[Announce] VICaR: Value International Call Router (Calling Card Helper) - Page 5 - maemo.org

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activemind	2010-07-16 , 02:37
Posts: 24 \| Thanked: 1 time \| Joined on Jun 2010 @ USA	#41

Originally Posted by fcrochik

You sure know how to get my attention... Now I will have to find out and I am sure this will lead to some more hours trying to develop something new

By the way: like I said before our goals are close aligned...
Of course I was just concerned about skype-to-skype, skypeout, phone and google voice. Until coming across this thread I had never thought about calling cards... now thanks to VICaR I can handle even more scenarios.

My original goal was quite simple (not to implement): I want to double click on a contact thumbnail seating on my desktop and want the phone to decide how to "make contact" according to my current internet connection, relative location (local call, national call, international call), my (and the contacts') presence status with different services, global settings, contact group settings and per contact settings. I could go even crazier and have different settings depending on the time of the day.

Simply put I don't want to have to think what is the best way to reach some one I just want done!

Excellent! This is EXACTLY what I want, I just to stir the pot by throwing SIP and CC in the mix!!

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	alienhead	2010-07-16 , 02:42
	Posts: 139 \| Thanked: 28 times \| Joined on Jun 2010 @ Connecticut, United States	#42

Originally Posted by fcrochik

The truth: because I never used them so I don't even know how they work or if I could make them work on MyContacts

If you give me the basic directions of how to setup and use I will look into it.

Dang! my coding skills, defeat me again.

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scifi.guy	2010-07-16 , 03:51
Posts: 195 \| Thanked: 108 times \| Joined on Feb 2010 @ SF Bay Area, United States	#43

Originally Posted by activemind

Is this something we can port over to vicar, because I think MyContacts is a great application but just not that useful for people like me. Personal taste, but I dont like my entire screen to be just my contacts. I like to show it off with the multiple things the phone can do and apps I use most of the time (music player, emails, IMs, texts, weather, calendar etc), when I want to call someone, just slide the keyboard and type few alphabets and the contact shows up.
Only Home and Wifey get space on my desktop :-)

The problem with the current VICaR design is that there is no way for the app to know "when" the user wants to make a call and which number to call. It is just a daemon. There is no dialpad or contacts list within the application. So we let the user make a call, verify whether it is an international number (not excluded), capture the number and then cancel the call. This could get delayed if the Phone is busy running multiple apps. This is definitely not the best way.

AFAIK there are two ways to improve the scenario.

1 - Use a custom application (like MyContacts) to display contacts and initiate the call from that application.

Pros: Can customize UI as much as we want.
Cons: Cannot use Maemo/N900's built-in features and phone shortcuts. (like launching contacts by sliding keyboard and typing).

2 - Integrate with Maemo's contacts (Screenshot from Dawid).

Pros: With few additional steps can use Maemo's contacts.
Cons: Contact page looks cluttered if multiple phone numbers are stored.

With both of these options, VICaR knows which number to dial and will directly place the call to CC and send DTMF. So the current risk of getting charged for directly calling international numbers will be avoided.

We already have solution #1 in place with MyContacts-VICaR integration. I am working on solution #2. Most of the calling card based apps I know use either of these solutions.

If any of you could think of some other approach, do let me know

__________________
Maintainer of VICaR - Value International Call Router (a helper app for routing calls via calling card/skype-out/google voice)

Maintainer of Markets Today (Yahoo Finance based desktop widget/app)

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	evad	2010-07-16 , 19:49
	Posts: 354 \| Thanked: 151 times \| Joined on Mar 2008 @ London (UK) / Zielona Góra (PL)	#44

Originally Posted by scifi.guy

We already have solution #1 in place with MyContacts-VICaR integration. I am working on solution #2. Most of the calling card based apps I know use either of these solutions.

Solution #2 is also better in the way that it doesn't require external dependency in place (installing MyContacts app/widget) to make it "just work" - direct integration with interface already provided by OS is just perfect. Btw, don't get me wrong @fcrochik, I don't have anything against MyContacts in particular, however personally I'd rather avoid installing additional applications which I don't originally intend to use, just in order to use that one particular feature.

