A telephone and an answering car can help oneself you communicate with some efficiency , but if your communication are more and more e - mail based , you may desire your earphone calls to also move to your Mac for easier management . But in lodge for that old - fashioned parallel telephony to earn its place alongside your powerful Mac , you ’ve got to get your hands on the ripe telephony tools . Just in time , Ovolab ’s Phlink is add up into its own with its most recent version , 2.2 .
This hardware - software program package connects a standard phone origin or a Voice - over - IP ( VoIP ) Analog Telephone Adapter ( ATA ) , such as one fromVonage , to a Mac using the USB hardware included with Phlink . The Phlink 2.2 software resolves most of the problems in the previous going ( , November 2004 ) and now includes call - logging and notation capabilities . But a few shortcomings persist .
More goodies built-in
Users of late versions of Phlink will note many improvement . The Phlink software , which expect quite a bit like iTunes , logs the meter and date of song ; mechanically greets callers ; records incoming message as a voice mail service would ; answer and routes incoming faxes ; and optionally cater a pop - up window with company ID info , so you could screen calls without even turning your head word out from your Mac . you’re able to easily look for the call logarithm and put call into call lists , which permit you display the call story from a sure speech sound figure , in a sure date range , and by whether or not the call was suffice . If you ’re a stickler for calling citizenry back , then you will take well to these unexampled characteristic .
Phlink 2.2 add together a Dashboard whatchamacallum for Tiger users that permit you see your five most late callers and dial your Address Book contacts . When greeting incoming callers , Phlink countenance you to use a recorded announcement ( an MP3 or AIFF file ) or to create a text edition file that Phlink then reads to the caller via speech deductive reasoning . After telephoner record their message , Phlink can air it via due east - post it to you .
The minuscule Phlink gimmick is USB - powered , so it does n’t want a power supply . If you want to give multiple headphone line into the Phlink computer software , you will ask one twist for each line . But the software is chic enough to deal with several of them hooked up to various phone lines at the same time . It just handle them as separate lines — personal credit line 1 , transmission line 2 , and so on . It ’s also necessary to connect a telephone set to the hardware ’s auxiliary RJ11 , because Ovolab does n’t let you answer calls using your Mac ’s microphone and speakers .
Hacking it up
With a few tweaks , the bare - on - the - surface Phlink software program can attain some really hackish things . With its dictionary of AppleScript terms , Phlink can be made to interact with other OS ten apps . you could program Phlink to play a special salutation for sure caller based on their caller-out IDs . Or , if they supply no phoner ID , like many telemarketers , you could program Phlink to put them in a loop of endless articulation menus , a excruciating “ voicemail jail . ” I make an IVR ( interactive voice response ) handwriting that allowed callers to enrol information using the telephone set ’s number launching pad . Through AppleScript , my Mac allowed phoner to hear to a selection of iTunes trail . Ovolab also supply a canonical band of Automator action at law for use with Tiger that you could download from Ovolab ’s financial backing website . Phlink stick out Bonjour ( formerly Rendezvous ) , too , so you may have the caller-out ID pop - up window appear on networked Macs .
join script to Phlink is more of a chore than in PhoneValet Message Center , another Mac telephony app ( , November 2004 ) . This is because Phlink requires AppleScripts with sure filenames , in certain folders , rather than tolerate you to specify any hand you wish for a give call result , as PhoneValet does .
At Ovolab’sonline support forum , a community of hack shares ideas about how to extend Phlink ’s functionality . There are example hand for home automation : for example , you may turn your lights on and off by calling into your Mac . Some exploiter have even built document facsimile - back systems , thanks to Phlink ’s support for OS X facsimile machine infection andSmileOnMyMac’s$30 Pagesender . Still , for citizenry who are script - phobic — or less technically prepared — the learning process for setting up scripts will testify hard .
If you ’re look for a friendly telephone computer hardware - software program combo , you may want to consider Parliant ’s PhoneValet Message Center alternatively . ( PhoneValet 3.0 was released while this review was in unconscious process ; a review is outgoing . ) hacker and fiddler will fuck Phlink , but without a repertory of basic AppleScript knowledge , non - technical users may be a bit turn off .
Macworld’s buying advice
If you ’re on a budget or want some Tiger - specific telephony goodies , Phlink 2.2 is an excellent phone - message recording machine and a huge improvement over its predecessor . With a picayune AppleScript savvy , Phlink can link your phone with all your favorite Apple apps , but non - technical users may still prefer the glossiness and completeness of its pricier competition , PhoneValet .
[ Ted Wallingford is the author ofSwitching to VoIP(O’Reilly , 2005 ) and a elderly connection engineer with LCG Technologies Corp. in Elyria , Ohio . He semi - p.a. update the entanglement sitewww.macvoip.com . ]
