Block Sales Telemarketers Phone Calls|Audio Caller ID

I was surprised it took so long for this caller ID advancment to happen because all the information needed to block unwanted phone calls is already coming right in your phone line if you have caller ID. With the advent of text to speech it has become a simple thing to do, although it is still not widely known about. It is really not that hard to set this up so that you will never need to rush to a unimportant phone call again.

All you will need to do this is a mid-priced modem installed in your computer, (yes the kind you gave up using when high speed internet was invented) some phone wire and special software and your caller ID possibilites are endless.
Read on and I'll show you how to set this up in about twenty minutes.

There are a few companies offering this type of caller ID announcing software. The best one I've used is called Ascendis caller ID. It is 30 day shareware, meaning you can download it and try it for free for 30 days. Another is called Audio caller ID, also shareware and it works good also.

Now the important thing to know is to read about the software, and see what modems they recommend. This is important because there are many modems out there that say they support caller ID but in practice do not work with this type of software. The software companies tell you at their website what brand of modem works best with thier software. However, if you have a cheap modem laying around, you should try it because some of them do work, but not all.

Ascendis caller ID listens to your phone line and logs every call that comes in. It can be set to block by the callers name or the number. (very handy if the telemarketer is calling from two different numbers) You can then go through the list of calls and choose how you want the software to handle that call in the future. You have your choice of speech announce though your audio system, block the call and announce, or just block the call. You can customize what you want the speech announcer to say, as well as many different choices of speech (ie: a womans voice, a mans voice or several computerized "robot" sounding voices. You can also choose to have it use a custom sound file on your computer. For instance if your best friends favorite song is Dancing Queen by Abba, when they call the song will play.

The only limitation really is that your phone will always ring one time before the software hangs up on them. This is because the caller ID information comes in after the first ring so the software can only react at the time it recieves the caller ID information which is right after the first ring.
You can however simply turn your phones ringer off, and just make sure your stereo or computer speakers are turned up. Then the first ring will not be audible and the softwares audio announce will be the first thing you hear. You can customize what speech it uses for each caller with no limits. You can just type in somthing like "Dont get up It's just that stupid credit card company again" and that is what it will say for that caller. You can make as many of these custom caller profiles as you wish!
All in all it is excellent software and really takes the stress out of your telephone experience.

Once you've chosen the software you want to use, and you have the modem that they recommend you are ready to set it up.

First shut off your computer. Next unplug the computers power source. Now remove the cover to your computer and hold onto the metal frame of the casing with one hand, while installing the modem into an open PCI slot with your other hand.

It is IMPARITIVE that you hold the casing with one hand while doing this in order to ground yourself which will prevent static electricity from possibly distroying your motherboard when you touch it!

OK now plug your incoming phone line into the modem and plug another line into the modem that leads to your telephone.

Thats it now put the case back together, plug in the power cord and boot you machine up. You will be prompted to install the drivers for your new modem which come on a cd when you purchased the modem.
Install the drivers and you are almost ready.

Now download and install your caller ID software.

Now, the next time the phone rings the software will allow the call and list it in the call log.
Now you simply click on the call and choose how to handle the call in the future.

I use this software and like it very much so I decided to share my experience with you.

You can download the free trial of Ascedis caller ID here.

Oh and one more thing.....

Happy Blocking!