{"id":308,"date":"2008-05-05T01:49:41","date_gmt":"2008-05-05T01:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/bologs\/vng\/real-moneyfarmin-geek\/"},"modified":"2008-05-05T01:49:41","modified_gmt":"2008-05-05T01:49:41","slug":"real-moneyfarmin-geek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/real-moneyfarmin-geek\/","title":{"rendered":"Real MoneyFarmin’ G(eek)"},"content":{"rendered":"

For a while now we have had no land-line for telephone calls. As far as we were both concerned this was a good thing because not only did it mean we weren’t paying stupid prices for a land-line, but also that people couldn’t call us. Nowadays people imagine they have the right<\/i> to be able to call you whenever they<\/i> feel like it…and personally I like to spend time being inaccessible. Anyway, Michele and I fantasized about having our own telephone exchange that would insist on callers issuing an extension number on being connected. Anyone who didn’t<\/i> know the number would be forced to go on hold, with some suitably offensive hold music (eg bagpipes) for a long while until they left a voice mail. Which we could then ignore.
\nOur dream is coming true thanks to a combination of VoIP, asterisk<\/a>, and an amazing piece of luck.
\nI’d been trying to buy a piece of equipment called an ATA or “Analog Telephone Adapter” which would let us plug a normal phone into Ethernet. Owing to my preference for UK debit cards I’d had a few problems with many of the provincial companies of here.
\nBut, the other night I stumbled upon something that seemed too good to be true: a company specializing in all kinds of VoIP hardware that is literally 2 minutes walk from my front door. So, I went to their site and bought a stupidly cheap ATA<\/a> which Michele went and picked up the same day. Let me tell you, this little box of tricks is amazing. With no extra hardware I managed to hook up a phone that makes and receives calls for less that 1c\/min – and that includes the UK. Obviously to get this bargain I had to use a VoIP company, but the company I used, Future-Nine<\/a> do a pay-as-you-go thing that means there’s no “line rental.” They really do appear to rock.
\nSo now I’m in the process of configuring asterisk<\/a> to provide us with a lovely voicemail\/annoyance system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For a while now we have had no land-line for telephone calls. As far as we were both concerned this was a good thing because not only did it mean we weren’t paying stupid prices for a land-line, but also that people couldn’t call us. Nowadays people imagine they have the right to be able […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fatsquirrel.org\/oldfartsalmanac\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}