Friday, June 23, 2006

AIM Phoneline

I signed up for a local phone number via AOL's free voip service. It's supposed to allow you to accept unlimited incoming calls. Combine this with Skype's free outgoing calls and you're all set. The problem is AOL sucks! I signed up for the service, downloaded and installed the latest AIM client and tried calling myself from my cell. The AIM client notifies me that there's an incoming call, but when I click on the Answer button it just sits there trying to connect my call. From the calling end, the line keeps ringing until it goes to voice mail. I tried running it on my work pc and my laptop without sucess. There also seems to be some bugs when you run two AIM clients at the same time and try to answer a call from one. I think it's still in beta, so I guess I can't be too harsh. I would say it's definately worth signing up for a local number incase there's a limit on how many the give out. But I would wait for the service to mature before attempting to use it.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm running into the same trouble..The problem with mine is it used to work and now it just stopped working...Getting the same trouble as you and also when I click on answer it opens up an IM windows sometimes..It just terrible programming..You would think AOL would get it right

10/02/2006 10:06:00 AM

 
Blogger Ben said...

I haven't touched it since I originally posted. It's interesting to hear that they're still having issues. Thanks for the update!

10/02/2006 11:13:00 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What version of Triton are you guys using?

10/04/2006 10:46:00 AM

 
Blogger Ben said...

I honestly don't remember what version I was using. Since then I've switched to using SUSE on my laptop and a Mac as my desktop. I don't even know that there exists a client that works on Linux or OS X.

10/04/2006 10:58:00 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, there isn't a client for Linux or OS X that supports AIM Phoneline. The best you can do is use it for free voicemail by getting your voicemail any of three ways:

1. AIM Phoneline Dashboard
2. AIM Mail mail.aol.com
3. A secondary email that you configured from the Settings / Voicemail page on the Dashboard.

You can also get voicemail notices to your mobile phone if you configure it in the Settings page.

You can also use your AIM Phoneline to get a Plantronics headset on the cheap ($10). I think the link is from somewhere on the Dashboard, maybe one of the settings pages. It's defintely worth it. I already have one and I like it a lot.

Oh. I just had another thought. You might be able to run Windows and Triton from a VMWare now that VMWare is free.

10/04/2006 01:10:00 PM

 
Blogger Ben said...

The voicemail functionality is definately cool. The notifications along with the ability to listen to them online make it better than most voicemail systems that come with cell phone service.

I have a gaming headset (logitech I think) that I use with Ventrilo and Teamspeak. You really cannot use any VoIP service without a headset, the echoing becomes unbearable.

And you're right. I could run VMWare on my laptop or Parallels on my Mac to get Windows and install the AIM client on that.

10/04/2006 01:22:00 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Forget it if you are running vmware with a NAT ethernet connection. It prevents calls or notifications from working in VMWare

11/26/2006 03:26:00 PM

 

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