embraces open, interoperable standards wherever possible.

You can call a SIP address with PhoneGnome simply by entering the SIP address in URI form such as sip:user@service (for example sip:joe@example.com). Such SIP addresses can be called via the ‘Quick Call” feature, entered into your Contacts and called via click-to-dial, and even used as find-me/follow-me numbers.

If you have the PhoneGnome box, friends and others with SIP compatible software and services can call your PhoneGnome by placing a call to a SIP address like this: sip:number@sip.phonegnome.com

In this case, number is the telephone number of your PhoneGnome box (the number of the phone service plugged into the PhoneGnome box) including country code. For US/Canada, this means 1 followed by your 10-digit phone number (no punctuation).

PhoneGnome also supports several special purpose SIP addresses, as follows:

Address Description rX-number@sip.phonegnome.com Call PhoneGnome number with distinctive ring X where X is 1-9. vm-number@sip.phonegnome.com Direct to voicemail for account with phone number number. dr-number@sip.phonegnome.com “Direct ring” the phone attached to the PhoneGnome box with phone number number without performing Find-me forward/call processing. mg-number@sip.phonegnome.com Invoke MobileGnome for the specified PhoneGnome account

These special-purpose addresses are particularly handy to use with DIDs (telephone numbers) that are directed to a SIP address, such as those available from DID Worldwide (or free Washington state numbers from IPKALL). For example, by activating the “busy-forward” service on your home phone line (from your home phone carrier), and having calls forwarded to a DID that rings to your PhoneGnome SIP address, you can get VoIP-ready call-waiting, or by directing the call to the special “vm-number” you can send calls to your POTS line directly to voicemail when you’re on the phone.

Likewise, a DID that rings to the “mg-number” SIP address gives you a separate way to access your MobileGnome service.

Information from source: http://www.phonegnome.com/blog/?p=89
]]> http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/phonegnome-sip-tricks.html/feed 0 http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/free-calling-expanded-to-more-countries.html http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/free-calling-expanded-to-more-countries.html#comments Sat, 10 Feb 2007 02:50:52 +0000 Jana Williamson Continue reading →]]> PhoneGnome free calling just keeps getting better. We have expanded the countries and numbers eligible for PhoneGnome free calling. Latest editions include Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Seoul, South Korea; Taipei, Taiwan; Monterrey, Guadalajara, Mexico City, and Puebla, Mexico, a greatly expanded blanket of numbers in Canada, and more.

If you have tried to establish a free account in the past, and found the number

was not eligible for a free PhoneGnome account, check again, the number may be available now.

Details here: PhoneGnome Free Calling

Information from source: http://www.phonegnome.com/blog/?p=88
]]> http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/free-calling-expanded-to-more-countries.html/feed 0 http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/“i-don’t-have-to-touch-it-and-it-just-works”.html http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/“i-don’t-have-to-touch-it-and-it-just-works”.html#comments Sat, 03 Feb 2007 15:26:15 +0000 Brian Fox Continue reading →]]> VoIP guru, PhoneBoy writes about the abysmal state of end-user VoIP devices. He says:

These devices aren’t sexy. They are exceedingly boring. They all suck to configure on some level, both as an end user and as a service provider trying to remotely provision.

We agree. We don’t understand all the reasons, but it’s been very difficult to work with VoIP device makers. There’s been little progress in improving the utility of these devices for several years.

I’m pretty much done with ATAs, aside from the PhoneGnome SPA-3000 I have plugged in. The only reason that one is plugged in and still working is because I don’t have to touch it, and it just works.

This is the kind of thing we love to hear. That’s what PhoneGnome is all about. Perhaps our slogan should be: “PhoneGnome — It just works.”

Information from source: http://www.phonegnome.com/blog/?p=87
]]> http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/“i-don’t-have-to-touch-it-and-it-just-works”.html/feed 0 http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/your-phone-as-a-social-network.html http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/your-phone-as-a-social-network.html#comments Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:15:52 +0000 William Teller Continue reading →]]> At its core, the phone is a tool we use to converse and connect with one another. A large percentage of these interactions are with the same people, friends, loved ones, and business associates. Long before wikis, blogs, and social networking sites came along, people were maintaining their real-world social networks, and the phone has been, and continues to be, a powerful tool in building and maintaining those relationships.

