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At home I most often use

by davido (Cardinal)
on Mar 07, 2006 at 07:38 UTC ( [id://534849]=poll: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??

Vote on this poll

VOIP
[bar] 61/14%
POTS
[bar] 102/23%
Cellular / Wireless
[bar] 156/36%
HAM
[bar] 6/1%
Paper cups with string stretched between them
[bar] 39/9%
Seance
[bar] 17/4%
The "Heavenly voice ringing down from the sky" technique
[bar] 55/13%
436 total votes
Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: At home I most often use
by Limbic~Region (Chancellor) on Mar 07, 2006 at 13:32 UTC
    I have used VoIP for almost a year now. A few weeks ago, I decided that I should probably hook it up to the house wiring so we could plug in a phone anywhere. My wife really isn't in a position to go running after a ringing phone at the moment. It worked great except you couldn't hang up.

    I jumped on the net to figure out what I was doing wrong. Apparently, it is paramount to disconnect the telco from your home before hooking up your VoIP to the house wiring (which I didn't) as it could "blow up". Hrmmm - I disconnect the telco and no change. Hrmmm - these spliced wires don't look quite right. What happens if I .... bingo. One of the previous owners of the house had done a little of their own wiring and had created a circular loopback. Lesson learned - wife happy.

    Cheers - L~R

      VoIP

      We got rid of the telco by the end of February, so now it's VoIP only. It's very cheap, good voice quality (better than the telco most of the time), but sometimes just a little unreliable.

      Cheers, Sören

Re: At home I most often use
by marto (Cardinal) on Mar 07, 2006 at 09:46 UTC
    At home I most often use

    Sweet sweet crack... I mean
    use strict; use warnings;

    Martin
Re: At home I most often use
by kwaping (Priest) on Mar 07, 2006 at 15:46 UTC
    There's nothing quite like a good ol' brick with a note tied to it to really get your message across.

    ---
    It's all fine and dandy until someone has to look at the code.
Re: At home I most often use
by zentara (Archbishop) on Mar 07, 2006 at 11:38 UTC
    Carrier Pigeons?

    I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
      Yes, my little darlings carry uninterceptable secrets on the wind. ( Well Cheney still tries to get em, but he misses alot. :-) )

      I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth. flash japh
      Covered....
      rfc1149


      __________________________
      Remember that amateurs built Noah's Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.
Re: At home I most often use
by tbone1 (Monsignor) on Mar 07, 2006 at 20:41 UTC
    Old telephony joke. When I was at a (former baby bell now consumed by SBC/ATT), we would like to tell the incoming know-it-alls how lines were classified as either POTS (plain old telephone service) and PANS (pretty amazing new services) and waited to see their "oh, you're just trying to pull my leg" expression.

    It was funny when they realized that no, we were not tugging at anyone's lower limbs. It definitely took a bit of wind out of their sails, just like I'd had it taken out of mine when I'd heard it.

    --
    tbone1, YAPS (Yet Another Perl Schlub)
    And remember, if he succeeds, so what.
    - Chick McGee

      Interesting cultural difference, here in Australia PANS were "Peculiar And Novel Services"...

      --
      Murray Barton
      Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought. -Basho

Re: At home I most often use
by tbone1 (Monsignor) on Mar 07, 2006 at 14:13 UTC
    I used to use HAM, but my wife is orthodox.

    --
    tbone1, YAPS (Yet Another Perl Schlub)
    And remember, if he succeeds, so what.
    - Chick McGee

Re: At home I most often use
by ciderpunx (Vicar) on Mar 07, 2006 at 15:34 UTC
Re: At home I most often use
by inman (Curate) on Mar 07, 2006 at 13:29 UTC
    Smoke signals
            Learn how to cook

        Maybe they did! Could be they are trying to make BBQ the right way. A firebox full of hickory with the dampers turned way down and keeping the temps in the cooking chamber at an even 180F so those ribs and chicken come out oh so tender and full of that nice hickory flavor! MMMMMMmmmmmmMMMM!


        Peter L. Berghold -- Unix Professional
        Peter -at- Berghold -dot- Net; AOL IM redcowdawg Yahoo IM: blue_cowdawg
Re: At home I most often use
by QM (Parson) on Mar 07, 2006 at 18:36 UTC
    I've been on VoIP for years now. I haven't had a POTS in 4 or 5 years now. It's hard to beat clearer calls, free long distance in North America, and web access to call display (incoming and outgoing). [Hard for the teenagers to abuse the phone.] I can forward my phone to any number through a web interface. I have a virtual number that rings to the same line as the main number -- relatives in a far off city can call me for free.

    Other folks ask me about 911 if the broadband goes down, I tell them everyone in the house has a cell phone!

    If I go on vacation, the phone can come with me, provided I have broadband hookup there.

    All for the same price as POTS.

    Limbic~Region mentioned rewiring the house. Why? I got a cordless base with multiple satellite handsets.

    I'm hoping the video will go wireless soon, so I don't have to run any cable at all.

    -QM
    --
    Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

      Why take anything on holiday?

      When I get away I don't want to be contactable. In an emergency then there will be some way to get hold of me but else no way. Contact home is via the postcard.

      People that whine about slow links or expensive service in some parts of the world miss the point. Take a tip from the locals and relax.

      I find people on the beach wittering into phones annoying.

        Why take anything on holiday? When I get away I don't want to be contactable.

