Dial direct from your Mac

Ah, this is cute… at least for those of us who are Mac users and have an Asterisk server managing our phone systems…

AsteriskC2D is a utility that allows you to dial a number directly from Address Book. After you’ve configured it in System Preferences you can click on a number in Address Book and choose ‘Voip Dial’. Your Asterisk server will call you and, when you pick up the phone, will call the selected number.

AsteriskC2D demo

There are also plugins for QuickSilver and OnMyCommand which allow you to highlight a number almost anywhere in any application, and dial it on a real phone system quickly and easily.

You do need some configuration on the Asterisk server which, like most Asterisk configuration, is not for the faint-hearted, but it’s worth it.

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4 Comments

Skype are pushing their Firefox plugin which automatically picks phone numbers off webpages and turns them into clickable links.

>There are also plugins for QuickSilver and OnMyCommand which allow you to highlight a number almost anywhere in any application, and dial it on a real phone system quickly and easily.

Where can I get more information on this? I’d like to be able to dial contacts on my computer using my land line and then talk via a bluetooth headset.

Any method that doesn’t use VOIP?

Jason –

I don’t know of any that operate without VOIP, but I haven’t looked. I’m sure they are out there. Companies like grandcentral.com come close…

Q

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