Historically, interactions using a telephone have been simple voice interactions, mostly on a one-to-one basis. With PhoneGnome 2.0 we are taking steps toward more sophisticated multi-modal interactions. PhoneGnome users can now create their own profiles, invite friends, send voice messages via email, and manage contacts on-line.

The Telco 2.0 blog says it well when they say “the next generation of communications is social, contextual and collaborative.” The new My PhoneGnome home page for PhoneGnome 2.0 shows a few steps in this direction.



The information displayed will vary depending on your particular usage history. Generally, what you’ll find here are things of interest to you, updates to your PhoneGnome social network. It’s personal and relevant.

One particularly interesting feature here is the new Profile Data. You can use this to provide a message of the day, to show your mood, announcements, and that kind of thing. Your profile will be visible to those in your PhoneGnome network and changes you make will be seen when they sign into their My PhoneGnome site. This can be a handy and fun way to give more information about yourself or your situation. To change your profile information simply click the Change Profile link on the My PhoneGnome home page.

Information from source: http://www.phonegnome.com/blog/?p=79
]]> http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/your-phone-as-a-social-network.html/feed 0 http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/answer-and-place-google-talk-calls-on-your-home.html http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/answer-and-place-google-talk-calls-on-your-home.html#comments Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:15:52 +0000 Cheap Phone News Continue reading →]]> We recently confirmed that you can use the gtalk2voip.com service with the PhoneGnome box to answer calls from Gtalk users on your home phone for free and to place calls to Gtalk users using your PhoneGnome-enabled home phone.

Here’s how to set things up to call from Gtalk to PhoneGnome:

Step 1. Subscribe to the gtalk2voip.com service: Open your GoogleTalk and invite user id service@gtalk2voip.com.

Step 2. Type in a chat window to the service@gtalk2voip.com user: CALL yournumber@sip.phonegnome.com where yournumber is the telephone number of your PhoneGnome phone, including country code, so for US number 1-212-555-1234 it would be sip:12125551234@sip.phonegnome.com

Here’s how to call from PhoneGnome to Gtalk:

Step 1. Subscribe to the gtalk2voip.com service: Open your GoogleTalk and invite user id service@gtalk2voip.com

Step 2. Create a contact in your My PhoneGnome contact list for your Gtalk buddy:

Click Contacts then Add Contact. For the phone number of the contact, put the SIP address: sip:MyTalkUser@gtalk2voip.com where MyTalkUser is your buddy’s GoogleTalk ID

Step 3. Click-to-dial the Gtalk contact. Your Gtalk buddy will get an incoming call.

SIP to Gtalk and Gtalk to SIP calling is currently free with the gtalk2voip.com service.

This all works of course because PhoneGnome supports interoperable standards.

Information from source: http://www.phonegnome.com/blog/?p=78
]]> http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/answer-and-place-google-talk-calls-on-your-home.html/feed 0 http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/phonegnome-as-a-traveling-companion.html http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/phonegnome-as-a-traveling-companion.html#comments Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:15:52 +0000 Jana Williamson Continue reading →]]> Here’s a quick example from a PhoneGnome user of how to exploit the new PhoneGnome 2.0 service when traveling:

I’m normally not one that likes to talk on a PC. I prefer a plain phone for its raw “pick it up and use it” simplicity. The exception for me is when I’m traveling on business. Hotel phones are expensive and confusing, so to heck with that. I could use my cell phone, but

that eats into my minutes and sometimes coverage can be poor in hotel rooms. Since I already have my laptop and hotel broadband anyway, it’s more convenient to use my laptop for calls from the hotel room. With PhoneGnome, it works great. I can now call home and speak to the wife and kids as long we want for free. The quality of these calls has been impressive. This feature alone provides a fantastic benefit for me, and given that it’s 100% free, it’s an awesome value!

