Any software alternative to PhoneTray?

When I started using the computer I got last Christmas (the one I'm on now), there was NO way in HELL I was going back to AVG after what happened to my other comp! A good friend of mine uses avast! so he told me to try that-I've had it for several months and despite the false positives I'm happy with it

People are talking about computer software related problems (ie: phonetray) on computer with Avast antivirus installed. No, I don't see a computers antivirus software blocking calls, unless you whack the foreign, 3rd world fool over the head with it. That's what I want for Christmas!

I've never had any false positives at all with Avast. This "Decompression bomb" note for PhoneTray doesn't trigger a warning or stop the file running the way it would for a genuine virus or trojan, it seems to be just a notice that the file can't be scanned properly due to the compression technique used. I've installed PhoneTray Free on several computers with Avast and never even noticed it.

Do I understand that in order to use phone tray I MUST have an external 56 K modem?  
I have  a laptop (VISTA) with built in 56 K modem and one (1) phone jack.  Phone system is Panasonic with recorder built in the base station and 4 wireless handsets.  How do I get from the land line house jack to Phonetray and then to the telephone system?
I'm 75 years old and need somebody to talk me through it.

gerhard

Caller ID is a set of text strings on an analog modem signal sent between the first and second ring of a call, at a "legacy hardware" speed now considered very slow. Therefore, you need an analog modem or a device chip for that task to decode CID.

PhoneTray needs an analog voice modem to access all its features, which can be external or a PC modem card. I guess you're looking for a single phone line to service both the laptop and your house phones. 

Your base phone is not likely to have any RJ11 (residential phone jack) pass-through, and you imply that your laptop also lacks one. The simplest way out would be to split the telco signal wherever it's convenient and send a line to each device. You can get a little plug-in dingus for a few dollars to convert a single RJ11 wall tap into two or three, much like an AC power strip. (... or one dollar at a salvage/job lot type store if you're lucky) Personally I don't like them because they're topheavy and prone to failure if disconnected and reset repeatedly. At home I've replaced my higher demand wall jacks with plates that have dedicated extra RJ11 ports. Rewiring like that is a little fussy but straightforward if you comprehend signal flow.

I've found the following sites to be friendly novice starting points if you want to rewire rather than merely adapt:

Phone Man (Keith Michal)
http://www.homephonewiring.com/

Natural Handyman
http://www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/inftelephone/inftel.html

One other option would be installing an external voice modem near the laptop, if you can get the two to communicate. You'd do this to get RJ11 pass-through and to see that PhoneTray intercepts all inbound calls before any other device in your chain, if that's important to your setup. Couple years ago some nice models new-in-box were frequently showing up on a certain auction site for $10 to $15, which is about their current street value anyway.

"Talking you through" a process of whatever plan you like is beyond the scope of this website. Hopefully you'll find a path to follow, and that you shouldn't have serious trouble getting where you want to be.

It does it only on GunCraft and 3 mod files-I believe I saw the 'false-positive' thing on the avast! forums

Thank you Resident 47.

So I do NOT require a separate modem.  If I connect the lap top to a spare wall jack and leave the basic land line connected to the normal wall jack should work???  I made a little jpg diagram but don't know how to attach it.
Curious to see what happens.  I get many "UNAVAILABLE", "OUT OF AREA", "ANONYMOUS", etc. and uncounted spoofed number calls.  While the base station announces them and switches to the recorder, it is still aggravating.

gerhard

Hello:

I will assume from your posting that you have already download and installed phonetray.  Below is a brief tutorial on how to install and tips on training it if required.

If you have a built-in modem in your laptop, purchasing a secondary one (external or pc-card) will not be necessary.

See the step "Training" below on how to handle Unavailable, out of area...  to block these nuisances.

______________________________

I have and use phonetray. Here are the steps to installing, loading and training it to work for you.
Finding the free version is a bit more difficult than it used to be since phonetray went pay only.
The link below still has the free version which I downloaded and was legitimate.

http://filedir.com/windows/communications/phonetray-free-download-314.html
Select the green box that says download now 1.35mb

Once downloaded, do the following, assuming you meet these requirements:
* Have a pc with an internal or external dial-up modem that is properly installed and working
* Understand that phonetray requires a pc to run the program at all times and therefore must be on to do so.

If you do not have a modem installed already, you will need to make sure you do first or if you are uncomfortable with that, have someone do it for you but this must be done initially.

Software Downloading and Installation:

1. Open or run your downloaded phonetray software. Follow the directions and install with the recommended defaults

Windows Vista and 7 may prompt you to assure that you wish to add or make changes to your pc for this installation. Answer yes.


2. Once installed, double click on the small, gray, rectangular icon that will appear in the system tray (near the clock in the bottom right-hand corner of your windows desktop).

If you do not see phonetray in the system tray, reboot your computer and see if it appears. If that fails to display the icon, repeat the installation.

3. In the phonetray program, select the third icon from the left. Hovering your mouse over it will indicate it is the "settings" menu. Select it.

4. Check "run automatically when system starts" Add your area code to the "area code" box, add any additional local area codes to the "additional area codes" box, Check "use area code to distinguish between local and long distance calls", Check to make sure your modem is listed in the device column. Do not be concerned if voice is active, only "ready" is important and if it is marked "yes" you are all set.

5. You will see a box called "Fix CID" use this only if all calls received either don't register with phonetray or come up as N/A 100% of the time.

___________________________

Connecting the Modem.

As stated, the pc will always need to be on for phonetray to operate.

Take a phone line, (regular ol' telephone line you have laying around in the bottom of some drawer somewhere) and plug one end into the modem, and the other into an unused phone jack anywhere in your house, apartment, trailer, lean-to, whatever!