        Indeed. My idea of a good vacation is to bolt the doors, unplug the phone, stop mail delivery, close the curtains, and stay home. Alone, preferably. (Well, the dog can stay, as long as all the people go.) But then, maybe I'm just a bit odd.

        Why take anything on holiday?
        Sometimes its more than just me, and it's nice to call up to the room and say "Hey! The <feature_of_interest> is/are <superlative>, come on down!"

        -QM
        --
        Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

Re: At home I most often use
by jonadab (Parson) on Mar 08, 2006 at 13:39 UTC
    email
    What is this obsession with _voice_ communications? I communicate much better in writing.
      Efficiency and multi-tasking.

      You have all ten fingers free to type when you're on a hands-free speaker phone. When you're tied up typing on a chat site, you don't. :-)

      Not to mention that voice communications are typically orders of magnitude *faster*, especially when it comes to convenying intagibles like mood and personality.

      Who said anything about voice communications?

      I use POTS and a modem for email, for example...

Re: At home I most often use
by KPeter0314 (Deacon) on Mar 07, 2006 at 14:30 UTC
    The "Heavenly voice ringing down from the sky" technique is highly effective in getting my boys out of bed in the morning. Gentle doesn't do it and neither does their alarm clocks.

    -Kurt

Re: At home I most often use
by samizdat (Vicar) on Mar 07, 2006 at 15:54 UTC
    Whistle signals (I'm a steam train nut) and telegraphs with Morse code

    Don Wilde
    "There's more than one level to any answer."
Re: At home I most often use
by rinceWind (Monsignor) on Mar 08, 2006 at 10:22 UTC

    How about:

    • Wet String
    • The voices in my head
    • Quantum polarization
    • Hailing frequencies

    --

    Oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ?
    My friends all rate Windows, I must disagree.
    Your powers of persuasion will set them all free,
    So oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ?
    (Missquoting Janis Joplin)

Re: At home I most often use
by spiritway (Vicar) on Mar 08, 2006 at 04:27 UTC

    Just recently, new research has shown that snails are faster than ADSL. This was no doubt inspired by RFC 1149, and represents further refinements of the basic principles described in that document.

Re: At home I most often use
by stonecolddevin (Parson) on Mar 10, 2006 at 06:37 UTC

    My friends and i fly around in old bi-planes and write smoke messages in the sky. If we're lucky, no one runs into anyone else.

    meh.
Re: At home I most often use
by swampyankee (Parson) on Mar 07, 2006 at 17:22 UTC

    I've tried cellular but my house is near Long Island Sound; on a good day cell service there stinks. So, it's plain old telephone service for me.

    Although I'm waiting for a quantum entanglement link with a decent bit rate so I can get rid of that annoying speed of light limitation

    emc

    " When in doubt, use brute force." — Ken Thompson
Re: At home I most often use
by wolfger (Deacon) on Mar 07, 2006 at 17:29 UTC

    Well, I "most often use" a land line, but that's because my service is just now being transferred over to VoIP (number should be switched today).

Re: At home I most often use
by planetscape (Chancellor) on Mar 14, 2006 at 11:22 UTC

    Telepathy for the living, Seance for the non-living, and "get it in writing and in triplicate" for the lawyers.

    planetscape
Re: At home I most often use
by talexb (Chancellor) on Mar 13, 2006 at 03:16 UTC

    .. but my Blackberry is a close second. Damned handy things, especially when someone else is paying the bill. E-Mail, SMS, Instant Messenging (OK, simulated using PIN messages) and cell phone service. Yay.

    Alex / talexb / Toronto

    "Groklaw is the open-source mentality applied to legal research" ~ Linus Torvalds

Re: At home I most often use
by blue_cowdawg (Monsignor) on Mar 13, 2006 at 14:26 UTC

    The communications devices that I use the most often from home these days are in this order:

    • My voice, when talking to everybody here at the house
    • E-Mail. I get about 1200-1400 a day, actually read about half of them and send about 50 a day. Either my own personal email or my corporate Lotus Notes email.
    • VOIP: I converted my home office telephone to Vonage and since MCI is doing their best to piss me off lately I will be converting the house line over this month. To do this I am going to add a new switch to dedicate to the VOIP traffic since I am going to end up with three Vonage voice adapters on my network, (1 office line, 1 house line, 1 FAX line and a line for my daughter.)
    • Cellular: Since my office telephone rings on my cell as well as on that office telephone, while I'm "in-transit" somewhere I can still get business done.
    • CB Chat! :-D

Re: At home I most often use
by smokemachine (Hermit) on Mar 14, 2006 at 03:23 UTC
    SCREAM!!!
Re: At home I most often use
by bioMan (Beadle) on Mar 15, 2006 at 22:31 UTC

    An aluminum cap and a Ouija board.


    Mike

    "We're not home to Mr. Cockup"
Re: At home I most often use
by HoRi555 (Novice) on Mar 16, 2006 at 11:26 UTC
    Usually I just safety pin a note to the severed head of the messenger they originally sent me. Yes, I do believe in "killing the messenger." :p
    ----
    Data..for the sake of data.
      It's because of people like you that carrier pigeons were invented!

      Bloody modernisms! *grumble*

Re: At home I most often use
by Mago (Parson) on Mar 16, 2006 at 13:53 UTC
    A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams on Avian Carriers


    Mago
    mago@rio.pm.org


Re: At home I most often use
by theroninwins (Friar) on Mar 20, 2006 at 15:05 UTC
    That Heavenly things works great for my wife (when talking to me).... :-) but I try to get to the VOIP idea.

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