Apple OSX intel caller display

2447 Views 6 Replies 4 Participants Last post by GratuitousApplesauce, Sep 26, 2007

Brian Scully

Discussion Starter · Sep 23, 2007

I am running a 20 inch intel core 2 Duo under OSX 10.4.10

On my previous G5 I had thanks to Chealion a neat programme that showed the call display features of my phone and a record of past calls

It was called Silica and support was not forthcoming for the Intel processor or of course my new machine which has no internal modem

A search of google tonight showed a programme call Caller ID which I downloaded

Questions

(1) is there a USB modem for the Mac that is significantly cheaper than the $49.00 dollar Apple modem that is more significantly full featured in handling Call Display? Keep in mind dial up is not a requirement but only a modem that can recognize the incoming Call Display numbers

(2) is there any other programme that ehMac members are aware of that offers the same or more features that Caller ID seems to have

I found that Silica provided much more Caller ID information than my current phone and even more than my ExpressVu caller ID I am indeed sorry that he could not provide updates to his programme for Tiger

80% of my calls are from telemarketers in recent months and I would love to track the numbers

Any info would be appreciated

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HowEver

· #2 · Sep 24, 2007

The problem with tracking telemarketers' phone numbers is that there isn't much you can do with the information. There are many sites that will tell you generally that other people are being bothered by the same numbers, and possibly even some that will tell you who the numbers belong to, but without legislation to prevent such calls, letting them know you have a live number and a human to answer the call, by complaining, is just going to generate more of the same, or worse.

As long as people have listed or otherwise published phone numbers, or have numbers that a sequential dialer-bot might use (as in, everybody), the calls will keep coming. You can decrease the calls by not answering or hanging up right away.

Brian Scully said:
80% of my calls are from telemarketers in recent months and I would love to track the numbers

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screature

· #3 · Sep 24, 2007

HowEver said:
The problem with tracking telemarketers' phone numbers is that there isn't much you can do with the information. There are many sites that will tell you generally that other people are being bothered by the same numbers, and possibly even some that will tell you who the numbers belong to, but without legislation to prevent such calls, letting them know you have a live number and a human to answer the call, by complaining, is just going to generate more of the same, or worse.

As long as people have listed or otherwise published phone numbers, or have numbers that a sequential dialer-bot might use (as in, everybody), the calls will keep coming. You can decrease the calls by not answering or hanging up right away.

Actually, HowEver the information regarding what you can to do try and stop Telemaketing calls is incorrect. There are rules in place regarding telemarketers, go to the CRTC website and the rules and restrictions are all there for what actions you can take. Getting their phone number is actually important because they are required to keep Do Not Call lists. What follows is an extract from the CRTC site:

Do any rules or restrictions apply to telemarketers?

Yes. Restrictions apply to all telemarketers, although they may differ depending on whether they use a fax or a telephone. As a minimum, telemarketers must maintain "Do not call/fax lists" and provide customers with a fax or telephone number where a responsible person can be reached. Specific rules are included at the end of this document.

You do have recourse to stop these guys bothering Brian so don't stop trying to stop them.

The other thing you can do is, if it is available to you as an option, go VOIP. Since I have gone with Vonage, all my Telemarketing calls have stopped, I'm not listed anymore and only people that I want to talk to have my number.

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HowEver

· #4 · Sep 24, 2007

Those rules are worse than optional, they are in a suspended state and unenforced.

Explanatory Note: New telemarketing rules were announced in May 2004. In September 2004 the CRTC suspended the enforcement of these new rules pending its determination on applications to review and vary the May 2004 Decision.

Furthermore, under those rules people can only ask the CRTC to ask telephone companies to ask telemarketers to stop. Many telemarketers have switched off from traditional telephone service (like screature has), and are far beyond the reach of the CRTC in any case.

Most importantly, many of the calls received these days are not in fact from "telemarketers," they are from sweatshops run by fraudsters for the purpose of gleaning your credit card and banking information.

By all means, if you can find a new number or service that receives fewer such calls, that's the way to go.

