Below Joseph describes his experience and accessibility of his latest
Christmas present:  the Microsoft cordless phone.  Did anyone else receive
a gift of technology for Christmas?  If so, post a review or a description
of your experience with it.  Is it what you expected or did it completely
exceed expectations or disappoint?

kelly

From: Joseph Norton <[log in to unmask]>

Any other Blind-L users tried the MicroSoft cordless phone?  Preliminary
tests seem to indicate that it's an interesting device.  The phone, by
itself, doesn't boast any bells and whistles for the most part.  However,
the base plugs into your computer via a serial cable and then, you get a
fairly robust digital answering system with features like multiple
mailboxes, multiple greetings for various purposes, message alerting (the
system will call your pager or another phone number to let you know you
have new messages), ability to screen incoming calls through the handset,
ability to record custom greetings for specific callers (based on their
number as received through Caller-ID, and more.  If you keep Outlook
Express running, the system can even read your E-Mail to you when you call
in to retrieve your messages.  The phone also lets you access speed-dials
with voice commands (such as, "Call Phil", for example).  The phone even
has voice help on the handset buttons (available by pressing the zero (0)
key when the phone is not in use), including a complete audio description
of the location of the buttons on the handset.  If you have Caller-ID, the
phone reads you the name of the calling party through the loudspeaker on
the handset.

The downside of this, of course, is that you have to leave your computer
running Windows 95/98 to use these features.  Since I'm playing around with
Linux, these features will probably not be used unless I'm away from the
computer.  It is interesting, though, to be able to leave my computer
running and call in from somewhere else and listen to my E-Mail without
paying one of these E-Mail by phone services.  Any other listers used this
gadget?


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