Ovolab Ships Major Phlink Update -- Ovolab has released the long-awaited version 3 of its flagship telephony software, Phlink. [Conflict of interest disclaimer: I wrote the manual for version 2 of this product.] Phlink turns your computer into an intelligent phone-answering machine. By means of preferences, configuration files and folders, and (for ultimate power) AppleScript, you customize what you want to have happen when the phone rings. By reading caller ID information from the phone line, by coordinating with your Address Book, and by responding to touch-tones emitted by caller's phone, Phlink can enact decision-making scenarios, such as playing different outgoing greetings to different callers, storing recordings for different recipients in different folders, notifying computer users of calls across a network, automatically sending recordings via email, and much more.

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<http://www.ovolab.com/phlink/>

Phlink 3, aside from numerous bug fixes and interface tweaks, brings "call snooping", which is the ability to record a call even if a human answers the phone. There is also improved outgoing dialing, accompanied by easy callback functionality. Plus, a new Voice Mailbox Setup utility helps you set up sophisticated voicemail scenarios, including remote retrieval of messages. Phlink 3 is a universal binary. The cost is $150, or $40 to upgrade from version 2. It comes with software and a USB breakout box that connects to the phone line. Phlink has many Tiger-only features, but will run fine on Panther (my copy of version 2 operates under 10.3.9 on an old Tangerine iBook that was gathering dust); Tiger is apparently required, though, for the new Voice Mailbox Setup utility. [MAN]