Category: Geeks r Us
Hi all,
My dad is going to get me a magic jack syste,m. I want some info on how some pepople use it. How does the caller id work for example. I want to know how easy is it for a blind person to set up? How accessible is it? I use jaws and window-eyes. I know you hqave to have a high speed internet connection. How or whare dooes the caller id come up on the pc or just on the ophone? How do you order the equipment? I did not see whare to order on the site. That should be all for now.
Thanks.
Matthew
I've never heard of it. What is it? (I'm curious now.)
Its a phone services that comes through your pcs internet connection. Its 20 dallars a year after the first year. Thats an idea of what it is any way.
the magic jack! I am a really proud user. We even use it for my business management. All you have to do is plug the USB adapter to the computer and the phone line into the phone jack. The USB adapter will install the software in a few seconds and you'll have the magic jack icon on your desktop. If an incoming call pops up, jaws will usually read it to you. There is an edit box so you can use the numbers and dial the numbers and then there's always the hang up and pick up button. In any case, the service's pretty straight forward. You just plug the "magic jack" in and it works... like magic! lol. you just wait for the software to install and then you can make and take phone calls pretty easily. The call history I think is saved to your computer anyway.
oh. der. I'd heard about that, just forgot all about it.
Thats cool. I may nbe able to get a normal cordless phone then. I wonder how well we will work with it anmd reading the caller info and all that.
I just got mine today and got it plugged in. You have to wait a few minutes while the software installs, then you register and select your number, read the terms of service, and you're all set. It can take some time for your number to become active though. And yes, you can use a regular cordless phone, As far as bandwidth, it uses about 80 k or so.
It's a fantastic idea. They have a great ad campaign. I may get it at some point. I wish I had the patent for that! I'm sure someone has made a mint off this.
I got mine and have been playing around with it. To me, it seems to not be quite as good as skype out, but it's still pretty decent. Free voicemail and all. When you get a voicemail, it comes to your email inbox as an attachment.
I'm just simple waiting to have mine ordered. Hoow long did it take for yours to come in? I heard its like 4-6 weelks.
I got mine when qvc did a special on it. I paid 36 bucks. It came in less than a week. It supports confrance calling for incoming calls, so both parties have to call you in order for you to put them together. You can use a regular telephone, or your computer's speakers and microphone. If you have any other questions, just let me know.
Bringing this topic back up. Y'all still happy with your service?
Some questions...
I'll have a regular phone number?
How about international calls; making and receiving?
About 80k bandwith, is this farely small?
I'm assuming the computer actually needs to be turned on for you to make and receive calls?
Can you dial and answer calls via your phone or do you need to use your computer?
Ok, think that is all for now. We're deciding not to have a home phone, so I was wondering if this would be a cheep solution.
You have to leave a computer on all the time though right?? I saw it on qvc but wanted more information.
of course you do have to keep the computer on. Though the thought of 80 k..is disturbing, 80 k.. of what, upload or download bandwith?
It's a pretty straight forward service with pretty decent phone call quality.
If you're not going to have any super important calls via MJ it's not a bad low end solution as far as saving 30 bucks a month with vonage or a POTS line.
I've had one since they first came out $39.05 included the MJ and one year service back in december of 07. We've purchased one more since then and still really like them.
I have 3 MB up and 15MB down on our connection here at home so I don't notice anything as far as the bandwidth goes though I realize some may not have this type of speed. I've used it on DSL as well and it worked fine, though that defeats the purpose just a bit.
If the phone I connect to magicjack is a talking caller ID phone, will it work as usual?
My caller ID will announce mom, work, or phone number, when the call comes in via magicjack?
Thank you, I was curious about this part of the service.
For those who do a fare amount of 3-way calling using the service, how good is the call quality compared to skype? I'm thinking of getting it for business purposes sense it's really low-cost, and will need to do conference-calls with my customers, so any feedback anyone could give me would be really appreciated.
I actually tried one early last year but I couldn't get it to work. I got my number set up but I could never actually make a call. I mean I'd dial the number with the telephone keypad but nothing seemed to happen. Then again I use cable internet with a wireless router since I don't currently have a desktop PC. That in itself might not have been the problem. In fact I rather think it was the particular router I was using at the time, which happened to be a Belkin. Now I hear they're usually quite a good brand but this particular unit was either defective or improperly configured. I had real problems downloading, particular with lylarge iles like digital talking books. It would download a small portion of the file and then just stop. With Firefox, my chosen web browser, I could generally pause a download and resume it and it would continue downloading for a short time, but this meant that I had to constantly pause and resume a download if I wanted the full file. Unfortunately for particularly large files this often resulted sooner or later in a download error. And no this isn't off topic since it bears on the Magic Jack. Not only did this router cause major problems for downloading but it even played havoc with Windows Live Messenger, often kicking me off in the middle of a text chat. It was even worse for Skype calling, since I could talk to the person for a few seconds but sooner or later I was usually kicked off. I don't know if it was a security feature of the router or if the unit was either defective or not properly configured, but though I got a dial tone when I turned my phone on, if I punched in a number it never even rang but just sat there. Thinking about it in retrospect I seriously suspect my router was the problem. But since at the time I didn't expect to be getting a new and better router I didn't see any point in paying for a service I wasn't able to use. So I ended up returning my unit. I sometimes think of getting another one and trying it again now that I have a much better or at least more reliable router (a Linksys). I don't have the problems I had with dowloading, Windows Live or even Skype, that I had with the other one. That does give me hope that the Magic Jack would also cooperate.
Well I recently bought another Magic Jack to try with new, more reliable router I bought after my last one bit the dust on me last year in June. And after playing with it these past few weeks I've come to the conclusion that two things could have been the reason I had trouble before. First, sometimes you do actually have to hit the Dial button on the Softphone to actually place calls, even though you might make the actual call on the phone keypad itself. You don't always have to do this for somereason but when you initially get started you do seem to have to. Or if you happen to be sitting on the Dial button it seems to automatically dial after you finish keying in the number. Whatever the case I seem to have sorted out the troubles I had last March when I first demoed the Jack. As for the quality it does seem to be at least as good as Skype or a regular LAN Line. Granted I don't use it as often as I could since the reason I decided to buy it was as a backup in case my cell phone ever really dies on me, but I do still use it a reasonable amount. About the only thing I really don't like is that even if you minimize it the Magic Jack dialogue is always there when you're alt+Tabbing between applications, so it can and ofen does get in the way when you're using the computer. The fact that the computer needs to be on in order to make or receive calls doesn't bother me much if at all, mainly because my laptop is on most of the time throughout the day. But now that I've actually been able to use it I'd say the Magic Jack is definitely worth having whether for personal or business use. Just be warned that if you live in a small town you may not be able to get a truly local number. Twin Falls wasn't even listed in the list of options when I signed up for Magic Jack.
Actually, if you go to the menu option in magic jack, there is a button there that says run from tray. Do this and while MJ will open when you call a number, you can press escape to send it back to the tray.
k, so got my magicjack to day, got it all hooked up but jaws is not reading it, i'm using jaws 12 pro on a windows xp pro sp3, any ideas? did do updates from microsoft updates found 1 but jaws is still unable to read it, i did try the different cursers but still nothing. thanks for any help,
Bryan
yeah my boyfriend got it too and the new magic jack is completely unaccessible.
there aren't even scripts for it and we looked all over the net. Its amazing how accessible it use to be but the change they've made to it completely wrecked it.
If anyone has found a way to make it accessible, please speak up as this appears to be a huge issue and is becoming a major drawback which is unfortunate.