--- Clay Fandre <clay at fandre.com> wrote:
> What type of modem is it? Is there any software that goes with it? 
	It's an AOpen FM56-ITU/2 fax/modem/voice (ISA). Has a good record under 
Linux. Came with Windows voice mail software.

> What I do is use the caller-id features of my modem, along with cid.
> I wrote a script to monitor the cid log, and if a call comes in from
> a certain number I have it dialup to my ISP. I use the dial-on-demand
> features of pppd, so it will automatically disconnect after a period
> of inactivity.
	Not a bad idea, except I don't have caller id, and I can't guarantee that I 
will be calling from a limited set of phones. Eric Stanley's suggestion of 
using xdiald led me to a couple of web sites that discuss how to use vgetty 
for such a purpose. Alas, vgetty is a monstrous beast and it will take me a 
while to wade through everything. 
	Actually, that leads me to an unrelated question. While reading about 
vgetty, I thought, "Hey, I might as well try to get the voice mail functions 
working." Well, that includes recording a message. I suddenly realized that 
my microphone doesn't work properly. Actually, there's a range of problems. 
First, I couldn't find a decent sound recorder that supports aRts (I'm 
running KDE 2.2.1). Killing aRts and trying other recorders (such as grecord) 
doesn't work either, even if I start esd. Without any sound driver, grecord 
makes files that just hiss and crackle. I've checked the volume setting for 
the microphone, but can't figure out what's wrong.
	Anyone know when a unified sound standard will appear for Linux? I'm tired 
of swapping aRts and esd. I heard a while back that aRts was going to be the 
standard, but so far, nothing.  Grr.
	:Peter