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Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

phonejanitor.com

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Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#81

Post by dkresge »

crusso wrote: post #75

Really, what I want is the ability to shunt unknown callers off to a holding area where they have to listen to a message and press a button in order to be let through. If it's a legitimate caller, then the inconvenience is minor. Most phone spammers wouldn't get through.

This works very well in my experience. I wrote a "captcha/graylist-esque" rule for my asterisk server which intercepts unknown incoming calls with "because we don't recognize your phone number, please press one now -- or leave a message after the tone". Pressing one transfers the call to the ring group and whitelists the caller id.

For grins, _failing_ to press one results in my office speakerphone playing "sad-trombone-sound.wav" -- how I love to hear that sound.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#82

Post by tyingq »

Rudism wrote: post #78

If you're into this kind of thing, I've used anveo.com before which has a pretty powerful call flow engine that can be programmed via a nice drag-and-drop web ui. I found it similar to Yahoo Pipes but you're dealing with phone calls instead of web data.

Mentioned the same thing in a different comment. Love Anveo (screenshot here: http://i.imgur.com/54aJqGn.png)

Would like to see a screenshot of this app...it looks like you have to sign up and pay to see the interface.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#83

Post by TodPunk »

mastermojo wrote: post #80
lucb1e wrote: post #79

$15 a month. That's the number I was looking for but couldn't find until after creating an account and trying to add a phone number. Then a popup came for my credit card number (which I don't have) and finally, in the confirmation button, was the price. Edit: Oh, it's in the FAQ. I checked all other pages except that one (seemed logical to be under either home or features, or perhaps policies). My bad. Edit2: Giving…

It's in the FAQ. But "Pricing" really should be a top level tab.

This is fair criticism. I'll address that. It seems to be common enough confusion for people.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#84

Post by TodPunk »

nostromo wrote: post #55

Can it block unknown callers? The FCC doesn't allow phone companies to do that directly. It drives me nuts -- it's always spam callers. http://www.t-mobile.com/company/privacyresources.aspx?tp=Abt... > the FCC has mandated that carriers allow callers the ability to block their Caller ID information and thus place “anonymous” calls. T-Mobile is obligated to honor the privacy of the caller in these circumstances. Of co…

We're not a phone company, and we don't block them for you, we give you the tool to block it yourself, so yes. Yes it is a fix, just as much as any other app you could use to do such. For instance, my number (on that front page) is a whitelist thing. That would cover anonymous calls. If you want to specifically target anonymous, we can't do that (because it's not actually definable in telecom terms, as they each in practice represent such differently). They would, however, always fit in the "other" category.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#85

Post by kazinator »

eevilspock wrote: post #74
kazinator wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was writing from the perspective of taking it for granted that this service is not actually free. From that perspective, ads versus fees are just different points in the price structure. (The very term "price structure" clarifies that it's not free.) Ad-supported services are quasi-free, in the sense that the the display of ads is not actually eroding any dollars from your financial portfolio. Ads potentially rob y…

> the display of ads is not actually eroding any dollars from your financial portfolio. I honestly don't think you followed my links and read carefully. And you're ignoring the opportunity costs and social costs, also explained in my link.

> I honestly don't think you followed my links and read carefully.

Indeed, but some great minds of our generation are probably working on figuring out a way to make people do that.

> And you're ignoring the opportunity costs ...

To my credit, I did write: "Ads potentially rob you of time". Reading/viewing/listening to ads isn't free, of course. Your time and attention are a resource.

But opportunity costs are fictional, unless you can show that an actual opportunity is lost. People who have a valuable opportunity to chase generally prove that by chasing that opportunity and not (for example) sitting in front of a TV watching a commercial.

If you're viewing an ad right now, it can safely be assumed that that is currently your best opportunity.

Ads certainly do not coerce you into losing opportunities.

(I will sooner believe that the alleged losses due to copyright infringment are actual!)

It's past 2 p.m. in my timezone and I haven't seen a single ad since I woke up at 6. Didn't watch any TV or listen to a radio. I use AdBlock on my web browser at home and work. Didn't bicycle past any billboards. Amazingly, nobody has tried to sell me anything yet.

Really, it's not that hard to live ad-free. Just block whatever you can, and opt out of the remaining ad-loaded culture.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#86

Post by gst »

TodPunk wrote: post #45
traverseda wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is based on twilio? Any thoughts on going open source?

It is not based on Twilio, they're quite expensive, it's built on Freeswitch and normal fully open SIP/RTP protocols and what we're doing isn't exactly complex yet. I don't have a whole lot of care about going open source or not but as far as our interface you can view source at https://phonejanitor.com/app/ and you might be pleased for the moment.

Looks like you're using Flowroute as backend service? At least that's where the number of the CEO is located.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#87

Post by tekromancr »

michaelmcmillan wrote: post #51
pmtarantino wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Tarsnap is another example of this.

I guess it's sufficient to create a service people want. Personally I don't really care if it's fancy SPA or a simple website with actual form elements. I just want software to work.

Could you please elaborate what you mean by "SPA". I am unfamiliar with the term, but google only returns results related to massage and nail-care services, which DOES kinda make sense in your context, but I am not sure.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#89

Post by Hysterica »

aresant wrote: post #34

I think it's a stroke of genius to launch something so aesthetically terrible on HN / PH (aka the early adopter crowd). For a group of people that see a dozen bootstrap / sandwhich vid style launches a week this stands out, and got me to read 3 paragraphs of ad-copy. Other notable examples of this launch strategy, intentional or not, in recent memory were Pud launching DistroKid (1) and the team behind Magic (2) I th…

As honest as the text appears, I usually associate websites which look similar to this as outdated and untrustworthy. It's the type of website you often see for old freeware, which is why it doesn't seem so great to a potential user as they'll assume the website style may reflect on the service they're about to receive.

I would take a bootstrap style over this. Maybe that's just me.

Re: Phone Janitor – Take control of your phone number

#90

Post by mcherm »

So... Google Voice, but not free, and run by a small company that might fail, taking your phone number with them?

Might be interesting. The "not free" part is a BENEFIT in my mind, and your other post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9943660) tried to address the riskiness.

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