__________________
Dawid 'evad' Lorenz * http://dawid.lorenz.co
_______________________________________________

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pmudgal	2010-07-21 , 14:54
Posts: 18 \| Thanked: 3 times \| Joined on Feb 2010	#45

@scifi.guy, this works well for my kind of calling card. I have a problem though, I am unable to get a comma when trying to entire multiple number formats in the exclude field, can't find anything on this in the thread.

As regards the call routing discussion that is underway, I am not an expert, I just dabble with these things. I had a Linksys Sipura ATA a while back and that used to something called a dial plan that you could configure to route calls through lowest cost providers based on dialled number format.

Not sure if links are permitted, but I am pasting a link that Linksys-Sipura provided for help in configuring these devices.

http://ui.linksys.com/files/SIPURA/S...nced_Voice.htm

Look at Voice -> FXS 1 ->Dial Plan, not sure if this helps you gentlemen.

I can also see if there is a User Guide/ Technical Guide somewhere if it helps.

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ddwalker	2010-07-22 , 06:57
Posts: 93 \| Thanked: 4 times \| Joined on Jan 2010	#46

Hi, do you think this app would work with Google Voice? How shall I set it up to make international calls via Google Voice? Thanks!

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	fcrochik	2010-07-22 , 11:56
	Posts: 722 \| Thanked: 1,223 times \| Joined on Apr 2010 @ USA	#47

Originally Posted by ddwalker

Hi, do you think this app would work with Google Voice? How shall I set it up to make international calls via Google Voice? Thanks!

Yes, it can work by calling your "gv phone number", pause, 2, phone number, ...

EDIT: I forgot about the PIN...look at the second post down for more details.

__________________

My maemo work:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Harmattan:
GeePS - native UI around google maps - GApp - access to optimized mobile "google apps".
Shutdown - shutdown and reboot with one click - QuickCall - one click call, skypeout and google voice integration using dial tones.
WakeOnLan - wake computers on your local network.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For Maemo/N900:
GApp - access to optimized mobile "google apps". - MobWebMail: browser optimized to access multiple gmail accounts
MyContacts: 75 Contacts on your desktop, ring tones per group and more - GeePS: native front-end for google maps
Macuco2 : web browser to access web sites optimized for the iphone - WakeOnLan: wake up computers on your local network
dbBrowser: Simple application to browse sqlite databases

Last edited by fcrochik; 2010-07-22 at 17:10.

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scifi.guy	2010-07-22 , 16:34
Posts: 195 \| Thanked: 108 times \| Joined on Feb 2010 @ SF Bay Area, United States	#48

Originally Posted by pmudgal

@scifi.guy, this works well for my kind of calling card. I have a problem though, I am unable to get a comma when trying to entire multiple number formats in the exclude field, can't find anything on this in the thread.

pmudgal - This is a bug. Will fix it asap. Thank you for the info on Sipura configuration.

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scifi.guy	2010-07-22 , 16:57
Posts: 195 \| Thanked: 108 times \| Joined on Feb 2010 @ SF Bay Area, United States	#49

Originally Posted by fcrochik

Yes, it can work by calling your "gv phone number", pause, 2, phone number, ...

Also, If you are calling international numbers with GV make sure you set the "Format required for DTMF tone" to 011<Country Code><Area Code><Phone Number>

If you have set your voice mail PIN, enter in the prefix before DTMF tone field (eg: 1234p2p where 1234 is the pin)

Last edited by scifi.guy; 2010-07-22 at 17:01. Reason: Added info on PIN

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ddwalker	2010-07-23 , 01:07
Posts: 93 \| Thanked: 4 times \| Joined on Jan 2010	#50

Originally Posted by scifi.guy

Also, If you are calling international numbers with GV make sure you set the "Format required for DTMF tone" to 011<Country Code><Area Code><Phone Number>

If you have set your voice mail PIN, enter in the prefix before DTMF tone field (eg: 1234p2p where 1234 is the pin)

Thanks.
So here is my VICaR setting:
Basic:
International Call Routing: Enabled
Calling Card Number: my GV number
Country Codes to Exclude: +1

Advanced:
Format required for DTMF tone: 011<Country Code><Area Code><Phone Number>
Prefix before DTMF tone: 1234p2p
Suffix after DTMF tone: (blank)

When I dial an international number, it did call the google voice number. But after that, I can hear the GV talking to me, asking me to enter my PIN etc. But my phone didn't do anything.

Anything I did wrong? Thanks!