After a few short weeks, DH and I have cancelled our Vonage account. There were just too many glitches -- the inability to act like a touch-tone phone for several different automated menus was very frustrating, the conflicting customer service information about when, exactly, our phone number was scheduled to transfer was infuriating, and there were just too many complaints from DH's co-workers and interviewees about static and clicks on the line. (For personal calls, it probably would have been ok, but for a home office where phone interviews have to be recorded, quality really matters.)

I know ND has had a much better experience with them than I did, so perhaps it's a regional thing (or possibly the fault of my internet provider), but sadly, the regular old phone line just turned out to work better. (I'll miss you, voicemail emails!)

Yeah, my line gets fairly low usage, so I've not really noticed any problems. Voicemail emails do rock.

I considered it, but multiple extensions look like a pain. Also 911 calls the 911 business office and does not give your location. I understand why there is not real choice on that; but being able to call 911 in an emergy and they immediately know where you are calling from strikes me as a real safety plus. (And having anyone with caller id also know where i'm calling from does not strike me as enough of a safety minus to balance it.)

And having anyone with caller id also know where i'm calling from does not strike me as enough of a safety minus to balance it.

Does that mean that if you have ID blocking 911 can't crack it?

Does that mean that if you have ID blocking 911 can't crack it?

Dunno. But I know if you have Vonnage the issue doesn't arise. Because of the way Vonnage works, normal caller ID can't work. Thats cause your number works from any broadband servers. It is like cellular even though you are on a land line. You could be anywhere. Your number moves with you when you move. So there is no way currently they can know your address just from your phone number. Vonnage might work a way around it. let you register an address, and then they could transmit it with your 911 call. (I suspect it would be tougher than that. But probably any problems could be solved.) But right now they have not.

On Edit: A quick Google says caller ID blocking does not block 911 from identifiying you. Makes sense -would be a real safety hazard otherwise.

On re-edit: call ID bloking also does not block toll free long distance numbers (such as 800 numbers) and special phone service numbers (such as 900 numbers.) Also makes sense: billing problems either way.

Actually Vonage does have 911 calling working now.

You register your address with your Vonage account and it takes a couple of days for them to set it up, but then when you call it links into the correct 911 exchange for your area with your address information.

NoiseDesign - sorry but unless they've changed, that is not quite the case.

Yes they set up 911 service. But your address does not already show up.

[link]

This means your call goes to a different phone number than traditional 911 calls. Also, you will need to state the nature of your emergency promptly and clearly, including your location and telephone number, as Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP) personnel will NOT have this information on hand.

I have printer woes. We bought a new printer (an HP Officejet 6210) and hooked it up to DH's iMac (OSX 10.3.something). It prints beautifully from there. I installed the software on my PC (WinXP), and set it as my default printer. But when I tried to find the drivers, I was told that they did not exist. So I re installed the software, from the CD that came in the box, and still, the drivers do not appear in my list of available printer drivers.

The computer seems to think that it's printing just fine -- except it never gets to the part where it actually prints anything. It goes from "preparing job" to "sending job" to nothing.

Any ideas?

I never install the drivers that are on the CD. The ones that are available at the vendor's web site are usually newer.

Yeah, I installed a batch from the web site too. Except it's not that the drivers don't work, it's that they're not showing up on the list of drivers at all. I have no idea where the ones from the CD put themselves, and the ones from the website ended up in c:\\temp\\HP_WebRelease.