This is only of historical interest. No longer supported.
The Dialer is a perl script that helps locate and dial phone numbers
for people that move around a lot.
Here is the download, which includes
enough of Perl and necessary modules to run it.
Here are updated PI (Jan 2005) and EL (Jan 2005) phone numbers lists
for the dialer. After downloading one of them, copy it to
c:\pgms\PI_numbers.txt or c:\pgms\EL_numbers.txt, overwriting the
previous version of that file (which is old). Or, you can just
type c:\pgms\PI_numbers.txt or c:\pgms\EL_numbers.txt into
the Save As dialog you get when you right click one of these links, and
choose "Save Link Target As"
Earthlink: western states
(AK,HI,WA,OR,CA,ID,NV,MT,AZ,NM,UT,CO) [now built in to above
package]
Earthlink: northeast states
(PA,NJ,NY,ME,VT,NH,CT,OH,WV,VA,MD,MS,RI)
Earthlink: Canada (updated Sept 2006)
This version of the dialer is pretty old, and doesn't handle areas
where 11 digit dialing is required within the same area code, so you
have to "fake it out" and use a different area code as your "location"
when you are in an area that needs 11 digit dialing. I plan to
revise how this works in the new version, which also has a much simpler
interface, but alas, the new version isn't complete.
Installation instructions for dialer 7.4
It is helpful to start by creating a DUN entry named PI or EL (if the Prodigy
Internet, or Earthlink ISPs are to be used), and populate it with one nearby
dialup number, and test it with the user name and password (which must be
saved). Any other ISPs (but no more than one number each) should also
have DUN entries (also called connectoids) created
for them, with the password changed. Having multiple ISPs is particularly
useful for areas in which the "nationwide" ISPs such as PI or EL don't have
local numbers, but local ISPs exist, and accounts are available for them.
Run the self-extracting executable program to install the dialer.
It will install itself in and under c:\pgms .... it is possible
to change that, but not recommended.
Run the dialer the first time via the command
c:\pgms\bin\perl.exe -x c:\pgms\dialer.pl
Click on the options button, and change the setting for
email_listbox_height to zero. Move the options
window up a bit (if necessary to avoid the taskbar, which is usually across
the bottom of the screen, unless moved or set to auto-hide), and click OK.
Then position the main dialer window to the bottom right corner of
the screen (or anywhere you want, but bottom right seems to work well for
most people). Click on the options button again, and this time change
the settings for Main window y position
and Option window y position to be the same in
the entry box as is shown in paretheses.
Be sure to read in c:\pgms\dialerreadme.txt
about how to set up a shortcut for the dialer, and for other information.
You might find it appropriate to use the
c:\pgms\dialer.ico
as the icon for the shortcut.
Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP issue
"Mute" on NT derived versions of Windows, mutes all the "Windows sound
system"
sounds, but not any of the "internal speaker" sounds. On older
versions of Windows, hardware, and drivers, the "mute" setting would
also mute the internal speaker. Since dialer uses the internal
speaker to provide the triple-beep "I'm connected" feedback, it cannot
be muted via the volume controls on NT derived versions of
Windows. However, there is a solution, buried in
this rant.
Known bugs in dialer 7.4
The system tray icon created by dialer when it runs is not automatically
removed when it terminates. Hovering the mouse pointer over the system
tray icon will cause it to vanish.
It is possible to run multiple instances of the dialer. However, this
can be confusing. Each will install a system tray icon. If multiple
system tray icons for the dialer exist, and don't vanish when the mouse
pointer hovers over them, all but one of them should be selected in turn, and
the corresponding dialer program terminated. Or terminate all of them,
and then restart just one copy of the dialer.