Using a PC to make phone calls...

August 13, 2013 | Vanity

[topher]

There are various things out there. But I could not find something to set this up.

VoIP (Voice over IP) has been around for a long time.

I would not mind just using headphones and a microphone to make the phone call.

There is a website IPKall.com that will give you a Washington state telephone number.

But I am not sure how you set up the VoIP part. I tried to see if there were any other threads on this.

I guess using SKYPE is one way to do this, but not to call someone else who has a real telephone...

[PieterCasparzen]

Use it to a Google voice number and now all calls are free. If it takes a voice mail you get a transcript in your email...and that is amazing for being free.

LOL, with a BCC: NSA heading !

[GeronL]

!!!!!!

My old ebooks are already there! OMG!

That is pretty cool.

[GeronL]

OKAY, now I am creeped out...

This thing even remembers what page I was on!!

[PieterCasparzen]

And what you were thinking at the time...

[GeronL]

Probably!

[GeronL]

oddly, even though the Ubuntu library didn’t come with a Kindle type reader it does have a utility that allows me to make an ebook for Kindle. or something like that

[Utilizer]

Hmmm. That may be what the “app” that came bundled with this distro actually is, now that I think about it. Thanks for the link. I think I will look into that a bit further then.

[Utilizer]

Well, I would normally have pointed you to geeks dot com but they completely ruined what current plans I had to do some similar things by abruptly shutting down. Newegg has some decent deals if you do not mind getting on their email list for their daily offerings. You can find some quite good offerings if you know what you are looking for. Watch out for the MIRs, however. I currently lost out on some by just missing the 30-day mailback response limit and I am not happy about that. However, if you are the type to promptly mail in rebate or registration cards you may not have a problem.

Me, I tend to forget things entirely too often, being engrossed with many different projects at one time.

[GeronL]

I just checked. I saw one that looked pretty good but it was skimpy on RAM and didn’t mention how much it could be expanded.

[GeronL]

Okay, so what is the big difference between Ubuntu Studio and DreamStudio distributions?

[Be Free]

I guess you have a lot of options here to look at. I think your answer will come down to your personal situation and needs. For me, I had 2 lines from AT&T (1 home, 1 home-business), and it was costing me a bit over $100/mo. I needed to maintain both lines, I wanted the solution to work just like my “regular” phone service - using the existing wired and wireless phones in my home, and not require that I use or be in front of my computer, or that any computer be on.

Almost all of the services out there offer unlimited domestic long distance and voice-mail, plus things like call waiting. Most offer e911 services.

I tried Ooma, first with one line, then switching the other as well. They have a basic package, where (once you buy the Ooma device), all you pay for is Federal taxes. I opted to upgrade to their “premium” service, which lets me have call-blocking from known telemarketers, plus up to 100 numbers of my own choosing, and also lets in-bound calls simultaneously ring to my cell phone - I can answer any call from either phone. I’ve been very happy, and cut my annual phone bill by 80%. It’s not free, but it’s a great deal compared to what I used to pay, and it’s worked great for me.

[Utilizer]

Ok, for a refurb always run with a couple of assumptions to start with.

First, although motherboards come with two or four slots for RAM, assume the refurb comes with just two and they are both filled. You will need to purchase seperately the amount of total RAM you want to end up with. Come to think of it, I would not place too much trust with the default RAM and just swap it all out instead of attempting to match it for expansion if the board supports it. You do know about never mixing separate types (or manufacturors) of memory on one board, yes?

Second, the first thing you should always do is swap out the fan(s) that come with the unit. You do not know how many hours they have on them and purchasing some new ones for the install is cheap insurance. You can always swap out a failing fan for a used one until the new replacement can be installed.

To guarantee maximum expansion capabilities, you should at the very least purchase a pre-matched motherboard and cpu combo with fan, remembering that there will be no OS preinstalled and you may run into driver problems unless you opt for the more cutting-edge distros. You are probably best advised to get a preconfigured barebones motherboard-and-cpu-fan with a barebones case and powersupply unit, ignoring the default RAM and installing your own choice of that along with DVD and IDE or SATA drives later. Although some purists will argue the power supply choice.

Lastly, remember that refurbs are usually from business upgrades and not meant to be top-end units. Barebones from the start will give you the most expansion options, but will be noticeably harder on your pocketbook.

[Utilizer]

Here are today's deals:

There might be something shown here...

...that you like. Email subs at top.

[GeronL]

There is definitely stuff I like, but I have a very very finite budget.

:p

[Utilizer]

Subscribe to the email list and wait for something really hot on sale. Of course, there is always the Refurb or OpenBox path, of which Amazon does well in too along with their Amazon Warehouse Deals if you do not mind doing some minor fixing of slightly-damaged merchandise.

[Grams A]

Thanks for the additional info. I think Obi was one of those I checked it out when I opted to go with Vonage but I can’t remember for sure - been a long 8 months ago. The line this is for is a business line in a business name which is also listed in all the area telephone directories, both in the yellow pages and white business pages. I’ve had the same phone number and company name since 1985 and it was important that my number not change. Vonage does have a plan for businesses and so it was a simple matter to get AT&T to release it to Vonage under the same business name. I often also have to fax documents via machine, not efax, on a somewhat frequent basis so have my one Vonage line set up split to my printer/fax machine to do this easily. And it also works well through my “adult sized” phone.

As usual I diddled around with trying to find options until I was up against a hard deadline and facing a huge rate increase from AT&T so didn’t do all the diligence I probably should have. My cost for Vonage is only about 12% of what I was paying AT&T. But nothing is forever and when my current contract is up in January I will take a look at Obi. Thanks again.

