Live Demo of Voice Conference Manager

Live Demo, Dr. Dobbs Article

A tutorial about Voice Conference Manager is printed in the April, 2005 edition of Dr. Dobbs Journal. It's rather extensive and explains what the demo does in great detail. The code has evolved since the Dr. Dobbs article was first written, of course, but the article is an invaluable resource.

A live demo of the system is up and running — at least, it ran the last time it was tested — on Voxeo's servers. To listen to, and particpate with the demo, follow these steps. Read the instructions all the way through — there are some privacy concerns due the limitation of alpha code.

Call (407) 418 1946 on the classic telephone network, or sip:**86919991260141@fwd.pulver.com through Voice over IP.

When asked, you can say either a pre-programmed name or a telephone number. The pre-programmed names are "Moshe Office," "Moshe Home," "Cellphone," "Gil Hamilton," and "Beowulf Schaffer." All of these are dummy names — they do not actually connect you to a live person, just to silence. You can:

Say one of these dummy entries, and then say another one. That will create a conference call you're not participating in, but you can monitor it from the web page (below).
Say a dummy name, when prompted speak another telephone number you can answer (not the one you're calling from!). You will be in conference with a silent number, so you'll hear the system call you and put you into the conference. When finished, hang up.
You can also say two real telephone numbers to get a real conference call between yourself and someone else. I recommend that you test the system first, of course. Work your way through the list of methods to get a feel for how the system works.

Once you've finished speaking all the names, you say "Finished." The system will thank you and disconnect. At the same time, it will start connecting to the numbers you spoke. (That's why you need to use two numbers — one to speak to the system, and the other for the system to call you. That's a deliberate feature, by the way; the goal is to show third-party call control.)

If you want to monitor the call on a live web page, go here. Because this is very much alpha software, whoever logs in last is the one who sees all the subsequent call activity -- all previous viewers are silently kicked off. This means there is NO PRIVACY about any number you speak into this demo. Because there is no security, it may appear to stop working when what really happened is someone else logged in and started grabbing the information. Security is the next issue on my agenda.

Please enjoy this demo responsibly. It's hosted courtesy of my Voxeo developer account, and if traffic is too heavy I will have to take it down.