HFCS: effika’s blog

My cellphone can give a different ring based on a fairly decent number of factors (although I still wish it would vary the volume and ring by time of day). Since the ring decision exists within the software itself, that sort of thing becomes easily customizable.

Right now, I am itchy. Veeeery itchy. I need to shower; something has bloomed in my brief time outside this evening. However, I am waiting on a call. Now, it may be 11:15 at night, and I may only be gone for 10-15 minutes, but I would rather take the call than miss it, since it is necessary to deliver a short but timely piece of information. I could change my voicemail message to reflect this, but for any other call this information is irrelevant. It is much more of a hassle to change the voicemail than it is to wait 30 or so minutes before showering.

I propose a system to set a sort of Away Message (think instant messaging) that is different depending on who is calling. (Heck, I don’t think I can get Trillian to do this. I want this in my IM client, too.) This system can’t be that hard to set up. My phone already has the ability to record voice memos for myself– why not have my phone look at who’s calling, answer after a set number of rings with something like “This user has left a note for you. The note is: [blah],” then hook into the voicemail system like normal. If possible, I would like a notification that the caller listened to my message– perhaps having them press a key at the end of it– to tell the phone to put up the “missed call but received message” icon.

This is probably one of those ideas that I’ll have to file away to the “sometime in the distant future” folder, like glasses that can zoom in on something on command and the ability to ask the fridge where the mustard is, and have it tell me that it’s hidden behind the eggs on the middle shelf.

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