Thats it. Phonetray should now be "live" and will handle all incoming calls and scrutinize them based on your list before being routed to all other phones. Makes no difference if these phones are corded or wireless. It will not work with a cell phone though.

_____________________________________

Training:

Once phonetray has successfully been installed, double-click on the phonetray icon in the system tray and open the second icon from the left (a yellow padlock icon). Here, you can manage how and when phonetray will "zap" or handle your incoming calls. I set mine to: Log call, Show tray balloon, Show full screen alert, and zap call after 1 ring.

You can tell it block specific numbers, entire area codes, all 800, 888, 866, Private, N/A or any call at all based on caller-id. For caller-id based blocking, remove the number and leave the caller id listed in place for an offending number and that name (no matter what number it calls you from) will be blocked forever.

Blocking Unavailable, Out of Area or any other listed name in the caller-id can be done by right-clicking on that name (whatever it may be) then, selecting "add to privacy manager and block number".  If a number was associated with a call - for example Out of Area: 212-555-1212.  Remove the phone number and select save.  Now, all Out of Area calls are blocked no matter the number.
_____________________

This is a very quick and rough tutorial on how to install and setup phonetray. Any further questions can be addressed to the fine folks here on the site, Resident47 or myself.

Let me know if you have any difficulties and I will provide you direct contact information (by email) if you need more detailed assistance.

_____________________

Phonetray Forum

Reference material:
http://forums.traysoft.com/viewforum.php?f=6



Herman

Thank you Herman,

Your instructions are quite clear and understandable.  All of the sites I find on the internet automatically offer only Phonetray Pro.  I feel I need more than 15 days to evaluate this and would like to try the last free version (1.39) but can not find it.  Your link also offers only Phonetray Pro.
I will keep looking since it sounds just like what I want.

Again thank you,

gerhard

Older but works FINE!

http:// wikisend.com/download/108424/PhoneTrayFree.exe

Hello Herman,

Have connected my PC to minitor my phone calls.  Downloaded PHONETRAY 1.39 from the site you recommended.  It is still early in my evaluation but initial (1st day) experience looks good.

Again thank you for your help,

gerhard

Hello Herman,
Have used phonetray 1.39 for a week now.  Seems to be working great.
Have not had any junk calls (excluding spoofed numbers)

What is strange however, I had no junk (none) calls logged (zapped or otherwise).  No calls in a week is a first in 15 years.

Question:  Is there a method to send a message WITHOUT zapping and let it go to a recorder??
                Is there a way to check: if a junk call is answered and the message played NOT using the phonetray  privacy     manager

} no junk ... calls logged

If PT isn't logging *some* calls it's because you've (likely) told it not to. Each entry you dump into the "manager" has its own set of rules governing how PT reacts to each caller. You can select or ignore the options in any combination with all those radio gadgets and tickboxes. Maybe the "log call" rule is not set? If PT can't log calls when you've set that rule, you could have an issue with your modem.

} send a message WITHOUT zapping and let it go to a recorder

I don't see how. Presumably you have PT intercepting calls before your recorder can react, for example setting the recorder to answer at ring #5 and certain caller rules to respond at ring #3. You do realize that PT and your recorder are not integrated or aware the other exists, yes? That makes them mutually exclusive. When PT is set to automatically respond with a sound file, it's just like a human answering, so far as the recorder "knows".

Anyway, you can see plainly in the config that the option to send a sound file is simply not available until the "zap" tickbox is checked, which makes sense. You either do or don't want PT to respond to a caller, and a non-response passes control to your recorder.

} junk call is answered and the message played

Now I'm not really sure of the question. So let's say you let a caller pass unchallenged by PT, your trusty hardware recorder responds and plays out your greeting, and the caller does nothing in reply. In other words, the caller abandons because a human has not responded, sometimes before the greeting can finish, and other times before the recorder can even react. If you're not around to actually count the rings and hear what your recorder does, you don't have a total record of events. I would personally like an easy method of logging those "ring 'n' run" moments, as certain callers are subject to federal law which limits that behavior.

But really the only evidence you have is through a Caller ID log on a physical display or as captured by PhoneTray. My logs are full of call events where obviously some autodialer called but no message was attempted. I'm not aware of any software which can tell much more. I keep manual records in which I note who called, the call purpose, how the caller reacted to my machines (or a best guess), and what message if any was delivered. Probably a VOIP subscriber would have tools doing some of that labor. I'm a DIY type, and for legal purposes I need to be "custodian of records" for myself.

-- Orange Geek Alert -- The only method of ring logging I can think of dates back to the infancy of the Web when people were still dialing into Bulletin Boards at low baud rates. Back then I would have a terminal program running all day, which was set to play a custom soundfile at each ring much like PT can. Well, anything coming or going was "echoed" in screen text, including inbound rings, making it dead easy to tell how many rings a caller generated and when. (I should actually try that again, but I haven't since migrating across OS platforms.)

Hello Herman,
Have used Phonetray free 1.3.9 for about a month.  Had to buy a voice modem since my installed modems are only data/fax and callers got the fax sounds (still ok since it worked and robocalls canceled).  Telemarketing calls have declined 85 to 90%.   I am hoping for a way to combat number spoofing but that probably would require regulatory/legislative action (don;t hold your breath).
On desirable feature would be a one key zap for an incoming call.

Again, thank you for your help

gerhard

Greetings Gerhard:

Glad to hear you're down to 85/90% See if you can beat my record of 96% :-)
I'm currently on a work assignment in Puerto Rico but do log in to my machine at home via a vpn connection. The one thing I can't test remotely is the one key zap since I obviously can't hear the phone ring to anticipate an incoming call. I do believe you can zap with one key but can't remember precisely how. I think its a right click on the incoming number during the ring time. Give it a test and let me know.

Herman