For those not aware of it, PhoneGnome has a handy one touch code (**466 or aka **HOM) to ring home. This works to ring home when using the PC, or to ring the PC when dialed from home.

Information from source: http://www.phonegnome.com/blog/?p=77
]]> http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/phonegnome-as-a-traveling-companion.html/feed 0 http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/use-phonegnome-to-force-calls-to-your-existing-phone.html http://www.cheap-phone-news.com/use-phonegnome-to-force-calls-to-your-existing-phone.html#comments Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:15:52 +0000 Jana Williamson Continue reading →]]> The following sequence will make it so calls to your home line will be passed through the GrandCentral screening. Until GrandCentral supports SIP calls, we will have to use PSTN as the interconnect (meaning you will have to pay for these minutes), but for some people the convenience may be worth it. Hopefully GrandCentral will support SIP in and out to avoid these costs on the future.

As an overview, here’s what we’re going to do.


We’re going to create a ‘direct-ring’ DID (phone number) that GrandCentral will think is our home number that rings our PhoneGnome-connected phone directly. We’ll change the GrandCentral setup to ring the number from step 1 instead of calling our actual home number (to avoid an infninite forward-loop). We’ll setup the PhoneGnome box to direct inbound calls to our home number (the line connected to the PhoneGnome box) to our GrandCentral number.

Follow the instructions here to setup a free IPKALL number. Except for the ‘SIP Phone Number’ in the IPKALL setup, prepend the string ‘dr-’ so for example, if your number is 650-555-3456 then use for the ‘SIP Phone Number’ field in the IPKALL setup the value ‘dr-16505553456` Note that we put a ‘1′ in fron of our number, removed all punctuation, and then put ‘dr-’ (for ‘direct-ring) in front of the whole thing. These numbers take a while to take effect. The site says an hour, but it often seems to take longer. You might just wait a day to test this. You should be able to call the number assigned by IPKALL from a plain phone (maybe your mobile would be a good choice) and it should ring your PhoneGnome-connected phone directly, bypassing any Find-me or other forwarding you may have enabled.

Don’t do this step until you have confirmed the number setup in step 1 is working. Sign in to your GrandCentral site and go to the ‘Settings’ page. Under ‘My Phones’ click ‘Add/Edit Number’. In one of the free positions, add the IPKALL number assigned in step 1 above, as shown below:



Note that we’ve given the number the tag ‘directed’. Now when you return to the settings screen, you’ll see that number in your set. De-activate your actual home number and activate the new IPKALL ‘directed’ number as the place you want your calls to go. It should look something like the following:


Call your GrandCentral number (from some phone other than your PhoneGnome) and confirm that it rings through properly..

Once your number is setup as above and it’s all working the way you want, the final step is to force all calls to intelligently ring to GrandCentral without ringing you first. The only way to do that is to use the Find-me feature of PhoneGnome (part of the optional PowerSuite package, $24.99/yr). You don’t have to pay to test it out. Simply activate the free trial and ensure it’s going to work for you first. Go to the Find-me Settings page of your My PhoneGnome site: Features > FindMe/FollowMe > Edit Enter your GrandCentral number as the first and only ‘Simultaneously Ring’ number and be sure to set ‘Do NOT Ring Main Phone’ to ‘Yes’. If your GrandCentral number were 1-718-555-5970 then the settings should look something like the following:



Click ‘Save’. Give the settings a minute or two to take effect, then call your existing home number from some other phone (not your PhoneGnome) and confirm that calls are now going through GrandCentral WITHOUT ringing your actual phone at all, and that callers can still ring through appropriately.

There you have it. If you have problem calls on an existing phone line, simply hook up a PhoneGnome box and enjoy no more hassle calls on that line. You don’t need to wait for GrandCentral to offer number porting. You don’t need the permission of the telephone company. You don’t even need GrandCenrtral’s approval or concent. The PhoneGnome box makes these services open to VoIP, whether they like it or not.

Information from source: http://www.phonegnome.com/blog/?p=86
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