That said, if a legitimate company calls you and you wish to have them stop you can usually have your number removed from their list, if you have a relationship with that company. For example, if Bell is calling to offer you services, they will agree to stop if you ask them. But if a third-party company is calling on behalf of Bell, and you are not a current Bell customer, the process is all the more arcane and difficult.

screature said:
Actually, HowEver the information regarding what you can to do try and stop Telemaketing calls is incorrect. There are rules in place regarding telemarketers, go to the CRTC website and the rules and restrictions are all there for what actions you can take. Getting their phone number is actually important because they are required to keep Do Not Call lists. What follows is an extract from the CRTC site:

Do any rules or restrictions apply to telemarketers?

Yes. Restrictions apply to all telemarketers, although they may differ depending on whether they use a fax or a telephone. As a minimum, telemarketers must maintain "Do not call/fax lists" and provide customers with a fax or telephone number where a responsible person can be reached. Specific rules are included at the end of this document.

You do have recourse to stop these guys bothering Brian so don't stop trying to stop them.

The other thing you can do is, if it is available to you as an option, go VOIP. Since I have gone with Vonage, all my Telemarketing calls have stopped, I'm not listed anymore and only people that I want to talk to have my number.

See less See more

Save

screature

· #5 · Sep 24, 2007

HowEver said:
Those rules are worse than optional, they are in a suspended state and unenforced.

Furthermore, under those rules people can only ask the CRTC to ask telephone companies to ask telemarketers to stop. Many telemarketers have switched off from traditional telephone service (like screature has), and are far beyond the reach of the CRTC in any case.

Most importantly, many of the calls received these days are not in fact from "telemarketers," they are from sweatshops run by fraudsters for the purpose of gleaning your credit card and banking information.

By all means, if you can find a new number or service that receives fewer such calls, that's the way to go.

That said, if a legitimate company calls you and you wish to have them stop you can usually have your number removed from their list, if you have a relationship with that company. For example, if Bell is calling to offer you services, they will agree to stop if you ask them. But if a third-party company is calling on behalf of Bell, and you are not a current Bell customer, the process is all the more arcane and difficult.

HowEver, I guess the point I was trying to make is that if Brian were to do nothing, nothing will change. Undoubtedly as you say there are telemarketers out there who operate less than legitimate businesses and stopping them is next to impossible. But by obtaining the phone number of those who are intruding on his life he can at least try to put a stop to it and in some cases may actually be able to stop getting the calls.

If enough people take the actions that Brian is trying to do, things may begin to change, albeit slowly. I agree with you that we need real legislation with some teeth, a real "Do Not Call" registry that is enforceable. The CRTC is certainly dragging its heels on this, but it in the mean time it is only with a ground swell of pissed off citizens like Brian that are going to bring about change using whatever means are available to them.

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Brian Scully

Discussion Starter · #6 · Sep 25, 2007

The thread got hijacked or I did not make my point clear

I was not trying to stop callers but to only identify them

More curiosity of who was calling than anything else

The Apple Modem is 59 bucks canadian and the caller id program is 14 bucks or so USD and does not seem to do what Silica did without some AppleScript tweaks that I am not capable of doing .

So at this point gentlemen I am saying that my curiosity perhaps is not enough to proceed with this experiment . My phone which is some 10 years old gives minimal information about caller ID compared to my ExpressVu dish that often give me more information on the same caller. Silica gave me more info more often than either once again on the same call. It would seem that the caller ID tags are there but some end devices can grab more info than others

Thanks for your input

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GratuitousApplesauce

· #7 · Sep 26, 2007

Brian Scully said:
I was not trying to stop callers but to only identify them

More curiosity of who was calling than anything else

The Apple Modem is 59 bucks canadian and the caller id program is 14 bucks or so USD and does not seem to do what Silica did without some AppleScript tweaks that I am not capable of doing .

So at this point gentlemen I am saying that my curiosity perhaps is not enough to proceed with this experiment . My phone which is some 10 years old gives minimal information about caller ID compared to my ExpressVu dish that often give me more information on the same caller. Silica gave me more info more often than either once again on the same call. It would seem that the caller ID tags are there but some end devices can grab more info than others

Thanks for your input

Thanks for letting us know about Silica, I hadn't heard of it before. It looks promising. I tried it out today but unfortunately couldn't get it to work. Maybe something to do with the modem initialization - I have to read up on it.

I love call display and having it show up on my desktop would be great.

Modem initialization strings - jeez - reminds me of struggling to get my dial up "information superhighway" connection working back in 1995. I almost forgot I had a modem in this thing.

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