Voicemail notification

Whenever we get voicemail at home, MCI sends an email to whatever address I specify. This is great, but I don't recognize most phone numbers. So, today I got the great idea to write a script that takes the inbound number, looks it up in an SQL database, and then sends the name to my cell phone. This is extremely cool; then I was able to import the names from my address book into the database. I learned out php, sed, and SQL in this particular exercise.I'm glad that I have the knowledge to learn whatever I need to in order to make technology work for me.

I used 2 scripts, the first is called from /etc/mail/aliases as in:

vm_notify:              "|/usr/local/bin/vmnotify_stage1",

Where vmnotify_stage1 is:

#!/bin/sh
sed '
{
        /You have received/!d
        h
        s/You have received a Voicemail message from //
        h
        s/.//

}' | /usr/local/bin/vmnotify_stage2

and

vmnotify_stage2 is:

#!/usr/bin/php -q 
 0)
{
        while ($qry = mysql_fetch_array($result))
        {
                $text = $text . "$qry[name] ($qry[phone_number])n";
        }
}
else
{
        $text = $phone_number;
}

mail("example@example.com","Voicemail from:", $text);

mysql_close();

?>

This may not be the most efficient way, but it appears to work.

Televangelists

Who bothers listening to televangelsts? Do they really think that there message is better than someone else's if they are on TV? Every time Pat Robertson opens his mouth, something arrogant and plain stupid comes out. Today he said that Ariel Sharon's health problems are punishment from the almighty for trying to break up Israel. OK, here is a guy that is trying to make peace and Roberston has to say something like this. Somehow Robertson has 865,000 people a day watch his 700 Club show. Those people that watch must not be able to think for themselves.

Why is it news that Roberston opens his big trap? He should just be ignored. Even the Whitehouse is trying to distance itself from Robertson now even though they've been bed buddies in the past.

I saw a bumper sticker the other day: "Annoy a conservative; think for yourself."

Bluetooth Dongle on Windows

I bought a Parrot CK3100 handsfree kit in the hopes that I can get it installed and working with my Samsung A900 (there are a few issues so far, one being that Parrot is trying to figure out how to get it to work with the A900 and I'm waiting on another connector as I have a wacky factory installed stereo). I wanted to see how hard it was to upgrade the firmware over Bluetooth. The utility, of course, is Windows only. No problem, I'll plug my Bluetooth dongle into my Windows box and do the update. Not so fast. I had purchased a D-Link DBT-120 dongle awhile ago to use with my Mac before I got one with built in Bluetooth. Apple's firmware update manages to do something to the adapter such that it can't be used on Windows. After much searching and futzing, I was able to install an old firmware on it and convert it from HID to HCI mode and then got Windows to recognize it. Hooking up the car kit using a 12 volt adapter was pretty simple once I checked a few wiring diagrams. The firmware update went fine.Now all I have to do is wait for a firmware update (crossing my fingers that they can get it to work) and one more connector I ordered on eBay (I don't want to cut wires to install this, so I bought a bunch of connectors to try to hook it all together.)

Installing Windows XP

My sister wanted to wipe down her husband's old Windows XP machine so that he could just run WordPerfect on it (he's switched to a Mac for everything else), so I offered to do it for her as she'd probably call me for help anyway. I started the install with a hard drive re-format around 7:30 am. I didn't finish the install and applying all the patches until somewhere around 2 pm. Holy cow there were a lot of updates and each time I applied one, I had to apply another one. Luckily I only had to click a few times to get it working. I'm so glad I don't deal with Windows on a daily basis.