[PieterCasparzen]

I want to find a desktop PC that can be maxed out on RAM and a good graphics accelerator as cheaply as possible. Something that might have been “top end” a few years ago. Not for Windows either.

I wonder where I could find that or should I just make it myself? Its been a while since I had a desktop

Oh, so this and your ubuntu studio / dreamstudio linux distribution question makes me think you're looking for a PC that will do high-performance graphics ? Sound ? Both ? Video ?

Performance is not too much of a problem today unless you're doing something intense.

If you get a PC with a large amount of memory you'll need a 64-bit linux distro to make use of the memory anyway (I think the ultimate 32-bit limit is 16G on red hat/CentOS).

Your applications, drivers, etc., would then have to be compatible with 64-bit linux.

I ordered me up a simple Dell a few years back. I had specific requirements: mostly, I wanted to NOT have too much processing power - I mostly was concerned with the machine running cool, thereby lasting longer. Super-fast CPUs jammed into small boxes have a way of overheating, even with fans blowing on them. It always seems to happen when the warranty runs out. Always seems to happen with "bleeding edge" stuff, like a Quad-core Dell laptop that I purchased a few years ago, and ran the "virtual" CentOS so I could simultaneously run a Windows XP installation AND several other CentOS installations. Because of the way virtual machine ran Windows XP, it kept 1 core constantly at 100% while it was running. It was a bear keeping that LAPTOP cool. It finally died when I spilled a little water on the keyboard; I can only conclude it was "ridden hard and put away wet".

I like the idea of going with a large outfit and not piecing together my own machine IF I'm spend-conscious at the time. If money is no object, then experimenting a little putting pieces and parts together is fine, of course. This is because there are a lot of possibilities that have to be considered (it can quickly get complicated if you're looking for special performance or combinations of hardware needs) and I don't find many vendors being too super about returning electronics if I'm just buying one item. If I make a choice that proves to not work when I get everything set up and running, I'm hosed and I wasted my money.

Also, the more heavy duty the processor is, the more power is needed; most household circuits are only 15amp or 20amp and there is more than the 1 PC on the circuit. (I always recommend investing in a good APC power protector/cleaner/backup). I've had a rack-type server in my house; it had 8 cores, the fans sounded really cool like a jet engine running, the beast drew about 800 watts and cost a little over $4,000. If there was no need to have it, you can see how silly it would be to "go there".

Most people (even professionals) have a very hard time figuring out the root cause of "performance problems". It could be slow networking, CPU speed maxed out, disk I/O rate maxed out, poorly designed software, an "anomaly" situation that the sofware was not designed for, etc., but many professionals fail to isolate the most serious part(s) of their problems, so their solution is not the correct one. Usually they wind up going out and buying way more computer than they need as their "fix", and the crappy software sits running forever on their servers, "dimming the lights" as it runs "around the world" to go "next door".

My current Dell is dual core, has a nice big roomy open airy cabinet that's easy to pop open - and it only uses about about 80 watts with the monitor and router going as well.

Having the fast graphics card is critical for intense video, gaming, etc.

However, you need the OS to be USING the video card for rendering graphics; this is not always the case. On my version of the OS with my built-in Intel graphics, it's NOT using the graphics card to render. I always keep my CPU monitor applet on my taskbar, and my OS takes advantage of CPU scaling (running both cores at 1.60GHz to 2.83GHz depending on need). If I watch long videos, I always knock down the quality down to 240 so I can keep the CPU down to less than 30% for all that time (I keep track that I only go above 1.6GHz CPU speed for "bursts", not for hours on end).

On linux, OpenGL/DRI is the key to fast graphics. I would think the current releases of linux distros would be shipping with DRI (direct rendering) support, but my CentOS version is a couple years old and it did not come with DRI support. I'm not working on moving ahead right now because I'm busy and don't have a need.

Use the glxinfo command to query about X windows OpenGL GLX extension; one line of output early on will indicate direct rendering support.

Of course, there will be precious few models from most PC sellers that come with a linux distro installed. I prefer to install it myself anyway so I get to make the choices (as little as possible extra stuff that I don't use; can always install other things later).

I found that the Dell guy worked with me pretty well - I was upfront and said I wanted to be around the $500 area and I wanted a dual core, "roomy" cool cabinet, that I did not want a super-fast CPU. The call took a while and he hung in there with me until I made my choice.

[GeronL]

I just want a computer that will let me edit video with Ubuntu Studio or play games that I know my “low-end” laptop won’t play right now. If this laptop had more RAM and a graphics accelerator I probably wouldn’t be asking these questions. It doesn’t have the space for a graphics card.

After my HDD died and was replaced with a clean one I installed this Ubuntu Linux, so far I would say it is excellent. It is more stable and less buggy than any Windows I have had.

I am considering installing Windows 7 and running Linux from a USB when I want it. I definitely do not need a “jet engine”, lol. Even if I get a desktop I will probably use this laptop most of the time.

[Utilizer]

Oh, and one other thing I forgot to mention: one advantage of having a barebones instead of a refurb besides not being stuck with a business-range model with limited performance options for the refurb is it comes with a brand-new fan already installed.

I just changed the default cpu-heatsink and fan on a refurb mobo that I bought last year for a larger version with more heat dissipation capability, -and the power supply now immediately shuts itself off after the initial powerup. *sigh* Looks like some kind of short, probably the mobo but I will not know for sure until I install a replacement cpu and swap the fan.

Do not count on refurb mobos being able to handle the physical stress of changing the heatsink clips and fan swap as a given.

[GeronL]

I’m paranoid about incompatible stuff