About a year ago, I received an ad from somewhere on the net about CallWave Internet Answering Machine. I was immediately interested, because I stay on the internet constantly if I'm at home, and all my friends and family have griped for years about it. I went to check out the service, and it sounded ideal. Here's the way it works:

For FREE, now and hopefully always, you download a very small program, probably less than 3 minutes. Callwave.com provides a toll free number which you use with your telephone provider's service of "Fixed Busy Call Forwarding". This means, and it makes ALOT of difference, that when your telephone is BUSY, any incoming calls are forwarded to this number. I'm not sure how they manage to do this correctly, but if you are on the phone, and not on the internet with the CallWave service going, it merely rings busy. If you aren't on the phone or the internet, your regular answering machine (assuming you have one) takes the call like normal, or you answer it yourself. If you ARE on the internet, and running CallWave, a miraculous thing takes place.

Once you have installed the tiny program, anytime you dial up, a little box about 4 inches long by 3/4 inches tall rides on your screen. An unobtrusive tiny ad appears in the box. The box itself can be moved by dragging anywhere on the screen that you care to put it. It won't let you drag it OFF the screen, though. But it is so small that you hardly notice it.

Keeping in mind that you have to have speakers for this to work, anytime someone calls your number, this box actually rings like a telephone! It is really cool! The ads go away, and it prints out "Greeting Caller", then "Recording Message", then "Downloading Message". At this point, you HEAR the message over the computer, clear as a bell, and almost immediately as soon as the person leaves it. It just simply amazed me.

There are no charges, no second phone line is required, and if your telephone company charges you for the Busy Call Waiting, then it's about $1.95 a month. GTE only charges $1.25.

Now when I first installed the program about a year ago, it must have had some glitches. It caused my computer to NOT shut off...just to freeze. After this happened about 3 times, I un-installed it, and re-downloaded it, and still had the problem. At this point, I started checking out the other internet answering services.

Nothing compares! The most highly touted one, Pagoo, is only free for 3 months...possibly less now. Several others required ALL your unanswered calls to be forwarded to them. I didn't want this. I have an answering machine and like to screen my calls. I tried all the services, or at least read their requirements, and gave up for a period of time, very disappointed.

After several months, I went back to CallWave and downloaded it again. This time, the problem was solved. I've had the service for about a year now, and it is priceless.

The person calling you hears a lady's voice saying, "The person you are calling is using Callwave's Internet Answering Machine", and instructs them to leave the message which you will hear over your computer. Their latest offering even lets you record your own name, or a line about it, INTO the greeting. Everyone who has called me has marveled at it, and everytime they call, I smile in wonderment as I listen to the message.

They also offer a free FAX number that forwards a fax you receive to your email. I haven't tried this, but I may, soon. I've never needed to receive a fax at home yet.

You will LOVE this little free program. I recommend it to anyone who spends much time on the internet. (Read Epinions members in that category, for sure!)





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