Caller ID and Name sent to Growl (obicallerid)

[shawn_]

I've written an app that sends caller ID and Name information from your Obi device to Growl for popup notifications on your computer. It imports your contacts from Outlook 2011 and Address Book on Mac only, but looks up unknown numbers from opencnam on any platform. It's written in node js and only has only been tested on Mac and Windows. Try it out and let me know what you think!

https://npmjs.org/package/obicallerid
https://github.com/shawnbissell/obicallerid

[QBZappy]

shawn_,

Oh boy what a treat. Christmas has come early this year.

Just wish there was a windows version so that I could use it.

[shawn_]

Just wish there was a windows version so that I could use it.

Ugg ... I totally knew that was going to be the first request Technically the app should work on Windows with Growl for Windows (http://www.growlforwindows.com/ and http://www.growlforwindows.com/gfw/help/growlnotify.aspx) minus the Outlook 2011 and Address Book imports. The opencam lookups should still work fine. Although the code may completely crap out on the "applescript" dependency. Try it out and let me know.

[shawn_]

Version 0.1.2 is up with Windows support! I tested it out and the imports error on startup, but the opencnam lookups work as expected. You'll need to ensure growlnotify is in your global PATH or is installed to \Windows\system32.

[QBZappy]

shawn_,

Sorry to ask. There is no binary to execute on Windows. Can you please explain how to make it run.

[shawn_]

No problem. I guess if you've never used Node JS before the instructions are confusing. Basically you have to install the Node JS Runtime (its like Java or .NET). http://nodejs.org/
Then you can open a command prompt (as administrator, if you are not already logged in as admin) and install obicallerid using the node package manager (npm)

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npm install -g obicallerid

Then to run the app simply run

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obicallerid

I'll update the Readme with these instructions for windows later today.

[QBZappy]

shawn_,

It works! We can get both caller name and number, (including city/province) with this app. In combination with Growl for windows it provides a very elegant solution for CID lookup, including the ability to send this info over the lan/wan network. Cooool!

The path variable or putting growlnotify in the C:\WINDOWS\system32 is important otherwise it doesn't work.

I can only get it to work with the cmd box open. I suppose the next question would be, is it possible to run this as a service or without the cmd box visible?

BTW, I wasn't expecting how the app would be installed. Installing obicallerid using the node package manager (npm) was similar to installing an app in linux.

[prof_tan2004]

Hi Shawn,

Is there a way to have this work without installing Node.js or other 3rd party software (Other than Growl)...  What does Node.js do - and is there away to go around it?

[shawn_]

Is there a way to have this work without installing Node.js

Unfortunately not. Node JS is a framework/runtime much like .NET or JAVA. That's what I chose to write it in ... mostly because there where already modules for growl and opencam which made the integration very easy. I'm working on getting it to install as a windows service and mac launchd (so you dont have to run it from the prompt), but its not as easy as I thought it would be.

[shawn_]

Version 0.1.5 released
Minor update to prevent crash on Windows XP on startup.

[shawn_]

Version 0.1.12 updated to work with opencnam v2 api which allows opencnam hobbyists lookups (ie cached lookups only) to work again.
Just out of curiosity would anybody want to have support for a "professional" opencnam account in obicallerid?
It cost money but not much ...
https://www.opencnam.com/pricing